Arrive yesterday (Tuesday) morning at my hotel at 10:15 am (4:15 pm Monday in Boulder) after leaving my house at 11:00 am Sunday. I think this comes to 29 hours 15 minutes "in transit". It seemed every minute of it. Maybe more. Long flight but relatively comfortable upstairs in the 747-400. Had a Scotsman next to me who travels the world attempting to convince locals that the mining company he works for will not rape the earth. His company owns the Henderson Mine; so we had nice conversations about Molybedum. Sat next to a Caltech economics professor on the leg from DIA to LAX. We discussed, uh, universities. He teaches some classes at UCSB and didn't have nice things to say about state universities compared to Caltech or MIT. Go figure.
At about the 10th hour of darkness on the LAX to SYD 14 hour flight, I asked the flight attendant when I went to the galley to overcome my coffee withdrawal headache at 4am--10 am the day before in Boulder--how most of the passengers seemed to be able to sleep for 12 hours during the interminable night flight. She said, "pills".
One highlight (pun intended) of long night flight was looking down on Maui at (roughly) midnight and watching the Southern Cross rising to the SE. Saw the SC all night until Jupiter and Venus came up just before dawn. Other than that, after some reflection I believe the trip seemed longer than 29 h 15 m. It's 85 degrees and very summery here in Sydney. Took a very long walk to get in synch yesterday. Had a delightful dim sum lunch and dinner of sushi from a conveyor belt for dinner. Stayed up well after the sun set at 8:02 pm and got up this morning (Wedesday) at 6:15 am. Will probably think of more ambitious things to do today and Thursday. Perhaps buy a "day tripper" ferry and train pass and have a meat pie at a funky beach resort. There's a "powerplant museum" near my wonderfully located hotel. Hey, do I know how to have a goodtime, or what! The hotel is on Darling Harbo(u)r, a wonderful area of seafood and other restaurants, cheap good Aussie beer (Cooper's pale ale is very nice), and varius other musea. My friends Heinz and Ellen arrive today. I'll probably have a Cooper's PA with them tonight. Heinz is 84 yrs old and probably traveled all this way from Ithaca just because I'm on this cruise. He'll be impressed I sat next to an economics professor. I won't tell him that the Caltech guy never heard of him.
Ship sails from Wharf about 3 blocks from my hotel on Friday, 1 Feb.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment