We decided to catch up over coffee and tea while we waited for our room to open up. I told him about my time in Brazil and New Zealand, and he entertained me with other tales from Chile and the 3 weeks he'd spent in Oz before I arrived. He'd also already lived in Sydney for a year back in the early aught's, so he made an excellent tour guide-- a fact confirmed as we took a walk through the Domain, filled as it was with bizarre local birds...
... and the flying foxes that had recently infested the area.
These ginger-haired bats had only shown up in Sydney a few months before we arrived, and the local government couldn't figure out what to do about them destroying the plant life. Aussie law only allows forceful removal of animals whose migration was caused by humans. Shame about the plants, but I admit to being highly entertained by the antics
At check-in time. we returned to the hostel, got settled into our room, lamented the lower quality of Australian and New Zealand hostels compared to those in South America (despite higher prices), and headed right back out into the city. Our first stop: Sydney Harbor and the Opera House.
We went inside to check the performance schedule and were dismayed to find that we had only just missed both Bon Iver and Eryka Badu. Back outside, we loped around the building, examining the "sails" up close.
The complex truly is every bit as impressive a feat of architecture as I'd heard. Gorgeous and surprising from every angle, fluid and functional and complimentary to the landscape, it exemplifies the very best of that art form. Not only do the concert halls look like the sails of a ship from the outside, but when looking up at them from inside and beneath, they look like the hulls of ship themselves. Remarkable.
We ventured down to the Opera Bar at the water's edge just below the House itself and toasted our reunion as the sun set.
Afterward, we ambled along the water's edge for a better view of the Memorial Bridge and continued on to Darling Harbor, where we had some sushi followed by ice cream and drinks.
By the time we returned to the hostel, we had walked several miles and were properly tuckered out as a result.
The next day, we awoke to overcast skies and the imminent threat of rain. So we chose to make the best of the weather and check out the pool at one of Sydney's ubiquitous aquatic centers. James did some laps while I swanned around in the open pool and used the gigantic jacuzzi to stretch out. Then we checked out the duly impressive Art Gallery of New South Wales inside the domain. After that we took a walk down along yet another inlet along Sydney Harbor with yet another fabulous view of the Opera House and Bridge.
That night, as we walked back through the domain, the flying foxes we'd seen the previous day flew between the trees, ducking a bit too low to the ground for my tastes. I would have no problem with touching one, if not for the risk of having it touch my hair and the consequent need to shave one's head. (Such a necessity is a myth, by the way.) James might have been able to pull off the bald look, but I didn't think it would work on me.
As we headed back toward the hostel, moonlight broke through the cloud cover and the orb itself hung picturesquely above St. Mary's Cathedral.
Eager to practice (and show off) my newfound cooking skills, I made us a fish curry that I was pleased, although not overwhelmed, by. For dessert, James introduced me to the dangerously delicious (and, of course, appallingly fatty) favorite cookie of Oz: the Tim-Tam.
Our prayers for fine weather were answered on Thursday, so we bussed it out to James's beloved Bondi Beach, which might as well be called "Body Beach" for all the well-toned figures strutting about.
We spent a few hours laying out, watching the local surfers, going for swims, and having lunch on a knoll above the beach. After the midday sun had abated, we set off toward Coogee Beach, several miles to the south, walking the trail that runs along the coastline.
We passed beach after beach-- one actually nicknamed "Glamour-ama" for it's usual bevy of pose-striking beach bunnies-- and looked over half a dozen cliffside, ocean-water pools as we went.
Between the beaches, we crept along the tops of jagged promontories, battered repeatedly by great waves. James said that in all the time he had spent there, he'd never seen breaks so high or powerful.
When we reached Coogee at last, we clambered onto a bus back into the CBD. Back in the hostel kitchen, I again competed with about five other cooks for use of the stove, as well as an annoyingly agressive member of staff on kitchen duty, who would sigh with irritation as he tried to clean up and take away bits of crockery that I was still using. I prevailed, however, and managed to make us a baked ziti that turned out quite well.
