Day 2 - 8th January 2009

Another busy day in Sydney for me. Please excuse any grammatical and spelling errors since it's 11pm and I'm rather tired. I'll fix it up tomorrow.

I'd like to amend my previous post regarding the public transport system and confine the praise to trains, and only trains.

It had been decided that I'd spend tonight at Shoba's place, and that I would make my way there by bus since it would be faster than using a train. In fact, buses were my only option for the first leg of the trip, as Chatswood station is a few k's away from Middle Cove.

Being the meticulous person that I am (and also so that I didn't have to lug all my supplies around for ages), I spent an hour or so on the internet, mapping out the routes I'd have to take. It seemed simple enough, but in reality nothing ever is.

Here are some public transport lessons that I have learned:

1. Calling the transport infoline for information on how to get to places is useless. You will not get through to a person, and none of the options on the automated system will give you useful information.

2. Sitting in a bus shelter doesn't necessarily mean that a bus will stop for you. Even if you get up and wave. Therefore, make sure you're standing exactly at the sign designated for bus stops, even if it is pouring with rain and you desperately need to sit down. Lucky for me, it wasn't pouring, but I was thinking of finding some red pompoms to wave at the bus, or employing some sort of elaborate roadworks scheme to get it to stop.

3. Bus stop numbers are completely useless. The internet will say something like "disembark at stop 222487" - I'm not kidding, this is actually how long the stop numbers are - but the signs at the stops are so small that the bus has to sit there for five minutes for you to get close enough to the front of the bus to read them. They aren't even sequential on the same road!

4. Bus drivers have no idea about bus stops, or indeed where they are going. I asked a bus driver if his bus went through Petersham and he replied with something along the lines of "I just go up paramatta road and turn right at the hospital". Luckily for me, I rang Shoba to ask where I needed to get off, and the bus had just passed her. So I hopped off at the next stop and we met up pretty quickly. I'm not sure what I would have done otherwise - I suppose that you could look at it as an "I'm going on a trip to unknown places" occasion but since this was at aroudn 4pm and I was tired, I didn't feel much like adventuring.

Anyway, enough complaints. I did have a really good day. Once I got into the city I went to Galaxy bookshop which is ALL science-fiction and fantasy books. I had bought a book there in October that had been recommended to me, but I didn't like it. So I kept it in perfect condition, with the receipt on my bookshelf at home, and remembered to pack it for the trip. Because of this, I managed to get a book swap for something I would have had difficulty finding in Adelaide. The book is "Not a Proper Princess" by Esther Freisner if you were at all interested.

Since the weather was weird and I was suddenly hot, I went into Gloria Jeans and grabbed a timtam icy milkshake thingy (I believe that's the technical term) and worked my way up to the bus interchange. After waiting for half an hour trying to figure out which bus to take, I made it to Shoba's place.

She's got a lovely apartment in the Lyndhurst area, and she's even volunteered to sleep on the couch! I would feel bad but it's a pretty comfy couch and it's only for one night. Her flatmate was supposed to be around, but when we got in, the flatmate was asleep and hadn't woken up by the time we headed out for dinner.

Shoba took us to a lovely place called "The Italian Forum". Since this is the suburb where most Italians live, there's a host of Italian restaurants around the place. The Forum is intended to look like a place in Italy, with an open square centered around a statue with shops/restaurants lining the sides. One thing that I'd forgotten about Sydney is that there are people whose job it is to stand outside and drag you into their restaurant. Since Shoba had tried all the restaurants on the square, she suggested that we take a look at two of the best.

The first one we went to had a young girl (around 14) encouraging us to come in with a tale of how the restaurant was run by her mother - an Italian cook of course. She had the patter down perfectly, including asking us where we were from and then saying something along the lines of "Well you know if you get an --insert customer's nationality here-- chef cooking Italian, it's not the same as an actual Italian cooking it and vice-versa. She actually ended her speech with "we make pasta the way your mamma makes it". Remind you of a television advert? It certainly did to me!
I think it might be a ploy for the restaurant to use a young girl to advertise as it's probably harder to walk away without feeling guilty.

We decided to go and have a look at the other restaurant after gently brushing the girl off. Since Shoba said that it had the best pizzas of the lot, we ended up getting a lovely vegetarian boconcini pizza, some garlic bread and steamed vegetables.

Afterwards we walked to a lovely bookshop that had a large range of new and second-hand books. In addition, it was open until 10pm so that we could take our time and used 3/4 of an hour browsing before I picked up three books (1 new and 2 second-hand) for $23 which is a great bargain.

Tomorrow Shoba is going to take me to Newtown which is apparently the "hip" suburb for young people around here - so Shoba and I should fit right in! We're going to drive there as she has staff parking at the hospital so I can leave all my stuff in the car and then go to a train station from there.

Then I've got dinner with Michelle and her family tomorrow night, and I'm meeting up with Justin at some point on Saturday.

Busy busy busy!