From 0-100 km/h in a day or two

My feet hurt.

Seriously.

This surprises me for several reasons.

i) I am relatively young
ii) I am in good shape
iii) I have not owned a car for four years and got used to walking everywhere when I lived in Vancouver, sometimes as much as 60 minutes per day and biking up to 20 km per day in summer.

Let's just say the last few days have been busy. On Saturday morning I woke up to a beautiful, sunny day and decided I had to go for a run.

The man at the hostel's front desk told me about a shortcut nearby to get to Sydney's Royal Botanic Gardens (kinda like Stanley Park) and the harbour. Just a couple of minutes down the street there is a long stone staircase (about 100 steps) that takes you from Potts Point, where I am staying, into neighbouring suburb Woolloomooloo. What a name, eh? Australia is full of quirky names but I'll save more on those for another day.

Woolloomooloo is one of Sydney's oldest area's and the architecture is great. To me, the houses are a cross between London (in style) and Tokyo (because they're crammed tight next to one another and have tiled roofs like you see in Japan).

So I had my run through the Royal Botanic Gardens and enjoyed a good workout, topped off by climbing back up that long staircase.

Next I decided it was time for a haircut so I went downtown to the one barbershop I had seen that I thought wouldn't charge me an arm and a leg for a cut. Surprise! They are closed on weekends. What a waste of time.

But since I was already very near Hyde Park I decided to pull up a piece of grass and wait for the night's Mardi Gras parade to begin.

Mardi Gras is what they call Sydney's gay pride parade. It is a huge event that draws all kinds of people. Tourists, locals, young, old, etc. By the time I got to the parade route at about 2:30 p.m. there were already several hundred people lining the streets and the parade didn't start until 7:30 p.m.!

So there I sat for a couple of hours, snacking, reading and chatting on my cellphone for a few minutes to my sister, who is currently teaching English in Korea.

Around 5 p.m. I started to wonder if I really had a good spot for parade viewing or if I shouldn't try wandering down the street to Taylor's Square to see if the views were better.

Big mistake! It was a total madhouse everywhere I went, especially at Taylor's Square. The street was barricaded and I could only cross at a couple of locations. As a result I spent more than an hour trying to get back to a decent spot AND had to walk at least 3-4 km through big crowds.

By the time I got to Taylor's Square the crowd was lined up 5 deep. I ended up standing on a railing about 50 feet from the street but the views were just so-so. I didn't even get to see Rupert Everett, the parade marshall. Damn. Oh well, at least I met a cool girl from New Zealand, a teacher from San Francisco and a university professor from Simon Fraser University in Vancouver who were all next to me.

So by 9 p.m. I had been on the go for about 12 hours and had walked/run at least 10 km. It was time to head back to the hostel to shower, change and then head to a big Mardi Gras party that was happening. This involved another 45 minutes of walking and probably 4-5 more kilometres.

I could NOT believe the amount of garbage on the streets as I walked to the party after the parade. There were piles of bottles, paper, food all over the place. The Australians do not seem to have any laws against drinking on the streets, meaning at least 50% of the garbage was beer bottles and cans (it was a strange experience asking a policeman for directions earlier in the day while holding a can of beer in my hand, by the way. Couldn't get away with that one in Canada). It's amazing that the city supports something that causes such a big mess, not to mention major disturbances to traffic for the entire day. But think of all the tourist dollars spent. Businesses must be very happy indeed at this time of year.

I made it to the Mardi Gras party at about 11 p.m. What a total blast! There were 17,000 people and seven different venues. The party went from 10 p.m. to 10 a.m. DJs from Australia and all over the world were on hand, including Boy George. My energy was fading but I did my best to pull through and have fun despite tired legs. I managed to meet a few people: one from Atlanta, one from Sydney and one from Fiji. That made the night more interesting as we all danced together. By 4 a.m. I was ready for bed but faced with the daunting prospect of walking 5 km back to the hostel. Dear God!

I bought a hot dog and sat down for about half an hour to gather some strength.

It was a long, slow walk home, spiced up by a few encounters with interesting people. I started chatting with a young Aussie guy on the way out of the party venue. He was a bit of an oddball. I said "Hi, how's it going?" and he said "I walk alone because I choose to."

