(no subject)
november 28/29
oookay. this is going to be interesting to try to remember everything, since right now i'm on my second shot at november 29 -- go international date line! anyway. okay. here goes.
nov 28 started with meeting up with kate fairly early in the morning to go wander around the botanical gardens. she lived in sydney for 6 months on exchange a few years ago so she's pretty familiar with the city and with what's good. when we walked out of the hotel i realized i was seriously overdressed; turns out the high for the day was something like 35C and i was wearing four layers of shirts. oops. so anyway, stripped down to the last tank top which later turned out to be a bad idea as i came out of everything with a sunburn, but what can you do. anyway, we walked by the conservatory which looks like a castle out of a storybook, but stylized to look like the way one would draw one's image of 'a castle' as opposed to actually looking like a castle (this hopefully makes sense at least to those who have read 'drawing on the right side of the brain').
anyway, botanical gardens were gorgeous, lots of cool plants and lots of HUUUUUUGE bats!!! crazy!! apparently they poop on things, but they have to fly around to poop because they hang upside down. these things seriously looked like something out of a dracula movie. i've never seen a bat so huge.
met up with kate's friends tom and anneke, who had a car and thus drove us around to cooler places that require wheels as opposed to feet to get to. went to a place called south point (i think?), where we got an awesome view of the sea from high up. seems like everything is made of sandstone there, i'm wondering if someday australia, or at least sydney, will just erode away. after that we went to see the infamous bondi beach (really, we just saw it and then continued on) and then moved on to bronte beach and the cafe with the slowest service in the world. no, really. anyway, sat on the beach for a while, got a bit of a sunburn, then had to head back to the hotel to get ready for the concert.
sooooo the last concert was in the sydney opera house. very cool. the acoustic wasn't as amazing as the outside of the building would suggest, but it wasn't awful either -- still a decent hall. huge, too, 3000 seats, and i think pretty much sold out. whoever was in charge of the advertising for this tour did their job incredibly well. concert went well, mandolin solo went the best it did for the entire tour so that was satisfying. had to say goodbye to the mandolin, which was sad... despite all my complaining about it in the last month i've actually grown quite attached to its hokey unavoidable out-of-tuneness. sigh.
post concert we had a reception at this restaurant, aria, which was kind of a little lacking both in the food department and in the chairs department. basically they reserved a room for us and had little munchies, but neglected to provide any meal-type thing, which made the free alcohol hit all that much harder; there was also not a single chair in the whole place. argh. the whole orchestra still stayed until about 2:30am so i guess it worked out anyway. had tea/hot chocolate in my room after with kate and jenny, then finally sleep.
this morning, the 29, seems forever ago, mainly because it kind of was. didn't do much except pack up my junk and get on the bus. got to the airport, where everything was supposed to be peachy keen -- luggage was supposed to be put through directly to TO, no problem right. except that united airlines and the travel guy are both retarded and couldn't figure out how to tag my bag for my second flight. in the end i had to re-checkin in LA for my second flight, hauling along all of my crap with me. ugh.
flight was long and boring. i would estimate that probably for 70% of the flight time, the fasten seatbelt sign was on, and so we weren't supposed to be out of our seats, despite the fact that there was hardly a bump and we hadn't moved for like 8h. you can't make people stay in their seats for a 13 hour flight, people!!! arrrgh. would have been okay had the flight attendants not been incredibly rude. i think i can safely say that united airlines will not be one i will fly of my own volition anytime in the near future.
anyway, am now sitting in the LA airport after doing my re-checkin... customs and immigration in the US were surprisingly painless, my bag showed up easily enough, and thankfully the terminals here are close enough that you can walk between them (unlike in TO). eventually found the air canada counter, and i guess i was checking in at a weird time (way early for my flight, late for the previous one) because there was hardly anyone else there. sweet. turns out that the flight number that the travel guy had given me is actually not really the flight number any more, as the airline changed the time at which the flight runs and the number, too. jerk. nothing too exciting happening now, no free wireless which is unfortunate. should get some lunch since the plane food was nasty and is likely to continue being so. i still feel like i'm physically bobbing around even though i'm sitting still... go long flights. wheeeee. am really, really looking forward to getting home. i guess on the bright side, at least the last month of flying insanity has prepared me for this final ridiculous day of travel coming home.
oh, and as an interesting side note, i arrived in LA 3 hours before i left sydney. cool, eh. gotta love the international date line. for anyone who's ever wished to have 36 hours in your day... trust me, it's not all that you think it's going to be! my body is so confused!
time in transit: 7h by the time i leave LA, dunno how much in TO.
flight time: 12h 40min from sydney to LA
oookay. this is going to be interesting to try to remember everything, since right now i'm on my second shot at november 29 -- go international date line! anyway. okay. here goes.
nov 28 started with meeting up with kate fairly early in the morning to go wander around the botanical gardens. she lived in sydney for 6 months on exchange a few years ago so she's pretty familiar with the city and with what's good. when we walked out of the hotel i realized i was seriously overdressed; turns out the high for the day was something like 35C and i was wearing four layers of shirts. oops. so anyway, stripped down to the last tank top which later turned out to be a bad idea as i came out of everything with a sunburn, but what can you do. anyway, we walked by the conservatory which looks like a castle out of a storybook, but stylized to look like the way one would draw one's image of 'a castle' as opposed to actually looking like a castle (this hopefully makes sense at least to those who have read 'drawing on the right side of the brain').
anyway, botanical gardens were gorgeous, lots of cool plants and lots of HUUUUUUGE bats!!! crazy!! apparently they poop on things, but they have to fly around to poop because they hang upside down. these things seriously looked like something out of a dracula movie. i've never seen a bat so huge.
met up with kate's friends tom and anneke, who had a car and thus drove us around to cooler places that require wheels as opposed to feet to get to. went to a place called south point (i think?), where we got an awesome view of the sea from high up. seems like everything is made of sandstone there, i'm wondering if someday australia, or at least sydney, will just erode away. after that we went to see the infamous bondi beach (really, we just saw it and then continued on) and then moved on to bronte beach and the cafe with the slowest service in the world. no, really. anyway, sat on the beach for a while, got a bit of a sunburn, then had to head back to the hotel to get ready for the concert.
sooooo the last concert was in the sydney opera house. very cool. the acoustic wasn't as amazing as the outside of the building would suggest, but it wasn't awful either -- still a decent hall. huge, too, 3000 seats, and i think pretty much sold out. whoever was in charge of the advertising for this tour did their job incredibly well. concert went well, mandolin solo went the best it did for the entire tour so that was satisfying. had to say goodbye to the mandolin, which was sad... despite all my complaining about it in the last month i've actually grown quite attached to its hokey unavoidable out-of-tuneness. sigh.
post concert we had a reception at this restaurant, aria, which was kind of a little lacking both in the food department and in the chairs department. basically they reserved a room for us and had little munchies, but neglected to provide any meal-type thing, which made the free alcohol hit all that much harder; there was also not a single chair in the whole place. argh. the whole orchestra still stayed until about 2:30am so i guess it worked out anyway. had tea/hot chocolate in my room after with kate and jenny, then finally sleep.
this morning, the 29, seems forever ago, mainly because it kind of was. didn't do much except pack up my junk and get on the bus. got to the airport, where everything was supposed to be peachy keen -- luggage was supposed to be put through directly to TO, no problem right. except that united airlines and the travel guy are both retarded and couldn't figure out how to tag my bag for my second flight. in the end i had to re-checkin in LA for my second flight, hauling along all of my crap with me. ugh.
flight was long and boring. i would estimate that probably for 70% of the flight time, the fasten seatbelt sign was on, and so we weren't supposed to be out of our seats, despite the fact that there was hardly a bump and we hadn't moved for like 8h. you can't make people stay in their seats for a 13 hour flight, people!!! arrrgh. would have been okay had the flight attendants not been incredibly rude. i think i can safely say that united airlines will not be one i will fly of my own volition anytime in the near future.
anyway, am now sitting in the LA airport after doing my re-checkin... customs and immigration in the US were surprisingly painless, my bag showed up easily enough, and thankfully the terminals here are close enough that you can walk between them (unlike in TO). eventually found the air canada counter, and i guess i was checking in at a weird time (way early for my flight, late for the previous one) because there was hardly anyone else there. sweet. turns out that the flight number that the travel guy had given me is actually not really the flight number any more, as the airline changed the time at which the flight runs and the number, too. jerk. nothing too exciting happening now, no free wireless which is unfortunate. should get some lunch since the plane food was nasty and is likely to continue being so. i still feel like i'm physically bobbing around even though i'm sitting still... go long flights. wheeeee. am really, really looking forward to getting home. i guess on the bright side, at least the last month of flying insanity has prepared me for this final ridiculous day of travel coming home.
oh, and as an interesting side note, i arrived in LA 3 hours before i left sydney. cool, eh. gotta love the international date line. for anyone who's ever wished to have 36 hours in your day... trust me, it's not all that you think it's going to be! my body is so confused!
time in transit: 7h by the time i leave LA, dunno how much in TO.
flight time: 12h 40min from sydney to LA