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4:15am |
Yes, that's right. 4:15am
in the morning. Which is 11:15am Pacific Time Thursday, or
1:15pm Thursday in Michigan. Or 8:15pm Thursday in France.
Okay, that's going a bit far. Like I'll ever go to France... |
4:28am |
We leave the room. Baldie has scientifically determined that
Circular Quay will delay our journey needlessly. Hence, we walk
to Wynyard, some eight blocks or so. But at this hour, you could
walk across the busiest street without risk of being hit by a car...
or anyone, for that matter -- because it's too damn early for any
normal person to be up, awake, dressed, and roaming the streets. |
4:38am |
The irony
in this amused me for several minutes, as noted:
- Everyone who rides the train must have a ticket... but won't
necessarily need it, right?
- The red lighted, scrolling sign in back decries the perils of
fare evasion - "Fare evasion costs
us... [all]," it says.
- All this, and they're worried that if you bring a train on board,
did you remember to also buy
a ticket for your bike?
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4:42am |
It's going to be
a while, mates, until there's a train to board up into. |
4:46am |
At least there are a few marginally
humourous billboards to delight you as you wait. |
4:47am |
Public Service Tidbit:
To determine the final destination of your train, using the TV
monitor, look in the Yellow at the top. For all white
text entries, they will scroll, in order. An "All Stops"
train will do just that - stop at every darn stop on the line.
A "Limited" train will only stop at the larger stops (what
I've experienced is any of those in bold are still a stopping point,
those printed in a regular font are skipped. Note that not
all stations have these, other stations have a moving message board,
and some of the smaller stations have an old, steel sign that is
hung up or taken down after each train departs by the station attendant.
(It's the third pic on the different types of sign
boards page.) |
4:54am |
If I ever forget that there's a 4
foot deep hole between train and platform, they'll remind
ya. |
4:56am |
The train arrived, and we loaded up in the middle car. |
4:57am |
I settled into my
own seat, independent of Baldie. A near-empty train is a
beautiful thing. |
5:04am |
I told him, but he didn't believe me. Pictures, at night,
from a moving train, just don't
turn out well. |
5:17am |
We arrive into the office and join
a meeting already in progress... apparently THAT's what this was all
about. And it turns out there was nothing to view, just the
call, which was all recoded anyway. All for naught. I
went back to sleep, under the desk, as is my custom. |
12:02pm |
I got all excited that after yesterday's romp into the Shoppingtown,
we'd be going to lunch. No such luck; the boy is apparently
chatting with someone online, and as a result, we seem to be sitting
here for the duration. He seems okay with the chat thing,
but it does nothing for my tiny tummy. |
12:04pm |
Rather than acknowledge the hunger
pains, I figure I'll ignore them with a nap. |
4:48pm |
Hurrah, and outing. (The fact that I was kicked to wake up,
not hurrah.) |
4:54pm |
This outing has all the makings of
a whirlwind walk. We're already at the market buying for 1.25
liter Diet Pepsi's, $3 Australian paid. |
4:56pm |
We stop at Donut King, and get a box of donuts. They are incredibly
small and so very adorable to behold. |
4:58pm |
We swing by Pizza Hut, but since the
shopping centre is closing in 30 minutes, no new pizza... and trying
Hawaiian didn't look too likely. |
5:01pm |
As I began to fear dinner was nothing but donuts and Diet Pepsi,
we popped into Burger King. Yet, I'm not sure which is the greater
evil - donuts and soda, or Burger King. We return to the office,
as that's where our cold Diet Pepsi is located. |
5:09pm |
The boy occupies himself with whatever
it is he does all day. I begin working to sort out the whole
Hungry Jack's versus Burger King thing, my homework from a few days
ago. |
6:54pm |
I've done as much investigation as I care to do, but I feel I've
come up with a passable explanation of the fiasco on the two burger
franchises. |
6:59pm |
I spend far too much time looking
at the donuts. It's sort of a snack
cake matrix --- all the like flavored icing in the horizontal
rows, and the like type of sprinkles in vertical columns. Yessir,
I'm too clever for my shirt. |
7:11pm |
We're off to the train platform, where we find a petite blonde girl
arguing with a particularly dim guy who walked through the barriers
without paying. She's apparently had a rather bad day, and wasn't
overly interested in hearing about his woes. And being he's
a guy, he apparently thought that meant to continue telling her of
his troubles. She didn't seem keen on hearing them. |
7:14pm |
She got onto a train bound for Hornsby,
and at the last minute (had to finish his cigarette, after all), he
followed her on board. |
7:16pm |
Our train arrived, and we were off. |
7:17pm |
As I looked around the train, I was
struck with a thought. Well, honestly, two. The second
one, in passing, is that there's very little graffiti on the train.
The original thought was on the people, sort of an odd dynamic going
on here. There are numerous women here and there that you'd
consider attractive, and even being 15 and fowl, I'm aware of that
detail. Yet, I've yet to see any that you'd consider as memorable,
you know, one of those faces (or figures, let's be honest) that sticks
in the memory for more than a minute or two after departing.
It's odd; I can usually recall details of even the most minor characteristics
of complete strangers for quite some time. Does that mean I'm
distracted with a duckling elsewhere? That I've grown apathetic
to those around me? Or that I spent too much time starting at
pretty donuts? |
7:52pm |
We exit at the final location and head to the street, stopping
to read the flyer once more for the trip to the Blue Mountains.
It appears you can only take the train for the first portion of
the trip, then transfer to a bus. Of course, there is no information
about what happens then, per se, but for only $38.60 for the day
(maybe $20 US), it's worth a go. Perhaps tomorrow, otherwise
Sunday, keeping the day I don't wander about reserved to go wander
about Chatswood for the day, as I'd hoped to do last week... but
there's no maintenance on that line this weekend, which I verified
as Tubby started at his poster about some blue hills or whatever. |
7:57pm |
We're back in the room. See?
Only a mere 15½ hours after the day started. And y'all wonder
why I sometimes like being left behind? (In the room, not the
movie Left Behind, which in my humble, non-denominational view, sucked
big time -- more so when you consider I'd already given them liberty
in allowing Kirk Cameron onscreen with his appalling inability to
act his way out of a duck blind.) |
8:09pm |
I'm going to bed. It's been a day longer than I'd thought
possible. |
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