OZ at last!
I know most of you think it’s impossible to have your luggage disappear after a non-stop flight but I am the exception and it has happened to me before …on more than one occasion. I have the worst luggage karma ever although I have to admit it hasn’t been so bad in the last 3 months. When my bags arrived in Sydney at the same time I did, I was ecstatic. My friend, Anthony, picked me up at the airport so I wouldn’t have to get a taxi. Customs and immigration let me into the country without hassle. They even let me bring in granola bars and chocolate! (They’re notorious for not even letting you bring pocket lint into the country.) This was going to be a great day.
I walked out into the scorching sunshine and 30º C heat. Anthony was just telling me how he had had a bad morning. That he’d gotten up at 5am to fetch me at 7am and when he paid his $3 AUD to cross the bridge from North Sydney that the machine said he still owed 20¢ and a long line of cars was piling up behind him getting more and more aggravated with their lack of progress. He was trying to get the toll booth attendant’s help who just kept yelling “pay the money” which Anthony had already done. Turns out the machine doesn’t take 5¢ coins. But the toll booth attendant wouldn’t pay him any mind until he practically went schitzo on him screaming like a completely mad person and feeling pretty embarrassed by it after the fact. Since he had no more coins and they don’t take notes, he had to pay over the phone with his credit card and pay the $3 again as well as a $5 fine. That bridge crossing cost him $11 total. Then he was nervous that he would be late to get me only to discover as he ran full speed from the parking lot into the arrivals’ terminal that I was 2 and a half hours late. I feel pretty bad about that. He says it just isn’t his day.
Once we finished our joyful reunion and I got raped by the airport money changers (I gave them $1300 USD and received $1345 AUD WHAT THE FUCK?!) we went to the parking pay machines. He paid and we started a long scenic tour of the airport construction before I realized it was because he couldn’t find the lot in which he parked. Then once he found it, he couldn’t find his car. Once he finally found his car, he couldn’t find the lot exit and we drove round and round accidentally landing in valet and having to drive the wrong way down one-way passages. It was quite eventful. We escaped with our lives (barely) and headed into Sydney where we dropped my stuff off in Paddington and went up to North Sydney as he was now a few hours late for work. Oops!
Then it was my turn to have “one of those days.”
I sat down at the first café I found and before the pain wore off from paying $7 for a tiny so-called “large” coffee and a piece of banana bread, I lifted my overpriced coffee to my lips only to discover that the lid didn’t fit the cup and I now had $4 of hot coffee all over my lap. “This isn’t so bad,” I thought optimistically. “I only brought 3 pairs of pants total for 3 weeks and now a pair is dirty but at least I can wash them back at the apartment I’m renting. …Oh wait… the washing machine is freaking broken and not to be repaired for a few days. Great.”
Anthony and I met for lunch before I hopped on a train and bus back to Paddington with my painfully swollen injured leg. As I waited for the train, I noticed half the curry from my lunch was on my shirt. No wonder the chicken seemed dry.
When I got to the apartment, I was excited to sit and catch up on email and contact friends in Sydney to make dinner plans since the Aussie Vodaphone SIM card couldn’t yet be registered and I couldn’t make any calls. I’d been trying since 11:45am and it was already 3pm. When I tried to get online I wasn’t getting a signal. I searched high and low for a wireless box or a LAN line. No such luck. I called the landlady wondering why the advert said internet access available when that in fact is just not true. She explained that they have a phone line and if I have a dial-up service to which I could connect that I’d be in business. Too bad Mac’s stopped putting phone modem ports in their laptops! There is a USB version but the Mac Store at the Glendale Galleria was sold out of them when I was there in the madness of Friday’s new operating system release. GREAT.
I had no phone, no internet and was quickly running out of clean clothes. I changed out of my curry shirt and coffee pants and headed down the street to Paddington’s “Five Ways” where I was told there is a grocer. I walked in and was instantly bombarded by very loud Kylie Minogue blasting from the PA system.
Usually, my first trip to the supermarket in a new country is fun and exciting. I walk around and giggle at some of the weird things they sell as well as stand in confusion trying to decipher what some of the products are. But as this was an English speaking country, the supermarket experience wasn’t as fun as usual since it was not quite as mysterious as say a Russian supermarket.
As if I wasn’t bummed enough at the lack of excitement, I then noticed THEY DO NOT SELL BEER IN THE GROCERY STORE!!! For as much as Aussies drink, I found this to be absolutely astonishing. When I got to the check-out, I was increasingly irritated. I wasn’t excited about anything in my basket and when the total was $50 for a coke, a yogurt, an apple, a bag of ravioli, butter and a can of sauce, I was even less than excited. Now everything was just plain pissing me off. The music had switched to bad techno. At least when it was Kylie Minogue I could understand as she is probably the most famous Australian artist these days. And no alcohol at the supermarket?! That’s just inhumane. And we all know I’ve never met an Aussie I didn’t like. I love their funny little accents and their strange words and lilting way of speaking. At this point every single words from any fellow shopper’s mouth caused involuntary cringing to ripple through my tired and swollen body. I just wanted to scream.
The clerk at the register must have thought I was nuts. First, he saw me glaring at the couple in line in front of me. The man was holding their place and the woman was running in and out of the 4 aisles of the store coming back with armfuls of stuff as if they were in some sort of supermarket challenge game show.
Second, he saw me sweating while I was waiting for my credit card to be approved. (It’s always a crap shoot when you’re in a new country – even when you call ahead and warn the bank.)
Thirdly, I asked for $5 in change. Then I asked for a payphone and directions to said payphone. NOTE TO SELF, NEVER ASK AN AUSSIE FOR DIRECTIONS. They always seem to say it’s next door/round the corner/just up the bend when it’s really 4 blocks up the road/in the next neighborhood/at the top of a steep mountain. Not only that, BUT THEY MUMBLE. You can barely understand a word they say and then they think you’re just plain deaf and start screaming at you. It doesn’t matter how loud they’re screaming, they still mumble. Eastern sounds exactly like Easton so good luck. You just have to resign your self to walking vaguely in the same direction as the first point of their finger and then follow your instincts and hope for the best.
Lastly, without a tone of desperation in my voice or anything, I asked where I could buy some freaking booze. He blinked and told me I could find a bottle shop next door. I assumed a bottle shop was a place to find liquor and went on my way. Next door was a lotto shop, then a baker, then a food joint, so on and so on. I finally found a “Cellar Stop” and the next intersection and decided it was worth a try. Success!! (I guess.) Cheapest bottle of wine was $15 and a cheap bottle of rum cost $37.
I also found a payphone up by the chemist’s shop but the phone didn’t work. So I headed home with my wine and rum and dinner and accepted I’d be spending the night alone.
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