The next morning I awoke just as James returned to the room after fetching his early-morning coffee. He stood over the bed looking down at me and said, "There's a ridiculously drunk 18 year-old Frenchman on the roof and shit in the stairwell." This was typical of our hostel at 7am. I'd known that average age of travelers in Australia ran younger than it had in South America (and even New Zealand), being the gap-year destination that it is, and that far more of them would be native English speakers. And I'd done more than my fair share of partying on my trip so far, so I had no room to judge. But somehow, I hadn't anticipated how different the travelers would be; how much less adventurous in general and yet so much more boastful of their travels in a country that doesn't even present the challenge of an unfamiliar language! I'd also underestimated how much older I would feel amongst so many recent high school graduates, how irritated I would get with them-- particularly when they were inebriated, and how skeevy the whole situation would feel set amongst the glorious backdrop of King's Cross, the decidedly low-rent neighborhood in which our hostel sat.
Let's put it this way, the faces of the slavishly regular patrons of the open-fronted, open-all-day bar beside the hostel became so familiar that I nicknamed one of them Yellow Beard, for the gangrenous pallor of his skin and stained facial hair. Most mornings when James went for his coffee, he had to step over a pile of junkies passed out on our stoop. Once, at three in the afternoon, we had to step over a girl who couldn't have been more than eighteen and might even have been pretty were her face not sallow, were her mouth not wide open and dripping with drool, and were she not wearing red fishnet stockings, glass platform shoes, with a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniel's tucked under her arm.
Little wonder that we left the area as soon as possible each morning. On Saturday, we were bound for the purportedly best of Sydney's many municipal beaches: Manly. We'd walked to the ferry dock and nearly missed the boat, but we ran for it. My usual clumsiness reared its head, and I dropped the contents of my purse all over the pier while James waited for me on board. For a moment, I thought he would be arriving at Manly an hour before me, but I jumped on just in time.
The journey to Manly made for the most impressive part of the day, providing fantastic views of the city.
We spent another lazy day beachside, periodically napping and munching on the lunch James had packed for us. I parked mysel beneath a large rented umbrella, while James tanned his unjustly-tan British hide.
A regatta had begun just as we boarded the ferry back to the Harbor and a whole host of boats raced to get across our path, several cutting it perilously close.
That evening, we tried out another sushi joint recommended by one of James's Aussie friend and watched Platoon in our room. Australia had proven even more expensive than we'd imagined, and their currency was on the upswing, so we had spent most of our evenings in, save a drink or two at a bar each night. So yeah, our evenings were tame, but we mixed it up by constantly locking one another out of the room. Woo!
On Sunday, we went out for some more sight-seeing in another section of the massive central park.
This time, we absorbed some Aussie history, courtesy of our very knowledgable and strangely aggressively-patriotic-despite-being-Canadian guide at the Government House.
The tour was actually quite interesting and very informative. I hadn't realized how little I'd known about Australia beforehand.
I can't remember for the life of me what we did the rest of that day, but I know that I cooked us salmon over salad for dinner, and James had to put his back in the pan because I learned the hard way that really fat salmon steaks take a long-ass time to finish. We spent that night in our usual laidback fashion and the following day back at Bondi with an expat buddy of James's from back in London. We ate sushi one more time and made plans to celebrate my birthday the next day-- one day early since James would be flying out on the day itself.
So on the twelfth, we began the day at Sydney's iconic fish market and sampled the fare for lunch.
Afterward, we returned to the hostel and got all spiffy, since James was taking me to the rotating bar atop the Sydney Tower for birthday drinks.
We drank deliciously complicated cocktails, watching the city pass around us slowly as the sun set.
Later that night, after changing into decidedly more casual attire, we met up with his buddy again for dinner at his favorite neighborhood bar, where James and I both ordered a delicious gnocchi with duck ragu. The night ended as all of the best birthday celebrations do: with ice cream. A nearby creamery called Messina actually served gelato every bit as good as it is in Italy. And I do not say such a thing lightly. I indulged in two scoops of the most second best cone of pistachio I have ever eaten-- the best available only at a tiny storefront three blocks from the Vatican.
Sadly, our gastronomical bliss was short-lived. We both awoke the next day-- my actual birthday-- with mild bouts of food poisoning. We attempted to walk it off, visiting a war memorial in the park and drinking ultra-healthy smoothies in one of Sydney's many swanky malls, but to no avail. I had thought that we had already had our share with illness while in South America, dealing with James's long-term stomach troubles, which I had nicknamed Peter the Parasite. Apparently not.
We returned to the hostel where I napped for two hours before waking up to bid James goodbye. He had sweetly made me dinner for later, complete with a pack of Tim-Tams, in hopes that I would be able to keep something down, and we agreed to stay in touch. I wished him luck for his flight, for Japan, and for his return to London the following week. And with that, my longest-running travel buddy and I parted ways once again.
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Location:Sydney, Australia
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