We arrived in Sydney, New South Wales, Sunday morning at about 6:30 AM local time after an uneventful flight of 15 hours. Customs went quickly and we exited to the main terminal happy to be on the ground again. We were thirsty and went to a shop in the airport to buy a couple of sodas. I was shocked at the price for a bottle of Coke: $5:00! I thought that it was just because it was at the airport but we found out later that the regular price is $3.75 to $4.50 for soft drinks. (The price of food and drink is really high compared to the US, but more about that on a later blog.)
We next paid for a van to take us to the Pott's Point Holiday Inn. We followed a group of for about a quarter mile to a beat-up VW bus pulling a trailer. Behind it was parked a clean, white new bus and we all headed for that. "No, not the bus, the van!" our guide called out. We stuffed our bags in the enclosed trailer and then crammed ourselves into the small seats and off we went--for ten yards--and the bags fell out of the trailer. (Our driver had forgotten to close the gates.) He quickly stopped, mumbled something we couldn't understand, retrieved the bags and we were off again.
Most of the people in Australia are fairly easy to understand, but not our driver. He barely opened his mouth when he spoke, mumbling and slurring his words. His sense of direction was much better than his speech and we arrived safely at the door to our hotel. We were early for check-in (by about 5 hours) but the Aussie woman checking us in found us an open room and booked us in. We arrived on the third floor and opened the drapes to discover that we'd received an upgrade! We had a beautiful view of Sydney Harbor: the opera house, harbor bridge and the skyline of Sydney.
(End of Part 1)
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