Frank's Place | Sydney, New South Wales, Australia Trip 2002

Counter


Day 14:	Tuesday, 17 September 2002
New Thing:	Getting left behind unintentionally... don't like it.
Weather:	Overcast turning to rain/drizzle, windy, high 50s
Money Spent:	$22.85 AUS	$12.60 USD

Back to Day 13 \| Go to Day 15
7:51am	If an alarm went off, no one heard it. D'oh
7:56am	The boy runs out the door, grabbing one backpack, but not me in my FrankTote. Another boring day in the room.
7:59am	Is it time to do something yet? May a nap or a bath...
8:04am	A bath, then a nap. Excellent...
8:38am	Now for a nap. Just hung the Do Not Disturb card outside. Like I really need someone to make the bed.
2:01pm	I woke up from the worst dream. I was traveling with a small dog in an airborne house, and apparently landed in Kansas... never mind. I'm sure you're not interested.
6:44pm	The Boy returns home. I, of course, complain about his negligence in leaving me behind. This scores me a dinner, out. (Which is huge, because he had lunch, and to get him to eat twice in ONE day is no small feat. The fact that we're not going to McDonald's is also very pleasant.)
6:52pm	We approach Circular Quay. Being a man of infinite wisdom, it takes him two weeks to figure out we can ride the train without limit for the month on his 30-day pass. Yup, someone once claimed he was gifted, too. Whatever.
6:54pm	As we wait the three minutes for the next train, I decide to rest my toosh on the bench... aah, feels good to sit down.
6:57pm	The train arrives, and we proceed two stops to Town Hall, which should bring us within a stone's throw of Pizza Hut. (Hey, it's not pseudo-burger or pressed chicken -- I'm happy.)
7:03pm	Two blocks; we were dropped around 550 George Street; Pizza Hut is at 630 George Street. On the way, we passed a series of interesting signs. It seems when you do roadwork at night, it's important that the street sign is predominately black. Yup, that'll make it easy for drivers to see. At night.
7:04pm	Apparently, the road work involves digging.
7:05pm	And they've invited a flag guy to join in.
7:06pm	I have no idea what this one means.
7:07pm	No matter, we've arrived. After waiting for a bit of a crowd to thin out, we placed our order with Julie, expending $15.65 (Australian) for a large pepperoni and a soda (two straws, the kinky bastard). Interesting scene here, though. Julie tried really subtly to push us to the buffet, which has pizza. (Yes, it's heat-lamp warmed pizza, but it's round, so technically, pizza.) To our left was the cutest little teenage or early-20s couple. They held hands across the table the entire time. Except to get up and get green Jell-O and a dessert made up of an ice cream-like substance (two trips for those two items, mind you). To our right were two mums for a night out without the rugrats. I think the shorter one was speaking Spanish, too. One of them can be seen at the right side of this subtle photo I managed to snap. One table to the right beyond the mums were a gaggle of girls (one sheila was rather fetching, two plain, and one a bit on the hideous side... by random coincidence, she was also the loudest of the four). There was only a few moments when the dessert bar was vacant. This was one of them. Throughout the place were a decent balance of families, couples out, and the odd assortment of single guys and ducks. One girl of perhaps 22 summers wandered up to the dessert area, causing both of us to both stare and grimace in unison. Red hair (seemed natural) with a grayish-green scrunchie. Too much blush. Lavender top. Mint green medical scrubs for pants. Orange slip-on shoes. She appeared right handed. I'm just thinking, unless your purpose is to have a bright red nose and making balloon animals at a child's birthday party, that assortment of colors should never, ever all be worn at once. Heck, I don't know (many) guys that would be so blind. Eek.
7:47pm	Finished, we gathered our things to depart. Which is to say the Boy picked up the camera, me, and his rather well-fed self (not limited to this evening), and we headed out and back to the Town Hall station.
7:54pm	We load back into the train, and feel briefly as though we were in a major U.S. city (take your pick). The train wasn't the usual charming, clean compartment for travel (as observed here and here).
7:56pm	I couldn't help but marvel that on this train carriage in particular, how many offences will result in a fine.
7:59pm	We're back at Circular Quay, and heading back to the room slowly. The boy seems somewhat drawn to the framing store. I suspect he wants to acquire something to put up in the house when we get home, but honestly, I don't know why he's want to spoil those perfectly bare walls with any sort of decoration. And what if a photo or drawing he hangs is pounded into a load-bearing wall? The whole integrity of the home could be in peril. Oh well.
8:02pm	We're back at the hotel. On a lark, we plug into the DSL modem in the room. We're again connected to the internet. And again, apparently, not being taken to the "pay for the service" screen... but come Sunday, we'll find out if it's being billed or not. (No, not any given Sunday, just this Sunday.)
8:52pm	Tubby seems obsessed with being connected from here (not even dialed into work, we're so proud of him), but given it's only 4am Pacific Time, 7am Eastern, I know he's not chatting. Of the few people he knows, none are awake at this ungodly hour. As such, I think I will join them in slumber.

Back to Day 13 \| Go to Day 15