A Southern Hemisphere Sojourn

Hello from Sydney.  The Quay West hotel is a truely magnificant property right downtown, 3 blocks vfrom the cruise terminal.  The flight was another story mate.  Seems to me if you go to all that trouble to build the biggest, quietest, solid rock of an aircreft, you ought to pass on a bit of that to your customers.  The advent of the 600 person jet has brought back the concept of steerage in economy.  When you're3 packed in like sardines, it don't matter how big the tin is.  All you know is that you.re surrounded by other sardines.  Now, that bearable for a 3, even 4 hour flight.  But 14 hours?  Damn glad I'm taking the ship back to LA.

The plane itself is fantanstic!  It is Quantas that sets the seat pitch and width and therefore the passenger density.  Taker Emirates.  Honestly cannot feel the wheels roll down the tarmac.  The plane lifts off so gently it is amazing.  In the air it is by far the quietest plane I have ever sat in. The air is humidified at altitude but they have not figured out how to remove the 2 gallons per hour of cologne people are using to cover up the fact they didn't shower before departure.

Internet wasn't working in my hotel, so I'm at McDonalds now at 5 AM on Saturday (I am 18 hours ahead of PST so, add a day, subtract 6 hours to convert). i.e. As I write it's around 11 AM Friday for you guys.  Ha!  I've already expe3rienced Sydney's hottest area, The Rocks on a Friday nite and survived! Think French Quarter with Guiness .

I took almost 100 pictures yesterday all around downtown.  I'll try to skug in a few.  So today, I'll go back to the hotel, pack my crap and lug it over to the cruise ship.  Then I'm gonna do the bridge walk and shop before boarding the ship.  As I sit here, the ship should be approaching the harbor.  Debarks at 7AM or in about an hour.  Boring stuff, I klnow, but travel days allways suck.

Back soon!