Overdue thoughts

Here are just a few random, unorganized thoughts that I jotted down when I first got here but didn’t have internet access:

One other thing I forgot about this place is that you drive and walk on the left instead of the right. We were flying over morning traffic and that is what triggered it for me. And then again when I got in the terminal. You don’t notice it when it’s the same all over the US, but when you are on the moving sidewalks and you are on the left, it just feels weird. You can tell that everyone’s natural tendency when walking is to pass on the left. It takes a bit of getting used to.

The other thing, and you best not screw this one up, is to look the proper direction when crossing a street. I do my best to just adhere to crosswalks, but even then, since the near traffic comes at you from the left side of the road, you have to look RIGHT first and then left. If you’ve never been in a country that is backwards, you have no idea just how ingrained of a reflex it is to step up to a curb and look LEFT. Like I said, not a mistake you want to make.

Sydney has a beautiful airport, although the gates at the international terminal are connected in a really funny way. You follow signs all over the place and wonder if you’ll ever get to the gates you need.

The business class seats were really cool. First of all, there was more legroom in my seat than any 1st class seat I had ever had. (I used to get upgrades on NW when I flew a lot.) The seat itself had controls for the seat back, lumbar (both in and out and up and down), full leg supports to recline, including a footrest, and a headrest that you could curve on the sides to support your head. In addition, there was a pop-up screen attached to each seat where you could watch a different movie on about 6 different channels (I watched “Welcome to Mooseport” and part of “The Mexican”), or you could just put on music or a data map that showed you current altitude, speed, distance traveled, distance remaining, headwind, outside temperature, estimated time of arrival and a picture of where we were over the ocean. Finally, there was a power plug in the seat that I had bought a converter for before I left, so I watched all 3 1/2 hours of the Two Towers extended version on my laptop without having to worry about the battery. I guess I could have worked. Yeah right.

I had a window and tried to take a couple pictures, but it was totally dark the whole trip and the few I tried to take on landing where nothing but blurs of light. On the way back, it’ll be daytime, so maybe I’ll get lucky and get some pictures of Sydney then.

In case I felt too far from home, when I checked into my hotel the first night, SpongeBob was on. Turn the channel, Everybody Loves Raymond. Lots of American television here, though the only television I’m planning on catching is a bit of rugby.