4:28:00

    Is that even the date? We crossed the equator and national dateline about two hours ago. I meant to have a stewardess ask the captain to update me when we crossed the equator so I could go flush the toilet. I was curious which way it would flush at the equator, but I forgot. Hopefully I'll remember on the way back.

    Christ. What time is it? Everyone else is asleep, and I'm stuck in the window seat. That's the last time I request a window seat on a 14-hour flight. Luckily, the plane is so dry and the food so salty, I've only gotten up once.

    The time, the time. Wait. I can figure this out. We left at 11:20 p.m. from L.A. We have a 14-hour flight with four hours left. So that makes it 9 a.m.

    I wonder if Amanda's up yet. Probably. Saturdays are usually early for her. She's been working too much. That, or I've totally lost track of what it's like to have a job that requires effort. The latter is probably the case.

    I've met two Sydneysiders on the flight. One woman is the manager of the business section of a local paper. I teased her that we'd have to hire her to do our media buying when we move down to Sydney en masse. She didn't say no, anyway.

    Her friend, a database marketer for Big Blue, is thinking of moving to either Seattle or Philadelphia. I told her Philly has the reputation of being run-down, but that I'd heard economic revival projects are in the works. But coming from the reputed laid-back culture of Australia, the West Coast would be better suited for her.

    Ugh. This flight is too long. My tailbone is killing me. I keep shuffling from cheek to cheek just so the streaks of pain don't do any permanent damage. And sleep? Ha! I twist around and contort my spine, then wake up every two minutes with a muscle cramp.

    And they've shown like four movies. Opiate for the masses, but I'm truly thankful. They showed "Anna and the King," and we were all cooing over how wonderful it was. I mean, we'd been cooped up in a plane for 11 hours, so watching grass grow would've been a welcome distraction.

    4:30:2000

    Toured Sydney, or at least the Circular Quay and The Rocks.

    We were walking through this historical site as a group on Sunday. Deb, Kim and Jerry were blathering on - quite loudly - about how amazing it was the country could spring up from such a hard scrabble place. Especially since it was founded by thieves, prostitutes, murderers, lunatics and rapists. Somehow, the three of them weren't turned to stone by the looks they received from the Australians.

    It was at that last bit that Kaia and I looked at each other and began to walk very slowly to distance ourselves from them. I mean, could they be any more like the ignorant, loud-mouthed American stereotype? I later bought Kaia a pin that says, "Americans have smaller brains." She laughed.

    5:1:2000

    Christ. What a long day. Were it not for the food and booze at the end, I'd have been miserable. Well, I actually was miserable, but the food masked it and the booze is helping me forget. I just wouldn't want to leave any of the details out. This is for posterity, after all.

    First, a character list for our little business trip:

Me: Mild-mannered writer who begged management for a trip to Australia. No real purpose in visit other than to serve as peanut gallery on presentations and get some Australian lingo.

Deb: Company president and founder. Flighty as hell, but more than makes up for it with her creativity and intelligence.

Kaia: Deb's personal assistant. Former ballerina, nanny, world traveler and women's studies major. She rocks. She also walks everywhere at 35 m.p.h., which can be frustrating.

Kim: Project manager. Talks too much, often the cause for painfully long rounds of buzzword bingo.

David T. (or DT): Our manager in Australia. Actually a British import. Spent a number of years in Hong Kong. A former client. Type A personality. Slave-driver.

Jerry: One of the senior propeller-heads at our company. Smart as hell, but a big teller of fish-stories. He can one-up anyone.

    With that, we'll continue:

    We spent all day creating a presentation to a certain international bank who we'd like to have as a client. While we created the presentation, Deb and DT went to see another of our clients, I'll call them Hammer Co. Hammer's been trying to make us a super-sweet equity offer, but we're not sure if we want it because their company seems extremely chaotic. I don't envy Deb in the next few days as she has to fight these people off.

    DT, our manager in Australia, is a real slave driver. Classic Type A personality. He's a Pom, which is to say, a British import. (Pom is derived from Prisoner of Her Majesty, which is how the colonies were populated.)

    Anyway. By 8 p.m., we were just rehearsing our presentation. Deb was crashing and announced, "I'm bored." DT really wanted to do a dry run. Deb says, "We never do dry runs at home. We just throw some brochures on the table and say 'Hire us.'"

    That's not at all true. Deb has the most outrageous sales techniques I've ever seen. But it again prompted some looks between Kaia and myself because one of our senior sales guys actually tries the brochure on the table ultimatum. Like DT, he's a former client we've hired. Unlike DT, he's totally useless.

    We've hired yet another former client that worked with DT at his bank. Her name is Linda. She rules. She's brilliant and full of information on the Australian tax system, retirement system and stock market.

    Anyway. I should get around to the booze. We finally finished up around 8:30 p.m. Deb and DT retired back to their hotels, as did Kim. Kim gets a hard time from people. She's a nice person, just everything that comes out of her mouth sounds insincere. She doesn't really know the financial industry, and doesn't have any desire to learn it. She seems like an over-achieving office manager, but not in a good way. And that's mean of me to say, but it's true. Her major achievement for the day was going to Kinko's to buy office supplies, and she loved every minute of it. She's a person who likes to organize for organization's sake. And I just don't relate to it at all.

