I've been sitting here listening to the Beatles on my iPod and I've suddenly had the urge to start writing out what's happened to me in the last week. I've been stuck here in Sydney for about five days now, despite the fact that I should be halfway up Australia's coast by now. But I'll start at the begining.
I landed in Sydney on Tuesday, very excited to finally be stepping out of my comfort zone, but I think this may have been a little too much optimism, because when you step out of your comfort zone, you have to expect to be left a little uncomfortable. In my case this came around day two when, driving out of the parking at my hotel, I forgot that Australia drives on the other side of the road, and managed to drive straight into oncoming traffic and wrote off my car. Fortunately I was fine as was everyone else, and everyone was very nice to me and understanding considering what I just did. I guess I was probably clearly shaken, I couldn't get out of the car at first I was so shaken up.
Anyway, long story short I now don't have a car, and I'm not sure if I want to get behind the wheel again, so I've booked a spot on a coach instead. Which is VERY expensive. Fortunately I took out gap cover for my rental as well or else I wouldn't have been able to even afford this. Actually big tip to travelers reading this, ALWAYS get CDW cover when you hire a car. It seems pretty pointeless at the depot because you think you've already got insurance, but that's actually the point of CDW cover, because insurance doesn't cover you for the first $1000 of damage. So I would have had to cough up $1000 if I didn't have it. I was actually going to turn it down but the guy at the depot was nice when I explained I didn't want to pay $300 to cover $1000 when I'd already paid for insurance, and he pointed me towards a website where I could get the cover cheaper when his boss was out the front, so I bought it on my phone for like $20. Either way it was worth it.
So I've spent the last few days just sort of wandering around Sydney on foot. I'm staying in a hostel and I'm putting off calling Mom because I know she's going to get all worked up if I tell her I was in a crash. The bus doesn't set off till Sunday, so I've still got another day, I might go to the beach, I've seen the Opera House about three times now already. Also, I've been informed that the Greyhoud busses they have here aren't anything like the ones in the states, and are actually quite nice to ride on. So in retrospect I probably should have just booked one of them straight up.
Anyway I'm going to get some more music for my phone now because I've listened to Come Together about twenty times now over the last week and I'm starting to get sick of it.
Thanks for reading. Hopefully next post I should be on the road.
