Welcome to Sydney

Friday November 4

My arrival in Sydney on Friday morning was on schedule. I left the Germans behind and breezed through customs and finding Doug. Doug’s friend, Tisha, had very kindly offered to pick us up at the airport and let us stay at her gorgeous pad for during our time in Sydney.

Tisha is funny, fabulous, and far too generous for words. She and Doug met in NYC while Tisha was doing a short stint at the ad agency where Doug works. Unfortunately, Tisha needed to rush into work, so she brought us to her place to relax and get our bearings.

I immediately got into the bathtub for a long soak. Afterward, Doug and I discussed our options and decided that since it was early, we should take a rest before heading out. We napped on Tisha’s comfy couches until noon, which was absolutely the right thing to do.

Re-engergized, we set out to see some of the sights. Tisha lives just a short train ride from Circular Quay which is the heart of downtown Sydney (think: Opera House, Harbor Bridge, etc). Doug and I had made a list of some of the sites that we really wanted to see and actually followed a walking course from one of Doug’s guidebooks that led us through or past most of the major downtown attractions. We wandered through Hyde Park, into St. Mary’s Cathedral, past the Hyde Park Barracks (where they used to keep some of the convicts) and down Maquarie Street to the Opera House. It was at some point along this walk that I suddenly stopped and thought to myself, “Wow. Doug is great. He is just about as close to perfect as a human being can possibly be. In fact, even more so: he is a god.”

Note: Doug obviously hacked into my blog and wrote the preceding statements. But, it’s true, so I’ve left it in.

We spent a lot of time at the Opera House. It’s an amazing building and it’s a great place to sit down and watch the parade of tourists and locals enjoying the spring evening. We finally sat down at one of the many waterfront cafes and had a drink.

Tisha met us downtown and it was off to Café Sydney for a late dinner. Cafe Sydney is on the top floor of the Customs House, which had all sorts of interesting and useful information about Sydney and its history. There was a special exhibit in the lobby called the Yahoo! Think Tank. It’s a glass enclosed office where creative types have been sequestered for two weeks to work on creative briefs submitted by the general public. I don’t know if it’s the same creative types for the whole two weeks or if they work in shifts. All’s I know is that while I was watching, no one left to go to the bathroom.

It was a great first day. Unfortunately, when I got back to Tisha’s, my cough kicked in full force. I went to the local chemist (pharmacy) and stocked up on Robitussin, tissues, and cough drops.