    Kaia, Jerry and I went for dinner. We wandered about the Circular Quay, but everything was closed. So we returned to the hotel for food and drink. The hotel, by the way, is like a half-block from our office and a block away from the Circular Quay.

    Many excellent drinks were had, including a post-Kaia $16.50 vodka martini. I didn't even get to keep the glass. The discussions were good, too. I've said this elsewhere I'm sure, but I might as well repeat myself, Kaia's good people. She's a little more opinionated than she lets on at work. It'd be a hard political situation for her to mouth off at work, as she's the eyes and ears of the company as Deb's P.A.

    I can't imagine doing her job and staying sane. She has to make promises with Deb's time without any real power to coerce her to keep those appointments. But she's smart as hell. And a little evil, too. She's got a healthy sense of superiority that I can relate to.

    Jerry's a big B.S.er. Heavy. A one-upper. Through hours of therapy, I now admit that I tell a lot of fish tales, but this guy…

    Oh, and a major disappointment here in Australia: The toilets don't swirl backwards. In fact, they don't swirl at all. They just churn. And the bathtub and sink didn't generate enough flow to get a good swirl going. How dull.

    5:2:2000

    Woke up with a screamer of a headache. Fucking vodka martinis (Or, as I've heard them described before, "Vodka and vermouth in a glass with olives."). And Philip Morris? Bastard. I hate that fucker.

    Somehow, though, I dragged my empty shell down to the gym this morning. Rode the bike to try and sweat out the evil spirits. They left, but they were kicking and screaming the entire way.

    Oh. Two great culinary discoveries here in Australia: tomato sauce and bacon. Tomato sauce comes in a red bottle that looks like French's mustard. But it's not ketchup, because there's not much, if any, vinegar. Yummy.

    And the Aussies eat bacon on everything, except it's not bacon. It's Canadian bacon, which is located very close to real bacon on the pig, except it has the consistency of ham. Very disappointing, but still yummy.

    The bank presentation went well. They like us a lot. We ate lunch at a very chic café. The locals drank wine, and said we were prudes for having iced teas. It was 11:45 in the morning! We made the excuse that the company only pays a third of our dues at A.A., so a lot of us have had to cut back.

    Kaia, Jerry and I went out for dinner at Chinta Ria: Temple of Love in Darling Harbor. Not nearly as sexy as it sounds, but delicious food. Asian stuff, lots of Buddhas and pretty people. We talked a lot and heard a lot of love-life history as more drinks went down.

    Jerry even seems to have figured out what's been plaguing his dating scene, or lack thereof. And we figured out that I simply don't have close guy friends. We're not sure what that means, and I put the kibosh on anyone even speculating because I don't want an answer.

    As we were walking Kaia back to her hotel, she asked why we priced our contract for Hammer Co. in Australian dollars. And I know there's a tradition of doing business in your client's currency. But is that the real reason? I didn't know. I racked my brain trying to come up with some logic for it, but I couldn't. It was just an accepted idea. So now we've changed the contract to U.S. dollars, because the Australian dollar is flagging hard. On the other hand, it'd be a prime time to go with Australian dollars since it'll probably rebound.

    Oh, the contract just spelled out prices for our services. It worried me a little because we were just pulling prices and man-hours out of our ass. And then Deb said she "simply has to hire Amanda" and move us both down to Sydney.

    I'll wait while you mop up the beer you spilled. Take your time.

    I don't think we'd do it. I mean, we'd probably kick ourselves because we'll never get the chance again. But we finally have some measure of stability here in Portland: a few friends we like and places to go. Plus in Sydney there would be the hassles of commuting and taxes and visas and making new friends and blah blah blah. But it would be a blast to live in Sydney, wouldn't it?

    5:4:2000

    Only a few minutes to write, so here are some highlights:

    We went to a Hammer Co. all-call meeting. We've done a lot of creative work for them already, and they've been pressuring us into a joint-venture deal or an equity swap or something. But we've seen the chaos that is their company, so we've said, "No. Just hire us. We don't want to hop in bed with you yet. Let's just be friends."

    Anyway. They asked us to leave the meeting so they could discuss internal matters, and DT handed the president our contract and said, "I know you're leaving tomorrow, so if you could just sign that so we can get PAID for some of the work we've done, that'd be brilliant."

    I snickered all the way out the door. DT totally dissed the president in front of the whole company. Brutal. The president was not just a little bit embarrassed.

    Something else: Kim is deaf in one ear. It might explain the whole talking-over-others phenomenon. She also said the funniest, most tragic thing I've ever heard. She used to have to cheat at Marco Polo as a kid because she couldn't pinpoint noise.

    Went to dinner with Kim, Jerry, Deb and our Aussie friend, Sandra. She's a kick in the pants, a total feminist. If you could imagine a skinny, black-haired bull-dyke, that'd be her, attitude and all. Except she happens to be straight. Fucking brilliant, that one.

