Sydney 1 and an incident

Have I ever mentioned how much I hate airports? I detest the experience. I'll start at the beginning.

R booked the holiday using Wotif. It was incredibly cheap, working out to a $70 plane flight to Sydney with Virgin and a very cheap stay at our favourite hotel, the Oaks Hyde Park Apartments. But using Wotif gives you little individual power or credit with accommodation. I'll get back to that. 

How to get to the airport? Taxi one way $70. From one and only Uber experience, over $100. Airport bus, maybe $55 for two. Airport train...oh, we don't have one. You need to allow more time to get the bus from the parking but the renamed from Long Term Parking to Value Parking at the airport was looking good at $73 for a week if booked in advance online, and that's what we did.

Terminal numbers are confusing. R said we should go inside out of the cold and find our way from there. I wanted to walk along outside to see the correct entrance.

R was wrong. We went through one security screening after asking a bloke on duty if we were at the right place for a Virgin flight and he said yes, but then you need to walk right. There was an incident when going through security with my toe nail clippers, but only after explaining what it was that showed up on the xray screening. The arsehole bloke on duty should have told us to use another entrance as using this security screening meant we would have to go through another security screening, and we did.

The second security process was not so forgiving and confiscated my very expensive toe nail clippers that were no more dangerous than a teaspoon. I was furious and I mentioned to the security person how expensive they were and he checked with his superior but the decision was no and my clippers were dumped into the confiscated bin. 

The flight was uneventful and afterwards R said that was a really nice flight. Maybe for him, but not for me at the airport. Have I ever mentioned how much I hate airports? 

R likes an aisle seat as he is tall and can stretch his legs out a bit in the aisle. That means I sit in the middle and can't really see out the window, but even so I managed to snap snow covered mountains.

We caught the very expensive train from the airport to Museum Station and walked up the hill to our hotel. We went out to buy some groceries and liquour and later had a drink at the Colombian and then went on to the very gay Kiselas for another drink and a nice pub food dinner, that came from the Courthouse Hotel pub next door.

In Sydney a VIP Lounge is code for a pokie gambling machine venue. These are to attract Asian gamblers. Ho hum. 

I'll throw in some more photos to fill out this post. Oh yes, Oxford Street is very gay. 

Art class underway. I passed a couple on the street who had left the studio and told him his art was wonderful. He thanked me. I didn't really see what he painted. 

Had we have booked this room directly, I would have complained big time about the filthy windows. 

I will still give it a harsh review on Trip Advisor.

Aside from the dirty windows, the one bedroom studio apartment was ok and had a wonderful shower.

With a wet cloth I wiped a space on a the outside of a window to take photos.

Why is it so hard in Australia to get twin beds? R put it in as a request when booking. As we were driving to the airport the hotel called to confirm that we want a king bed. In the reply that we wanted twin beds, the hotel person replied, the best we can do is a separate trundle bed. I left R to do the check in and I could hear his voice rising. We got a twin beds in a one bedroom apartment with a kitchen area. we didn't use aside from washing cups and glasses. . 

But our original booking has us with a balcony. I like a balcony.

Looking down on Hyde Park and the city.

The Connaught apartment building. Goodness knows what you would pay to live there.

War memorial building. nicely lit at night. Big day tomorrow.