OK then. I was prepared to just keep walking when he started telling me about what a crappy night he had, how much his life sucked, etc. All I could say was I was just happy to be wearing shorts and a tank top at 5 a.m. on March 4th and that there was 3 feet of snow on the ground where I grew up right now. That kind of shut him up for a moment.

Eventually we parted ways and I was getting closer to the hostel. As I passed a group of 4-5 people, a fight between two guys (friends, I think) spontaneously broke out, for no apparent reason. Here's how it went down:

Guy 1: "So you had a good night then?"
Guy 2: "Are you trying to start a fight?"
Guy 1: "What?"
Guy 2: "Stop trying to start f*ing fights!"
Guy 1: (stunned silence)
Guy 2: (swings a milk crate in the direction of Guy 1.)
"F*** off!!"
Girl: "Tom! Stop it. Tom! Come on. Tom! Don't fight.

Just when it was about to become a bloody mess, Guy 3 stepped in and told them to stop. I was only about 10 feet ahead of them and decided it was best just to keep walking, thinking the fight was settled.

About a minute later I hear screams and yelling 100 feet behind me and see Guy 1 chasing Guy 2 down the street, swinging the milk crate in the air. The girl just kept screaming "Tom!" over and over again. It was all kind of comical and ridiculous. I'll just assume no one got seriously injured.

Finally, at almost 6 a.m., I was just steps from the youth hostel. Three young guys (maybe from New Zealand) walked past me and said something I couldn't understand in a heavy accent.

Me: "What?"
Kiwi dude: "Where's the rub and tug at?"

I just laughed and shrugged my shoulders, and they simply carried on. Thank god. I really didn't think I could take another fight.

Here goes nothing

At long last, the moment you have been waiting for: my blog is officially up and running!

OK, so perhaps you haven't been waiting that long for this moment after all. But I sure have.

It's been a little over 48 hours since I got to Sydney, Australia, and more than four days since I left home. In some ways it feels like it's been weeks, such are the joys of jetlag. I feel like I've done so much since I got here. Every little outing is a wee bit of an adventure, from buying bread at the store (which damn coin is which?) to finding a payphone to call home (how do these things work?)

The first day was the hardest in terms of dealing with jet lag. By the time I got to Sydney it was 1 p.m. local time. That's 8 p.m. the previous day in Saskatchewan. I was ready for bed.

Instead, I was thrown into a tiny airport shuttle "bus" (it was actually a van) and driven into the city. The driver drove very quickly down the "wrong" side of the road and there was so much traffic. Around the time that he swung out behind a stopped bus and into the parking lane, cutting back into traffic just a few feet from the rear bumper of a truck, I decided it might be best to put a seatbelt on.

Ha! There were no seatbelts.

Just a few minutes later I was at my youth hostel in Kings Cross. The hostel is on an amazingly pretty sidestreet lined with trees, Victorian-style buildings, coffee shops, restaurants and, of course, about 8 other hostels. Checking in was a breeze and I felt once-again blessed to have gotten a private room for the first couple of nights. No snoring strangers to contend with. The room is out back and even offers views of Sydney's Central Business District (that's the "downtown" as we say in North America).

By 5 p.m. I felt dizzy with jetlag, dehydration and hunger. I tried a bit of food and juice but that only holds for a short while. By 6:30 I passed out on my bed, totally unable to stay awake any longer (remember that I started the day at an airport in Fiji at 5 a.m.) Three hours later I woke up, slightly refreshed. Not having a cellphone or Internet connection really does me over in terms of keeping track of time. I ventured outdoors after watching some TV for a bit longer. It was already midnight somehow!

I ambled down the streets of Kings Cross for awhile. There were some bars and clubs open as well as a surprisingly high number of strip clubs (this is historically Sydney's red light district after all. Thank you Lonely Planet for filling me in.) I bought a popsicle as the night air still felt warm on my Canadian skin. Lucky me, there was an Internet cafe open until 1 a.m.

By 1 a.m. I was more than ready to crawl back into bed. I popped a couple of melatonin pills and pray for a good night's sleep. Those pills really do work, in case you were wondering.

Eight hours later I woke to a bright and sunny day. As I poked my head out the door and looked down the street I saw schoolgirls in their funny (to me) uniforms hurrying down the street to get to class.

Yup, I am really in Oz now.

More to post soon. . . .