    Best description yet of Sydney: Everything is slightly art-deco (Jerry). And the best way to pick out a tourist is to look for people who don't appear to be models (Kim).

    Oh, and all the shops here close at 5 p.m. everyday except Thursdays. Then shops stay open later and it's a big shopping night once a week. Except that half the stores were closed and the ones that were open were empty. Very disappointing, but I guess if the government takes 48.5% of your paycheck, you're not left with much disposable income.

    5:5:2000

    Was sick all day. Wandered about "The Rocks," which is sort of an upscale, tourist-y part of Sydney just up the hill from the Circular Quay (pronounced "kee"). Bought Helen a Harley Davidson t-shirt with aboriginal-stylized hands and a boomerang on it.

    Watched hockey. I watched through to the end of regulation of the Pens-Flyers game, then took a three-hour nap. SportsCenter was on when I woke up, and I wanted to know who won in regulation. So I kept watching, and then they wrap up SportsCenter by saying, "And now we'll send you back for the FIFTH overtime period." Wow. "The Marathon on Ice" they're now calling it.

    Went to dinner at DT's out in the suburbs. He has cute kids and a lovely wife who was incredibly nice to me. She kept feeding me water and drugs. Dinner was delicious. Conversation was fun, and I tried to keep the outbursts to a minimum. I think I only blamed one high-pitched squeal on the cold medicine.

    We also met Linda's husband, James. He'd run the Sydney marathon the weekend prior, and we talked a lot about what he'll do differently for next year's race. He's also an avid hiker, and will lend me all his gear for my coastal walk on Monday. Great guy, I like him a lot.

    Of course, this hiking thing won't happen if I'm still coughing up whatever it is I'm coughing up.

    Some details:
There are totally different constellations in the Southern Hemisphere. We could only pick out one: The southern cross.

    Our cab ride to DT's was marked by lots of singing. Deb belted out a great rendition of "Swing Low" that knocked our socks off. Who knew? She sings, too. Of course, she also sang during our bank presentation, but I'd explained she's a little extreme, right?

    All the Aussies think the folks from our company are a bunch of "wankers" because we're so touchy-feely and supportive. That's not an especially nice thing to say to your visitors, but they seem to like us anyway.

    Aussie culture is very cynical. They prefer to tear people down rather than building them up. They have what are called "tall poppies." Anyone who stands out for doing something good is "trimmed" to the level of everyone else like a tall poppy seed plant. This especially applies to anyone who gets a big head. Still, they're very happy people, and they'll admit their cynicism with a chuckle.

    5:7:2000

    I'm not a big fan of being alone down here. Or maybe it's not that I don't like it, but rather I've already done the alone thing.

    The trick to surviving it is not to cling to people too tightly, which I may be doing with Kaia. But it's hard when I'm on the other side of the world and there's no one fun with which to hang out.

    I was saying to Kaia at a bar that being alone at home is easier, either because I know Amanda's going to show up or I'm in a familiar environment. But I don't think that's entirely accurate. I think it's probably easier because I've been with friends at work all day and have had some social interaction.

    But on this trip, that's not the case. Here, there's only one person I know (Kaia) and two people I'd like to know better (Sandra and Deb). Anyway, the end result is I come off like a lonely puppy. And that's got to be annoying. I'll have to apologize to her for that later.

    Details:
Australian Rules Football game. Also known as a "Footy." The Sydney Swans vs. the Port Adelaide Power. The women behind us were a real treat. "C'mon, boys!" and "Get 'em, Swannies!" and when the ball would go to no one in particular, "Who to?" Then they started discussing one of their friends, "Oh, she just needs a good orgasm." It was the opposite of restaurant quality humor. Nothing fancy at all.

    The game changes rather quickly, as it only takes about 10 seconds to get the ball down inside the 50-meter arc. There are 18 men to a side, and the ball is moved by soccering it (kicking it), punching it forward, or tossing it laterally. Plus, the game isn't the head-down, ear-mashing affair of the other rugby leagues there.

    When the ball goes out of bounds, the side-line referee tosses the ball over his head backwards into a throng of players. When a goal is scored, the end-zone referee walks out and withdraws to imaginary pistols. The weird thing is, no one in the crowd cheers until he makes the motion. In the U.S., the cheers would go up as soon as the ball was punted.

    Meat pies, Australia's contribution to world cuisine? Eh. Not that good.

    Oh, and my new favorite drink is a vodka martini with a lemon twist.

    5:10:2000

    Just another thing on the feelings of being alone: I think being so far from home and friends with nobody reminded me too much of college.

    I had some pretty miserable times in college, especially my senior year. I had a really awful 22nd birthday, in which I'd made big plans and invited lots of people, only to have no one show up. At all. It was the most telling, depressing moment of college. It practically ruined all previous good memories of school.

    I might have a tendency to push people away, too. I'm getting better about not doing now. I've tried to make some friends: Helen, Kaia, even Brian and Lonnie every so often.

    So that's Sydney. Another long plane ride home. Whee! At least I've got another Harry Potter book to read and my hiking adventure to write about. Of course, what will I do for the next seven hours?

- Thom