Sydney--Day 1: Outbound

My trip to Australia certainly seemed to sneak up on me. In the two weeks between my South Island trip and my birthday weekend, I was barraged with a bunch of work to do and turn in for all of my classes, as well as stressful back-to-back Maths and Mathematical Econ. tests. I spent the night before the trip toiling over a Maths assignment, and I had class until 2 PM the next day. Needless to say, my mind wasn't in my typical travel mentality, so as I was walking up Symonds Street to my room after class on Thursday I found myself thinking: "Whoops, I'm flying to another country tonight! How did that end up happening?"

As such, I did very minimal preparation. On my South Island trip, I carried around a hefty 30+ page stack of binder-clipped A4 paper that included all of my bus and hostel confirmations, printed Google Maps of all the places I was staying, and an Excel spreadsheet that summarised everything (with an extra copy in my wallet, just for backup). For Sydney, I had my plane and hostel confirmations I had printed out the night before and a piece of notebook paper on which I had scribbled a few places I found on Wikitravel and the train lines I needed to take to get to them, as well as my ticket to the NRL Preliminary Final (more on that later).

I packed my little soft-sided duffel bag with a few days worth of clothes and necessities (no backpack this time), grabbed my passport, and headed off to the airport. I was basing my nonchalance on the ease of flying from Dunedin to Auckland a few weeks earlier--I assumed that flying to Sydney would be just the same. Wrong. It turns out that international flying is an entirely different animal. After checking in at the Emirates counter, I was confronted with an American-sized line at security--and the surprise that liquids couldn't just be sent through the machine like in Dunedin. And I had my shampoo and soap bottles just sitting in my bag.

Now, I like to pride myself on being an efficient traveler. I usually am able to fly through the security line in such exotic airports as Boston and Baltimore, and I grumble internally at those who don't know how the system operates and slow down the line. That said, I looked like a complete travel novice at Auckland Airport. Now, coming from a country where the "3-1-1" rules are strongly enforced by the TSA, the liquid requirement shouldn't have been a surprise. Nevertheless, maybe due to my distracted mental state the previous days, it really through me for a loop. I bought a little plastic bag for my liquids for $0.20 at a airport bookstore (thankfully my soap and shampoo bottles were travel-sized) and hurredly crammed my toiletries inside. Next came the departure card--information about me and my destination that needed to be filled out and handed to the customs agent before passing through security, and another unfamiliar item. Finally, confident that my preparations were complete, I got in the security line and waited for a half-hour, assuming I was all set.

Wrong again. I heard an announcement over the PA: "all liquids, blah blah, including shampoo, nail polish, blah blah, toothpaste..." Toothpaste?? Crap, my toothpaste was in a separate pouch in my bag--and not in the plastic ziploc bag. By this point, I was almost to the metal detector, and I started to panic. Here I was, holding up the pre-security line digging around for in my bag for my toothpaste (it seemed take hours before I found it), fumbling around with my boarding pass and passport while I put the toothpaste in the bag, nearly forgetting to take my watch off for the metal detector, and (the biggest tragedy of them all) leaving my perfectly packed bag in ruins. Complete failure. Considering how frazzled I must have looked on the other side of the security line, it's no surprise that I was "randomly" selected for a secondary screening pat-down for the first time in my life.

After the security debacle, I composed myself and walked to the gate and regained my enthusiasm for traveling. I had been excited for this trip for a while--not just because I was going to Australia, but because how I was getting there. As part of my birthday present, I had booked myself on two interesting flights: Auckland to Sydney on Emirates flying on their flagship Airbus A380 service, and back from Sydney to Auckland on my birthday flying LAN Airlines (the flag carrier of Chile) on a Airbus A340: both new planes and airlines for me. I'm going to spend the rest of this post talking about these two flights.

As I may have mentioned in a previous post, or as you may already know, the Airbus A380 is the largest passenger plane in the world. It's the only passenger plane with two full decks, and it's powered by four massive Rolls Royce engines. It seats from 500 to 800, depending on the class configuration, and one of them will set you back a cool US$333 million: a third of a billion US dollars. It's so big that the FAA needed to invent a new class of airplane for Air Traffic Control purposes. Usually, large jets are referred to as "Heavy jets" to inform ATC that they need additional spacing due to the extra wake turbulence they produce--pilots are required to say "Heavy" at the end of their call sign on any transmission (i.e., the flight I took from LA to Auckland would have been "Qantas 26 Heavy"). For the A380, "Heavy," just doesn't cut it--it produces so much wake turbulence and is so large that it's the only jet in the world that's in the "Super-heavy" class (my flight's call sign would have been "Emirates 413 Super" on ATC).

