Yesterday I got back from Sydney. I went up Thursday night to join Adrian who was in blog geek heaven (Blogtalk Downunder) which was a conference dedicated to blogging. Adrian contributed to the organisation of the conference so was provided with accommodation which how I ended up being in Sydney.
On Thursday night when got to Sydney I was expecting to have a shit of a journey to get to the hotel by public transport. I figured this because my trip to the Melbourne airport had been quite fortuitous. I was running a bit late for my flight so I decided to hail a cab. Just as a I set to work on doing so, I noticed someone else was trying to hail one too. Then I realised that this woman had a suitcase with a qantas tag on it. So I took a punt and asked her if she was going to the airport. After she said 'yeah why?' quite aggressively, like I was an idiot, I asked her if she wanted to share a cab. She did, which was good, and reduced the travel costs quite significantly.
So on arrival at Sydney I was expecting bad luck to counter act the good luck of the cheap cab ride in Melbourne. I guess that age old tradition of the Melbourne/Sydney rivalry had also subconiously started to surface. I figured the travel experience of Melbourne would have to be better than the Sydney one. But not so! I went to the ticket office at the airport train station and the two ladies there bent over backwards to ensure I knew what train to catch, the best station to travel to, the station closest to the hotel, etc. And then when I got on the train a guy lent over to offer some help having noticed I was looking at a map. But my favourite part of trip was once I had reached Kings Cross station where I got off the train. It was after 10pm by this time, so I decided to catch a cab to the hotel rather than trying to work out the map and walk. So I found a taxi and asked the driver if he knew where the hotel was. He was this big black dude with a huge grin. He told me which way to the hotel and that I could walk. I appreciated his honesty but I said to him 'Can you drive me?' He gave me the winner smile and I jumped in. 'You are the first taxi driver who has tried to talk me out of a fare.' I said. He grinned and giggled again. It was not far but I was very thankful for the trip.
When I told Adrian my story he said it might have been the Sydney cabbie who writes a blog.
Yesterday before flying home I met up with Anita and Rob who have moved recently to Sydney from Melbourne. Rob's blog is about his observations, experiences and thoughts of living in Sydney. We walked from Central Station to find a coffee shop. It was a beautiful sunny day to walk in search of a latte worthy of a Melbounrne coffee snob. And I must say, the bakery we went to was very impressive, as was every cafe or restaurant I went to whilst in Sydney town.
I guess the point of this post is that Sydney was great and I'm glad I was proven wrong on a number of things - Sydney transport, Sydney food, and Sydney coffee. Thumbs up I reckon
