sydney's kingsford smith airport
perhaps the worst sufferers of the modern condition oj jetlag, are those who step off planes in Australia after twenty hour journeys, clutching their passports (but barely holding onto their sanity) as they stagger around, blinking in the bright antipodean sun, wondering where the hell their hotel is.
It was seven thirty in the morning, and I was sitting on a cold wooden bench in front of Sydney airport, half listening to roaring jets take off behind me, as I dug through my papers frantically looking for my hotel's address in Bondi.
Lined up in clean, neat rows was a confusing selection of red public buses, brown hotel buses, yellow taxis and orange shuttle buses in front of me, like gigantic M and M's. As the address eluded me, I felt like I was at the bottom of the sea, dreaming, or nightmaring; the jetlag fumes were closing in fast, and I was about to be dealt the fatal blow.
Then, with a sharp cry, I found it. And an instant later, an impossibly friendly shuttle bus driver came striding up, a brand new clipboard tucked under his arm, a grin stretched across his face, ‘Steve’ cheerfully embroidered on his shirt, and with toothpaste-white socks pulled up to his knees. He saw me, grinned, then shouted, “How ya goin’ mate?!!”
I flinched at the sharp words, like a mental patient unable to handle sudden moves; a few seconds passed as this typical, but unfamiliar, Aussie greeting sank slowly into my brain. I looked up at my new found friend and pointed weakly to a yellow taxi in front of me, slurring slowly, “Oh, I’m going by taxi into Sydney, thanks…”