Getting to Cairns

Getting to Australia was a wild, exciting, and very odd experience.

WILD: Missing my connecting flight to Sydney by 8 minutes, rushing from terminal to terminal trying to find another flight that Delta would pay for, and finally settling on spending 24 hours in Los Angeles after my best efforts failed.

EXCITING: Discovering that Los Angeles has one of the greatest art galleries in the United States; ‘The Getty Center’, enjoying paintings by Renoir, Cezanne, Van Gogh, Degas, and Rembrandt, and riding a smelly public bus for 2 hours back to LAX.

VERY ODD: Sitting for 15 hours during my flight to Sydney next to a friendly 70-year-old man… who apparently was attracted to me and wanted me to take a shower at his hotel room (I won’t go into details).

It suffices to say that the past 48 hours have been an incredible roller-coaster ride. I finally arrived in Sydney at 9 AM this morning and rushed into the city to get a taste of Australia before leaving on a flight to Cairns this afternoon. As my train pulled into Circular Quay station downtown, I peered out the window towards the coast and saw the iconic roof of the Sydney Opera House barely come into view from behind a few buildings. The city was unbelievably quiet this morning, and I began my day by walking along a wide red-brick boardwalk across from the Opera House. Until today the Sydney Opera House was one of the last few truly iconic world sites that I hadn’t visited, and it was a thrill to see it in real life after viewing it so many times in two-dimensional pictures online. At the end of my trip I’ll spend three days in Sydney and get a chance to watch a legitimate opera in the Opera House, but until then it was nice just to see it from the outside.

One of my favorite things to do in big cities is to find the highest point from which I can get a decent view from above, then spend an hour or so enjoying the skyline and getting my bearings straight. The premier view in Sydney is from ‘Pylon Lookout’, a viewing platform at the top of one of the South pylons of the Sydney Harbor Bridge. The Opera House looks fantastic from every angle, but viewing it from above was a great new way to experience the architectural wonder. Nearly every picture I’ve seen of the Opera House is taken from across Sydney Harbor, so finding new views of it in real life is especially exciting. The interior of the pylon also features a few well-presented exhibits documenting the history of the bridge, although I confess I rushed through them to find one last view of the Opera House before heading back to the airport.

I love the building in New York in which I worked for American Express last summer. It’s literally across the street from the World Trade Center, the name of the complex, ‘World Financial Center’, makes me feel more professional than I probably am, and the New York City Lonely Planet guide even lists it as a tourist attraction. Perhaps my favorite thing about the building, though, are the gigantic murals surrounding the elevator banks in the lobby. As the world’s largest travel agency, it suits American Express well to have a few great travel murals. One is of the financial district in Manhattan lit up at night, another depicts the Hong Kong skyline and parts of the city’s Chinatown, a third features a beautiful panorama of Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro, and the final mural shows the Sydney Harbor, with the Opera House prominently in view beneath the Sydney Harbor Bridge. I had to find that view.

A walk across the Harbor Bridge took me to North Sydney, where I wandered aimlessly for ten minutes before finally asking for directions. A long, meandering walk took me north of the harbor, then along a trail leading past Sydney’s famous ‘Luna Park’ amusement park and finally to a ferry station on the coast. That was the view. I took several pictures from the ferry station, trying to line them up just like the incredible mural at American Express Headquarters. While at the ferry station I realized that I had now seen all four locations of the great murals in real life. I don’t generally like to ‘check boxes’ when I travel, but it’s still exciting to be able to relate to such distinguished locations.

Dinner tonight was a giant slab of beef and some Australian home-style potatoes at a lively joint in Cairns. I’ve never thought much about what Australian food is, but I would definitely enjoy eating a dinner like that every night for the next two weeks. With my belly full, I got a couple of giant scoops of ice cream at Baskin Robbins and walked along the coast back to my hotel. As much as I enjoy having ‘wild’ and ‘exciting’ experiences (and the occasional ‘very odd’ experience), it’s great to finally be starting my Australian adventure in Cairns.