Day 10

Sydney (Sunday)

Sitting at my outdoor café The Oyster Club in Sydney Harbour listening to Jack Johnson on the loudspeakers sipping a mocha cappuccino and eating a fresh baked croissant enjoying a cool ocean breeze; Could life get any better? Oh wait, here come the poached eggs on Turkish toast with chickpea and tomato ragout…yup it’s better. Sorry, for the foodie talk again, but it was a great way to start the day.

After this, I digested a little then tied up my laces and went for a run through the botanical gardens. This was one of the best runs I’ve ever had in my life, and that’s saying a lot (sarcasm). Seriously, though, the botanical gardens are amazing and they have a trail that runs along the water with the gardens on one side and views of the water, buildings and opera house on the other. The route was so gorgeous I hardly even noticed I was running. About ¾ of my way through, I saw an exhibit in the gardens that stopped me in my tracks: DARWIN. They had his name spelled out in huge polished rocks with quotes from Darwin on each one. They also had an appropriate word written on each letter like “Adaptation”, “Selection” and “Variability”. I was so excited to take a picture of this I ran at top speed (about 7 miles and hour) back to the hotel. I was being picked up by Ertan for a personal tour of the city in two hours, so I packed my bag, grabbed my camera, and went straight back out to the gardens. I took so many pictures from so many angles of the exhibit, a girl who was laying in the grass kept looking at me, like I was really weird or something. I felt like telling her I was a high school biology teacher or something and this was for my class, but then realized that I did not need to explain myself to a girl who clearly had not shaved her legs in years.

I grossly underestimated how long it would take to get to the Darwin exhibit and back and Ertan had to wait for me about 20 minutes. Oops. We got into his Volkswagen Gulf Rabbit with a twin turbo, 300 horsepower engine, which he was very proud of and made our way to lunch in Watson Bay, I think? Fish and Chips at a beachfront bar were amazing. A couple of margaritas to go with, and I was feeling pretty good. That was, until Phil called. Phil is the VP of BrainLAB Asia/Pacific and was to be taking me through this trip to India, Beijing and Hong Kong. Ertan handed the phone to me:

Aaron: “Hello”
Phil: “Hey, Aaron it’s Phil.”
Aaron: “Hey, what’s going on?”
Phil: “Nothing, listen, I hate to say this, but there’s been a few issues with my mum, she fell and broke her shoulder and now I need to stay with her for a couple days so you’ll be travelling to India alone.”
Aaron: silence
Phil: “Hello”
Aaron: “Um, ok”
Phil: “Don’t worry, Manish, our guy in India will handle everything once you’re there.”
Aaron: “Right, ok, well I hope everything works out well for your mum.”

Suddenly, the nice buzz I had going was gone and I was very much sober. Ok, no big deal, I need to be able to roll with the punches on this trip. In fact, it might actually be better for me to not travel with Phil on this hellish flight schedule since I am more than likely not going to be in the best of moods once I’m 5 hours into the 20 hour journey. No worries. Ertan was a great host and drove me around to different points of the city for a couple of hours explaining a lot about the local landscape to me as we went. Having walked and run 6 miles earlier in the day, I was exhausted by the time I made it back to the hotel. Needing to see the sunset at least once while in Sydney, I forced myself down to one of the bars on the water in Darling harbour, had a couple of beez neez wheat beers and wrote the blog I published a couple of days ago about LA. On the way back, I spotted a wagamamas and ordered some noodles to go, which I ate in the hotel room in bed, exhausted from the day. I ordered Body of Lies, which I watched while falling asleep. It was ok, not great. One of Russell Crowe’s worst role’s, I thought, but I’m always a fan of Leo. Personally, I think it’s a bullshit ending. There is no way he would have left the CIA for this Muslim girl in Amman. Please.