Day 349 Friday February 15th
Sydney, AUSTRALIA
Raylands Hotel became the proud dumping ground for our pillows, towels, plastic plates and bowls, books and magazines we couldn't carry on the flight with us. Our packs became a few kilo's heavier as we strapped our tent and found a gap to stuff the blow up mattress into.
We also loaded up our few utensils we didn't want to part with. We bundled up all the brochures and maps, and Holiday Park instructions and other travel paraphernalia that we'd normally post home..and dumped it. We weren't sorry to say goodbye to all this excess, there's nothing like a lighter pack.
But they were not light. At the airport we got 'very heavy, bend knees' stickers slapped on our packs! Greg's weighed 26 kgs! Mine was 22kgs! We could barely strap them on our backs! A bit different from the 12 or so kilos that we left with!
What was really weird, was exchanging our money for Australian dollars. I got quite emotional to see the $20 note!!! It looked SO orange!!!! Oh gosh, we were really going to be stepping on home soil after a year away.
As we boarded the plane, we picked up The Age newspaper to read on the plane. We were so used to seeing papers in Spanish, Portuguese or Italian etc that it was a bit of a treat to have an English Paper!!! Small things make a person happy!
Kevin Rudd's speech was on the front page. Was good finding out more about how it all happened. Mixed views. It'll be strange going back to a new Prime minister in Aus. New ideals. New ideas. The newspapers were calling Valentine's day, "sorry day' which seemed fitting! (Not that we celebrate Valentines Day at all!)
The pilot was Australian. His messages over the load speaker was really "Straian"! The couple behind us commented on the accent. We felt we were experiencing it all for the first time. Doesn't take long away to lose touch with these things!
As we approached Sydney we had the strangest of feelings. We felt like we were "HOME"! Now that's the first time Sydney hasn't been the city 'on the other side'. For the first time, Sydney felt like home! Strange. They place, "We still call Australia Home' on the speakers. Very welcoming..and i felt teary!
A year seems so long. Yet so short. Depending how you look at it. I honestly feel like it was only yesterday we stepped on the plane at Perth Airport to go to the first stopover, on our round-the-world trip, Hong Kong.
We were seeing Sydney with Tourist Eyes. As we entered the terminal we noticed the brochures catered to Japanese and Chinese. There were no English "Welcome to Sydney brochures' in the perspex containers at the gate entrance. What happens if a US,
British, or an English reading NZ, European arrives? Don't they get a welcome brochure? We felt alienated.
Then when we saw the queues for Australians and New Zealanders to enter Customs we noticed there was an abundance of Chinese and Japanese also lining up. When i questioned the Customs guy about this, he said, "ah, they don't know how to read English' so we let them through on these lines.
I assertively altered him to the fact that there were 9 "Other visitor" lines available for non Australian residents and New Zealanders and less lines for Aus and NZ. He said they'd been doing this for years!
I was miffed. So was the guy in front of me. When he tried to tell the non Aus visitors to go to the other line because this line was for us, they said, 'We're a group'......we stay here. You go in front! Can't speak or read English! MY FOOT!
What I found annoying was..in any other country we've been in, we've been told to go to the "Alien or Other or non resident' line, which was always long and arduous to have to wait.
And here, in our own country, we had to do the same. And all because our Customs Officials, don't follow the rules. What does this day to visitors? That you can break the rules in our country? That it's OK to push in, in queues?
My whinges were short lived. Frustration turned to excitement. We got through customs, with our Vegemite, Chile biscuits, tea and ground pepper, garlic salt and Tabasco sauce and heard other people grumbling about the same thing, felt good that at least i said something to express my disappointment and then
we headed out to collect our luggage.
After arranging our transport we arrived at our Manly Villa! Oh yeah, something we didn't know. Sydney has TOLL roads and bridges!
And it's gorgeous!! We honestly thought it'd be a horrible place because it was so cheap and we booked it through Hostel Bookers. Not that Hostel Bookers don't have great accommodation. More that they focus on budget travelers and most of the
accommodation is for overseas travellers with little money, looking for dormitory style arrangements.
We are one block from the beach! From the back yard you can SEE Manly Beach!! It's GORGEOUS! It's $80 a night and we have our own fridge, microwave, kettle and toaster. Perfect for a five day stay. To think we were thinking we'd just pack up after
a couple of days and go camping or something because we thought it wouldn't be a great place! It's a nice surprise!
We ate dinner downtown Manly...and it was abuzz. People enjoying the evening. Such a gorgeous evening too! We 'Called Home' and were in such a spirited mood. Nothing could dampen it.
Here we are! HOME. Well. Almost!
We will soon meet my friend Silvia and her husband. Silvia has been an email friend (pen pal?) for TEN years. And in all that time we haven't met face to face. Imagine that. They came down from Queensland to meet us. I know we'll have SO much to catch
up on. We are chat friends after all. We know how to CHAT! ha!
And we're going to our Toastmaster friend Zac and his wife Verena's to see them and their new bundle of love, Olivia.
We're here for five days.....and our plan was to relax.
But we've already decided we might just "pop" over to Canberra....I've never been there before. Who knows...we might see our our new PM in parliament.
It seems we can't stay still anymore! We seem to just keep plotting and planning! Maybe we need to reconsider our outlooks..and realise we're now home. And we CAN finally relax!
We must reevaluate our thought processes!
