The night was overly freezing. Even with two sweatshirts I had
the engine running twice - for good reasons: when I got up the car was covered with a nice
layer of ice. It was 7C in Sydney, and here up in the mountains it was nicely freezing.
Rush hour hit me with its full beauty as I entered Sydney around 9. The morning program on the radio was full of news about a newly developed orgasm pill for women - the discussion was to the topic whether men are obsolete now. Cloning sheep just became possible, too, so why not clone women? Once in the city, I first cruised around and looked at what was offered, then I parked and walked around all of downtown, successfully burning three rolls of film using the 17mm ultrawide more often than not. If you thought that SF or even Zurich had expensive parking, think again and visit Sydney. Admittedly, at least you will find parking...
After walking for quite many
hours so that my feet began to hurt I decided that it was time to go over the shopping
list and to organize things that have been ordered by my friends. Unlike at so many other
previously visited locations, here you can actually find a decent T-shirt for $6 or so,
and the Ts that went for $15 in Brisbane were $4 here. Go figure. Good I didn't buy any
yet - but today I had the backpack full. Add to this a couple of CDs of "My Friend
the Chocolate Cake" for a friend from Stanford, and all items on the shopping list
were checked off. I just forgot a yellow Kangaroo sign - oh well, who cares. Miraculously,
I managed to somehow squeeze things into my suitcase without having to use my emergency
extra bag that I brought with me - no over limit luggage for once.
Very
much to my surprise I met today two groups of Czech explorers - one group was young
fellows my age, and the second were people in their late 50s I'd say. Both groups were
here for longer trips - up to 4 months. So we chatted a bit and exchanged information
where to go "next time" in Australia (for me) and where to go in the US (for
them). Incidentally, the guys interested in the US liked hot, sticky climate, and that's
exactly what I hate, so I was of very little help there. If LHB were here she surely would
gladly have given some more input :-)
