Thermal Eye on America

So, the good thing about my company sending me around the world for work is that they are paying to get me here, paying for my expenses, and that it does not eat in to my vacation time.  The bad thing about it, of course, is that I am in fact being sent around the world for work, and that decisions about where I will go and when are not of my making.  For example: If I had been planning a 2-week stay in Australia by myself, it would have included more time down south, or maybe a snorkling trip to the barrier reef, and certainly I would have gotten in to the outback.  Now, the thing is, I still could have covered at least one of those things if  chose to do so.  Unfortunately, it would mean checking out of a hotel, getting on a plane, flying where I was going, checking in to a new hotel, seeing it, and repeating the whole process in time to get on my plane back to L.A. in a few days.  Which, again, probably wouldn’t be so unappealing if it weren’t coming at the end of several weeks of doing exactly that every couple of days.  So, instead, in a few hours I am going to check out the hotel here in Manly (home of the game “which sign has the most amusing instance of the word ‘Manly’ “.  These can fall into categories of both “appropriate”, e.g..: 

• Manly Parasail
• Manly Bike Tours
• Manly Kyokushin Karate & Fitness
• Aloha Surf Manly Style
• Manly Blades (it’s a skate shop, but with an awesome name)

Or in to the more “Ironic” category:

• Manly Art and Framing
• Manly Laundry and Dry Cleaning
• Manly Jeweler
• Manly Secretarial Services

and, of course, the “Vaguely Homoerotic” category:

• Manly Beach Babes
• Manly Fruit Market
• Manly Bungalow

Full disclosure - I have not personally seen all of these signs, but got many of them of a Google maps search of “businesses”.  Anyway, what was I saying again?) and catch the ferry in to Sydney, where I’ll check in to another hotel (but no plane ride in between!) (and the ferry is supposed to be a great way to see the harbor), then walk around Sydney and see the sights there.  A couple days checking out Sydney, then I’ll rent a car and drive (on the left, for my first time ever) in to the mountains to do some hiking about there. Also, I need to buy some new shoes.  All of this walking around on worn-out shoes ($10 shoes at that) is not doing my feet or legs any favors, especially since I tend to fall in to a pattern of “go as far as I can, until I feel like I can’t really walk any more, then turn around (the more astute of you will see the problems with that plan.  I have a tendency to forget every time, though). 

This entry was posted on Friday, April 4th, 2008 at 4:03 pm and is filed under Travel, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.