Today is the day – picking up our rental car. We arrived by taxi around 9.30 at the Budget agency and got our black (!!!) Mitsubishi ASX on the spot. We hadn’t ordered an SUV but the smaller Mitsubishi Lancer. That one wasn’t available, so we were upgraded to the SUV. Better for us – higher seating, better view. That’s especially necessary for driving on the left side of the road. Sigi did a fine job and found the way back to the hotel in no time. He didn’t once stray to the right side of the road. Funny thing in these cars is the reversion of blinker (on the right) and windshield wiper handle (on the left). It took Sigi a few times to indicate the direction correctly on the right instead of using the wiper blades… Now it was on to conference for Sigi. He had to deliver his presentation this afternoon. I planned to go on the monorail for a bit and see the city.
Around 3:15 Bettina heard roaring and seemingly never ending applause coming from the conference centre of UTS: Aha, Sigi must have just completed his technical presentation! Later this afternoon at around 5 pm our friends from Vancouver who spend the Canadian winter each year in Australia (visiting family and vacationing) will pick us up from the hotel and take us for dinner. Looking forward to it.
Shopping again at Darling Harbour and listening to the early afternoon youth orchestra on the promenade with an ice cream cone was another special treat for me before heading back to the hotel. Sigi came ‘home’ around 4 pm after his presentation and official wrap-up of the conference. We had time for a quick rest and shower before meeting Leigh and Bob downstairs who came to pick us up in their car.
Leigh navigated from the back seat by way of an i-pad GPS and Bob chauffeured us to Rushcutters Bay close to the Speeds’ hotel, and from there we walked through a lovely park down to the marina where the million dollar yachts were moored. Many of them were actually out on the bay sailing the Friday afternoon race. One of the big sail boats moored at the marina was one that will take part in the upcoming Sydney to Hobart regatta. Leigh and Bob took us to the yacht club for dinner on the patio, where we had a delicious meal, beer and a blast with 2 other Aussies at our table who were most entertaining and informative for us northerners We didn’t quite understand everything they said but got the gist of it. All around us were Christmas parties going on or TGIF celebrations. The atmosphere was contagious, and we just enjoyed the pure ‘joie de vivre’ all around us. These Aussies know how to live it up. Good on them, mate…
We got back to the hotel around 9.30 and packed our cases to be ready for tomorrow’s check-out and trip down the coast in the direction of Melbourne.
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