Sydney 2

My mother, brother Ben and I have a running joke about who calls first on each other’s birthdays. Well when we woke up at 6 it was already Ben’s birthday here, so I was WAY first with my whatsapp message. It meant starting the day with a feeling of accomplishment. In chatting with Ben I also realize that I haven’t discussed the swirling of the water. The toilets which I’ve encountered here flush rather aggressively with a two jets of water, one from the back and one from the front, so no swirling takes place, and our sink drains too quickly to notice. So I don’t have anything to report, and also I realize that I have no idea which way things swirl at home. If you would like you can leave a comment about swirl directions.

Anyway, I started out the morning with a quick mat pilates workout, and then we went out to Starbuks for a yogurt parfait – I know, I know, but sometimes reliable brands are the way to go. We planned a walk through the botanic gardens to the Australia museum and in fact that’s what we did, but when we got there we realized the timing would be tight if we went in, so we made out way back through the city until we got to the Quay, then took a detour through the gardens back to the Opera House. I was glad we did because we found the bottle tree! It was a good walk and we were ready for some down time in the hotel.

At 10:50 Dave said “we have to go now!” as both of us had really been enjoying doing nothing (blogging and studying pilates, for me). We went down to the lobby where our tour leader Dave was waiting to send everybody back to the 3^rd floor where busses are allowed – Sydney is quite hilly, as we’d noticed on our walk this morning, so both the 1^st and 3^rd floor are at ground level on opposite sides of the building. There are about 40 of us doing the pre-cruise tour and another 100 of our group joining us for the eclipse cruise. Most of the people in the group, maybe all except one, are Americans, and most are Astro-nerds or spouses thereof. We took a 5 minute bus ride across to Darling harbor where we had a few minutes to walk around before our ship came in.  Once on the boat we sat down for our lunch, and did the usual where are you from introductions. There were 7 at our table, and I was seated next to the one non-American in the group – Greg Bryant, a Sydney native and the former editor of Sky & Telescope (aka Sky & Tel), Australia edition. He was full of interesting info about the area and a good table mate. Also seated at our table across from Dave was space radio reporter Greg Redfern, who knows many more important people than you do and has done and seen many more interesting things than you have. Dave says that people in special interest groups are often like that, and I need to not let it bother me. So I’ll be working on that for the next two weeks. The food was good (the dessert was delicious) and the cruise around Sydney Harbor was enjoyable. It clouded over for pretty much the whole time we were on the boat, but since we were inside it didn’t matter. Sydney is HUGE and very beautiful.

We bussed back to the hotel and had a couple of hours free (more blogging, more pilates studying) before the cocktail hour from 5-6. Honestly I was dreading it a little, because so far I hadn’t really met anybody I wanted to chat with. We got to the hotel bar where the gathering was and got ourselves some snacks and sat down at a high top table. More people came in and eventually there was a couple standing next to our table and since seating was tight we suggested they join us and they turned out to be terrific – Mike and Judy from Albany, NY, currently living in Albuquerque. He’s an avid amateur astronomer and eclipse chaser, and she loves to read and enjoys astronomy trips. We got along very well and look forward to more hanging out in the future – whew.

It's an early call tomorrow, and also we’re taking a small prop plane (a de Haviland dash 8) to Tamworth, so the weight limit on suitcases is less than US domestic flights. So they gave us all shopping bags and we’ll leave our fancy cruisewear here. It’s also an early flight, so we will be up and out by 6:30. Fortunately the hotel is opening the breakfast buffet at 6 so we won’t starve.

Update: I took a lovely long soak in the perfectly proportioned tub, and the water drained clockwise. So now you know.