sydney... a short trip?

This week (and maybe a couple more days after that) I'm in Sydney. Not quite as exotic as Hanoi, but a trip non-the-less : ) And I think the "localness" of the trip lulled me into a false sense of security. Instead of carefully making sure I'd packed everything, I whacked everything together Sunday night. Here's a list of things I forgot as a consequence:

• USB 'stick'
• VPN password card
• Laptop charger
• Small wireless access point
• Camera
• iPod <-> USB cable

Not an insignificant list of items! Luckily I can work around most of them - for instance I drove to work before the flight and picked up my laptop charger. Even so, it's a good trip to be reminded of the ease of such oversights - good because it's only going to be a week long, and it's not too far from home.

The lack of a camera - dodgy camera phone excluded - is annoying me. I decided against taking the bulky SLR as I wasn't going to be touring, but I did forget to grab a little point 'n shoot. Once in Sydney I've been wanting to take photos ever since! My hotel room is on the 2nd storey, and looks directly out onto the Sydney monorail - not so exiting for a local, but pretty cool for me. Last night I went for dinner at a Spanish restaurant and got served a magnificent (although slightly too big) roast pork meal. It was definitely worth a photo!! The fish markets in Pyrmont were also worth a few photos: if I had a camera!

Okay enough ranting about that - lesson has been learnt. More observations about Sydney: it's damned haphazard! None of the streets are straight, some are one way, and all of them cause me to get lost. Luckily this new fangled phone can be used to look up maps of the city : ) The skyline looks imposing too, as the buildings "overlap", whereas in Melbourne, due to the city grid if you are walking along the street the buildings "line up" and have gaps between them where the roads are.

Tonight I met up with Mark who I worked with a few years back at Dynamic Hearing. He's recently become the father of two twin girls, and so it was great to catch up with him. We had fun comparing notes on transition stages of life. Me getting more involved in my work and career, and him winding back work a bit to help his wife Liz look after two demanding little people.

Another thing I forgot - I didn't find out if they were identical twins or not. Not so important : P