A Nap, a Soak, and Dinner

Australia Travelog #5
Back at the hotel - Sun, 24 Dec 2023, 6:30pm

Our room was finally ready today around 1:30pm. I say finally because it had already been a long day for us. Not only were we up most of the night on a long flight from San Francisco to Sydney but we started our (second) day upon landing at 6am. We were at the hotel before 7:30 and started our walking tour just before 9am. By 1:30pm we had already walked almost 8 miles. And it had started to rain... heavily.



Getting our room was a relief. It wasn't quite all that we expected, though. The front desk agent had told us hours earlier that part of the reason we had to wait so long for our room was because it was an "upgrade". Well, a corner room, two steps above the basic room, is what I booked. This was... an executive... corner room.

"What does that mean?" I asked the agent. "It's larger," she answered immediately. Looking at the room in the photo above I don't see how it's much larger than, say, a broom closet. There's no "larger" here unless the basic rooms are so small you bang your knees on the furniture walking around to the far side of the bed.

Which meant it was on a higher floor. I've got to tell you, we frequent travelers with elite status at hotel chains kind of hate it when hotels proudly tell us that putting us in the same room but on a higher floor is an elite upgrade. Especially this case when I had to wait hours for it. But in this case I was too ready to strip off and lie down to argue about it.

We stretched out on the bed, intended just to rest our legs, and ended up napping for almost an hour.

I don't fault us for this because, again, we'd already walked 8 miles by lunchtime.

Later in the afternoon we decided to check out the swimming pool. Yes, they have a hot tub!



The water wasn't exactly hot, more like bathtub-warm, but with the jets going it was enjoyable. I left feel a lot more relaxed than when I entered.

The soak in the hot tub took up a bit more time than I expected. I think we were in there for almost an hour! Afterward we toweled off, changed back into our clothes, and visited the executive lounge to see what was on offer for dinner. It looked... meager... especially for Hawk's tastes, so we headed out to a restaurant that had been suggested by one of the hotel staffers in the morning.

The restaurant was a very tourist-trappy place over at Darling Harbor, less than 1 km away, but it got the job done. And it was only a short walk there and back, even with us making a side trip to walk the foot bridge across to the other side of the harbor and back.



One advantage of going out for an early dinner was that we got back before the club lounge closed at 7. We tried a bit of dessert there, and I knocked back a gin and tonic and a bourbon. Well, part of a bourbon. I brought the rest back to my room and now I'm not sure I'm going to finish it before we both fall asleep. Yes, it's 7pm and we're ready to bed... but it's already been a full day on scant in-flight sleep last night.

Early to Bed, Early to Rise. It's Like Christmas in July.

Australia Travelog #6
Afoot in Sydney - Mon, 25 Dec 2023, 8am

Last night I wondered whether we'd just fall asleep by 7pm. Indeed we did. The flip side, though, to going to bed early is waking up early. Whether or not that's a good thing depends on a) how early, and b) whether there's something to do.

In therms of (a) the answer was 5am. We woke up at 5am. In terms of (b) it wasn't the worst thing. We poked around on our computers for a while. A bit after 6 I showered and dressed, and we went down to the lounge for breakfast when it opened at 6:30am.

After a big breakfast— as we're not sure when/what we'll be able to eat during the day on Christmas Day— we headed out on foot for another day of sightseeing in Sydney. We left the hotel just before 8am to streets that were pleasantly quiet... though not deserted, by any stretch.



The weather today is supposed to reach 80° F. That's because here, in Australia, it's summer. Christmas in the summer! The old northern hemisphere saying is "Christmas in July" though, really, it's more like Christmas in June if you think about it. (A year is how many months? And half that number to/from December is which month?)

The photo above, BTW, is from a small window box display at a department store near our hotel. Surfing Santa bringing presents to all the good little boys and girls on the beach!

We won't quite be going to the beach today. Probably tomorrow. Today we're headed up through the Royal Botanical Garden to enjoy the garden and views of the Sydney Harbor Bridge, the Opera House, the city skyline, and, of course, the garden itself.

MInotaurs, Giant Spiders, and Stirges, oh My!

Australia Travelog #7
Afoot in Sydney - Mon, 25 Dec 2023, 8:30am

Our morning sightseeing on Monday began with some of the things we wrapped up walking past Sunday afternoon. It was gloomy then and starting to rain, plus we were tired, so we'd lost patience for taking things in. Today, though, we're fresh, and the weather's better.



Two streets over from our hotel is Hyde Park, a fairly large urban park in Sydney. On the far side is St. Mary's Cathedral, as you can see in the photo above. St. Mary's is where there was "No room at the inn" yesterday. In the foreground in the photo is Hyde Park's Archibald Fountain.

Archibald Fountain is named for J.F. Archibald, a publishing magnate who donated the funds to have it built. Isn't that often how monuments are? "This is monument honors the wealthy person who spent the money to build this monument with their name on it." 🙄

Well, okay, Archibald didn't commission it just to honor himself, he commissioned it to honor the French for their association with Australia in World War I. He insisted the art be sculpted by a French artist, and the French artist they chose dug deeply into French history to depict... Greek myth. Yes, apparently the French consider that French history.



The fountain depicts the classic Greek French figures of Apollo, Diana, Pan, and Theseus. In the scene above Monsieur Theseus kills Le Minotaur. Allez les Bleus, Allez les Bleus!

From the park we walked north by northeast, angling toward a different part of the city than we visited yesterday. Soon we reached the Art Gallery of New South Wales. It wasn't a place we planned to visit. We're not big on art galleries. We're also not big on giant spiders.



Yes, there's really a 20' tall spider in front of the NSW Art Gallery. And yes, that thing under it is an egg sac. And yes, there are eggs in the egg sac. Actually they're rocks as best as I could tell from looking up from underneath. They're big rocks, 6-8 inches across. I guess that's the size of giant spider eggs.

So far this morning has felt like instead of a tour map I need a Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual. Thus it's not surprising when we saw this bird all over the place in Sydney...



...Our first thought was, "Ha, ha, that looks like a stirge!"

Stirges in D&D are bird-like creatures that suck blood from living beings. They fly at victims, clamp on their shoulders with their big talons, and plunge their long beak into the neck to suck blood.

Watch on YouTube

It's not a stirge, of course. It's an ibis. Specifically, it's an Australian White Ibis. And it uses that long beak not to plunge into hapless low-level adventurers' necks and suck their blood but to root around in loose ground for bugs and grubs and stuff.