Arrival
Welcome to Sydney!
Arrival can be a long process when travelling to the other side of the world, requiring three airports and 16 somewhat tedious hours in the air. The boundaries of day and night are temporarily erased in transit, and daily habits are suspended to meet the requirements of security checks, boardings, and polite seating in close and uncomfortable quarters shared with over 350 strangers.
Leaving the US from the Tom Bradley international terminal at LAX required a faintly traumatic yet highly efficient check in. The many, many counters are situated in what feels like a not-yet-converted 1960's airplane hanger. The lines to the Chinese air carriers, with more carts, bags, and boxes than people, blocked every circulation path.
Eventually I found - way down at the end around a corner to the right - shorter lines, more space and six smaller airlines, including little Fiji Airways.
Its been so long since I've checked a bag or travelled internationally that I'd forgotten the ticket counter experience. Luckily, the short line moved quickly, and it was even pleasant to interact with a person to get a paper boarding pass again.
A young couple blocked for me as we wove around and between travel groups and families to leave ticketing, reach the boarding pass checkpoint and enter the security line. Ticketed passengers continued up a level and suddenly the din and activity fell away; there were few people in line. Traditional TSA rules (computer, liquids, shoes, jackets, etc.in the bins) were applied after a Boston Logan experience a few days earlier that required NONE OF IT.
Once the shoes were redoffed and the backpack repacked, I travelled a 1/3 mile tunnel to the gates and quickly crossed a threshold into a modern, white, peaceful, little-occupied, spacious, retail-lined terminal - a whole new world.
The whole check in process, from drop off to gate, for an international flight at an airport as busy as LAX, was less than an hour. Congrats, LAX; great job!
Nobody checked the size or weight of my carry-on backpack. Good thing.
A single seat in a fully-occupied Airbus 350 was my bedroom for the night as it took me to the island nation of Fiji for a three-hour, early morning layover. Disembarking to an open-air jetway, that tropical island air hits.
There were distant views of the water and mountains, and I wished I had time to see more. The small terminal included duty-free retail in more than half of its area, with space left over for eight gates and not-quite-enough waiting seats. For passenger dining, there were two small local prepared-food purveyors and a Burger King, whose menu was exclusively chicken sandwiches/nuggets and veggie burgers.
It was nice to see on my second flight these wood-and-paper recyclable utensils - we should be doing this everywhere.
We boarded for another five-hour journey and the new clientele, including more Australians on their way home, gave off an aura of calm, order, and civility. In what seemed like an hour, I was looking out at the runways at Sydney Airport.
The Sydney airport felt easy and manageable from the get-go, really very pleasant. There were several opportunities for SIM cards and I took advantage of one.
It was simple to find and board the AirportLink train, utilizing a credit card in Google Wallet to get through the turnstile (I like this idea of credit card as fare card!). Still to get used to is the need to tap in and tap out of every trip (I forgot to tap out once already, requiring a second trip up six stories of stairs.)
The train itself is a double-decker - white, bright, wide, spacious and very very quiet. It was 67 cents to come into the city, where I transferred at Central Station to a light rail line.
Central Station is beautiful. It clearly serves many different lines and modes (commuter rail, intercity, transit, etc.) and hits all the points of orientation, aesthetics and durability for the passengers. The sculptural qualities of the curilinear panel system at the basis of the aesthetics- a hearty terra cotta? - played so nicely with the various light conditions.
Information, space to circulate, seating, visual interests - all of the check boxes checked.
The district I'm staying in, Pyrmont, is a beautiful city neighborhood combining a commercial/institutional area, blocks of smaller, older townhouses and many mid-rise residential buildings. It has a high, rocky ridge at its core I think, offering substantial views, while connecting to a ring of ample harborfront walkways and greenspace at its base.
A sense of the vertical, multi-level character of the district.
The Harbor Bridge is never far.
Names of immigrants on this “Welcome Wall”. Australia and the US share that history plus a complicated relationship to indigenous peoples.
Pedestrian and bicycle vertical connections and horizontal facilities are incorporated on a regular basis, and it is fun to see a flurry of bikes at evening commute going up a multi-segment switchback ramp to access a high bridge over the harbor, on their way home for the night.
With my AirBNB host and while walking the streets, I am often hearing American accents, and seemingly not from tourists; these are people look and act local. I look forward to knowing more about that - are there so many Americans living here? Certainly while planning my trip I knew of or heard about family or friends of friends living here, but somehow thought it wouldn’t be as noticable.
It’s struck me in these first few hours here in Sydney, just how much I’ve tailored my life in the past few years to getting here. How much I’ve set aside, temporarily, to do this. And how grateful I am that I could.
I'm on the other side of the world now, and it is amazing how comfortable it all feels. Often when travelling abroad the destination includes immersion in a new language or a very different culture. Not so with Sydney, which so far has been frighteningly easy to navigate and comfortable and even familiar, but of course reaching an understanding of this or any country will be more subtle and require a deeper dive than the obvious and superficial. Still, I'm so grateful for the relative ease of the travel and the fit, and look forward to learning so much more.
