Day 12

Sydney/Melbourne (Tuesday)

Ertan and I caught an 8:30AM flight to Melbourne, just an hour jaunt. I still absolutely cannot believe that when you fly domestic in Australia, they do not check your ID at all. I printed my boarding pass from the kiosk and they actually gave me an option to print out Ertan’s pass as well since we had booked together. Insane. Slept the whole way there until about 10 minutes before we landed where I could see out the window a huge swath of burnt land from wildfires they had a month or so earlier. Ertan informed me that morning that he was feeling sick, and proceeded to sneeze every five minutes from that point on. Obviously, I spent most of the day trying to get as far away from him as possible since there was no way I wanted to catch a cold before heading to India and China. We had a couple of meetings at a local hospital in Melbourne and then checked into our hotel. Now, I realize that I am a bit of a hotel snob, and maybe this is an understatement, but this place that Ertan booked me at was just not going to do. I took two steps into the room, checked the bed to see that they had just draped a sheet over the bare mattress and promptly connected to the Internet (for free, basically the only good thing they offered) and booked the Westin Melbourne, which was right around the corner.

This is a classic move on my part and should not surprise anyone reading this email. I will pay for the difference in price myself, and it is well worth the $100 to be comfortable and have a good night’s sleep (and also get starpoints). My room was spectacular. It had it’s own private balcony overlooking a picturesque square with lots of coffee shops and restaurants. Clearly, I had made the right decision. A quick workout in the hotel gym, which was amazing and then a high level business dinner with the CEO and Neurosurgeon of the leading hospital in Melbourne. Oh, and their wives and daughters. A little weird that they brought there family with them, but hey, I’m not in Kansas anymore.
It was clear from the very beginning that me being from the US was going to be the main topic of conversation for these people. I must have fielded at least 30 questions ranging from why I was chosen to be the one from the US to do this Asian trip, to why I wasn’t married, to what my top five favorite cities in the US were, to how the local seafood in Melbourne compares with Boston and on and on. Now, I generally like talking about myself, so this was actually kind of fun and of course two jack and diets, two fantastic sauvignon blancs from NZ and a bailey on the rocks made it all the more enjoyable. The meal was good. The only thing I will describe was the dessert: caramel chunk ice cream on a bed of gingerbread. Wow! And, Rubin, this may be the first place where they actually listed cheese under the heading of “Dessert” as if it were a dessert item. Clearly, these people have no idea what their talking about. Although they did serve the cheese with something sweet: fruit and nuts. The other funny thing about this restaurant is that their signs for the bathrooms were stick figures of a man and a women, each one with their respective reproductive organs clearly drawn. Definitely the first time I have ever seen that in a place where they serve $75 entrees. Ok with entrees at any price.