Paul Lester Photo

Grilled chicken with fried egg on top!
Certainly, traveling to another country, by yourself, can be a life lesson. Here are some of the things that I have learned whilst traveling about by myself, in no particular order:

1. Don’t exchange your money at the most convenient place! For example, when I landed, after clearing immigration, I exchanged my money at the Travelex vendor just right in front of the baggage claim. I exchanged $400 USD @ 1.17/AUD. This netted me $342 AUD. After coming into the city, I noticed that the banks were selling AUD for 1.08/AUD, which would have netted me an additional $30 AUD, or $371 AUD. Not small potatoes.
2. Find a hotel that offers free, or low cost WiFi. If you figure that you’ll need it. Travelodge Sydney offers WiFi @$20/day. Insane. I like the hotel. It’s clean, comfortable, has a courteous, knowledgeable, and helpful staff; however, I find it rather inconvenient to have to walk several blocks to use WiFi without having to pay an exorbitant fee. As a matter of fact, you aren’t even allowed to pay for unless you are on the executive level, floors 14 – 18, a $30/night upgrade.
3. Traveling alone: Some people like it. I have found that, for my tastes, it’s not me. I like to have a companion or two to share the sights and experiences. Sure, I still saw lots of cool things and had a good time, but there was that loneliness. However, this is not a negative thing. It’s a learning thing. How would I know if I had never done it. I’m glad that I did!
4. On long flights, say more than 4 hours, get the aisle seat, especially if you have to go to the bathroom every few hours. I made the mistake of getting the window seat. Not good, especially on a 14 hour flight were I had to go to the restroom 3 or 4 times. It’s a big hassle. I’m going to see if I can change my seat when I check in on the way back!
5. Know the exchange rates and costs of goods BEFORE you go. I knew, basically, what the exchange rates where, but I didn’t have a clue as to how much everything costs. I have been able to keep the expenses in check by eating cheaper meals, and perhaps eating only twice a day. As I find myself eating lower quality meals, also known as fast food, I have tried to pick ‘better’ fare (baked) and eating one meal of only fruits and raw veggies that I bought from the store. Also, I had a couple of meals of Uncle Toby’s oatmeal
6. Maintain contact with the folks back home. It certainly helps to hear a familiar voice, even though they may be 14,000 miles away. Buy a phone card for them to call you. Much cheaper to call in than out, generally. I purchased one that automatically recharges, gave my friends the numbers, and have been in contact with them. Nice!
7. Keep a sense of humor and appreciation. I was certainly thankful to be able to do this and had quite a few laughs along the way.
8. Don’t depend on technology. Make a paper itenarary with your local address, phone number, confirmation numbers, etc. Everything that you need. When I arrived, my iPhone was dead and it had important info. Fortunately, my MacBook had the same info and it was working.
9. Get a room with a mini kitchen. Save money. Eat healthy by going to the grocery store and stocking your refrigerator with healthy snacks and easy to prepare food items.
10. I learned this near the last day. if you are staying in downtown, chances are that things will be more expensive. If it’s save, take a walk just outside of downtown. I found that prices of food dropped significantly, sometimes as much as 50% just a few streets over away from CBD – Central Business District.

All that remains
This will be my last post from Australia. It is Saturday morning, Friday night for you. I entered the country with $500 U.S. I exchanged $400 of it, giving me about $330 AUD. Over 8 days and 8 nights, I have spent all but $18.15 AUD. This morning, I will have my normal ‘brekky’ at Starbucks, which will cost me around half of that. Then, when I go to the airport, I may have something else before entering the international terminal. I’m sure that I’ll take a few coins back with me for souvenirs.

All of the money was spent on food, but not a bad amount for 8 days.

$330
- 14 (shuttle from airport to wrong hotel)
- 11 (cab to get to right hotel)
- 11 (Train ticket that I didn’t use)
- 13 (Toothbrush & Toothpaste)
- 14 (Museum entry fee)
- 6 (lotion)
=====
$261 / 24 = 10.88/meal. Not bad, but it was helped out by eating oatmeal for about 4 of those meals.

So, I go back with $100 US in my pocket and a nice experience and another country and continent to check of off the places that I’ve been!

About the money: The currency that I’ve seen:

$1 – Large gold coin in picture.
$2 – small gold coin in picture
$5
$10 – in picture
$20
$50

5 cents – small silver coin
10 cents – large silver coin
20 cents
50 cents

Australia doesn’t have a penny, which is nice. All prices shown include GST (A tax) and everything is rounded to 5 cents. So, if it says, $14.95, you pay $14.95 and your receipt shows how much GST you paid for that item as well. GST seems to be variable. For example, I payed $12.90 for the toothbrush and toothpaste and it included GST of $0.45; however, I bought an umbrella for $14.95 and it included GST of $1.36, so I’m not sure how it works.

So, now I bid you adieu, and will make my trek back to The Northern Hemisphere and the summer months. It went quickly and it was quite an experience!

I didn’t post yesterday because I’ve been stuck in the hotel for 2 days due to heavy, unrelenting rains. Today, Thursday in Australia, as I write this, it continues to rain.

I had to invoke Plan C because the other plans failed:

Plan A – Go to Blue Mountains on the train. Well, it rained on Tuesday, so I elected to stay on, but on Wednesday, I was game! I walked, in the rain, down to Central Station, went to the ticket window, as the guy when was the next train to Blue Mountains. He checked and said: In about 8 minutes. You can still make it if you hustle up the stairs. I paid $10.80 for my ticket, got through the gates, up the stairs with about 4 minutes to spare! The train had already departed. It was scheduled to depart at 10:09, it was 10:05. Next departure, 12:09. I figured that, even though it was raining, I’d take the 10 minute walk back to the hotel, relax a bit, and have another go at it at 12:09.

Then, I thought to check to see how much time it would take to get there. I payed $2 for 20 minutes of internet time, checked the schedule, found out that it was a 3 hour journey. It gets dark around 5:30, which would only leave me 2.5 hours to explore. Not nearly enough time. I blew it off. There went that $10.80. Instead, I went to lunch at noon, came back finished the wedding book that I’d been trying to finish, watched some reruns on television. So much for Wednesday.

Plan B – Wake up Thursday morning, today, if it’s not raining, head down to the wharf, catch a ferry to the zoo, and hang out at the zoo. When I woke up it was raining quite hard and continued on through the morning. well, I wasn’t about to be trapped in the hotel room for another day! No way, Jose!

Plan C – Do something indoors such as the Aquarium or Wildlife World. I went with plan C. I waited a bit to see if it would stop raining. No dice, so I left, stopped by the local pharmacy, bought a small umbrella for $14.95, then proceeded to walk about a mile to Darling Harbour. I probably could have caught a taxi for a bit less, one way, but I hadn’t walked in two days and I needed to get my feet on the pavement!

I made it, feet slightly wet, paid my admission, $50, for the combo ticket. I spent the next 2.5 hours walking through both attractions, having a good time. Neither were awesome, but the aquarium was pretty cool! They had a couple of walk-through tubes that were underwater and it was very cool to watch stingrays and sharks cruise above me.

It was a much nicer way to spend the afternoon, rather than watching McGyver!

I can’t believe that the adventure is over! Only two more long plane rides and I’ll be back in Charlotte. I leave here at 2:45 PM local time. Arrive in SFO at 11:00 AM local time (yeah, get back before I left! 13:15 flight, 17 hour time difference), then leave SFO at 1:00 PM and get back to Charlotte at 9:00 PM. My body clock will tell me that it is 11:00 AM. This should be interesting!