One of the first delivered A380s, c/o Airliners.net

There are only 52 Airbus A380 in the world right now, and Emirates itself has 13 of them. Emirates, if you haven't heard of them, is the flag carrier of Dubai. Like everything else in Dubai, Emirates is coated in opulence. Basically, their business model is to buy lots of big, shiny new widebody aircraft (A380s and Boeing 777s, mostly), attract the best pilots from around the world to come fly them ("Hey look! Shiny new toys! Want to move to Dubai?"), and pride themselves on world-class service, especially in their premium cabins. Every year, Emirates competes with another airline you've probably never heard of, Etihad Airways of Abu Dhabi, for the Skytrax top in-flight service award. Needless to say, I was excited to fly the A380 for the first time and see if Emirates service was all it was cracked up to be. When Emirates showed up as one of the cheapest options to get from Auckland to Sydney, I snapped up the ticket in a hurry.

Auckland Airport had to do a little expansion of its own to accommodate the A380, building a new terminal extension that was a healthy 10 minute walk down some travelators to a seating area that still smelled of new construction. Rounding the corner, I got my first glimpse of my aircraft for the evening: Emirates A380 registration #A6-EDC, which was Emirates third A380 and the twelveth made overall.

A6-EDC, with an Air New Zealand jet behind it

I have to say, it was a little bit of a letdown. From its exterior, the A380 is not a very sexy plane. The second deck bulges uncomfortably from the main deck, and it just looks too tall for its own good. While impressive in scale, it didn't blow me away like a Boeing 777: a plane that impresses me whenever I see one, although I've never actually flown in one.

A380 Interior. It's fuzzy, I know. Blame the "mood lighting"

A member of the flight crew greeted me inside the doors, read my boarding pass, and directed me (verbally) to my seat, calling me "Mr. Wittman" (why thank you!). I settled in to seat 55K (which is somehow near the front?) on the lower deck, and listened to the flight announcements, made first in Arabic and then in English, as this flight would continue onto Dubai from Sydney. Emirates has crew members from over 150 different countries, and today's crew spoke 13 different languages between them. The Australian pilot came on to tell us the flight details, and we ambled off to the far end of Auckland's only runway for a powerful takeoff.

One of the benefits of the A380 is supposed to be the in-flight experience. Its a very quiet plane--I was close to the engines, but I still notices a significant distance. They say that far in the back, you barely hear the jet noise at all. The cabin is pressurized to 5,000 feet instead of 8,000 feet like a 747, and that was noticeable too. The aircraft is so large, you really don't feel it's moving at all--you might as well be in the middle of a movie theatre. I've read that Emirates runs these planes on autopilot from just after takeoff until AFTER landing, so it was a smooth ride. The plane is basically just controlled by two Honeywell computers--supposedly the systems are so redundant that they don't even keep extra paper copies of manuals, checklists, and approach plates in the cockpit, which doesn't strike me as the wisest decision.

City names in Arabic on the IFE system

As for the cabin crew, they didn't necessarily impress me--I thought the Qantas crew on the way to Auckland was more personable. Crew member Walid walked around with a tray of hot towels that he deftly dispensed to passengers with a pair of tongs, which was actually very refreshing after the meltdown in security. My provided vegetarian meal was basically just some veg, a roll, and four small raviolis of unknown contents. For the second time, I didn't get a dessert (what gives?? Vegetarians like dessert too!). Emirates gives you a nice big personal entertainment system, with heaps of movies and video on demand. I watched a few episodes of 30 Rock I hadn't seen before, and watched the sun perpetually set outside my window as I traveled back in time.

The crew came around to clear dishes and present us with arrival cards on a silver tray. After we landed, I breezed through immigration and got a new stamp in my passport (I feel my collector's impulse kicking in...gotta collect all 203!). I then had to go through the same sort of biosecurity checkpoint as I did when I arrived in NZ.

The line was massive thanks to a just-arrived Singapore Airlines flight, with many people pushing multiple carts full of massive, oversized luggage (Why do people feel the need to take all of their possessions with them when they travel?). Thankfully, a security officer singled me out in line:

Him: "G'day. Got any food in your bag?"

Me: "No."

Him: "Any contraband?"

Me: "No."

Him [stamping my arrival card with a magical green mark]: "Express lane down the end. G'day!"

I went down to the express lane, where my bag was never inspected. I guess my word was good enough?

So here I was, standing in Australia, with no Australian currency! Fortunately, thanks to the magic of the internet, I had researched exactly where a compatable ATM to my Bank of America debit card was located in the airport. In went my card, out came genuine Australian dollars (made of plastic, just like New Zealand dollars). Now, there's a train from the Airport directly to Central Station, which is right near my hostel. Did I use it after a long day of travel? Ha! Of course not! I read on Wikitravel that you can take a local bus to a small suburban train station called Banksia, from which you can take a train anywhere you want--saving the $12 surcharge the Airport station charges. This sort of route is the epitome of how and why I travel. After some searching, I found the bus stop, made the correct payment (Me: "How much to Banksia[Bank-see-uh] Station?" Bus driver: "Where?" Me: "Banksia[Bankshuh]" Bus Driver: "Oh, Banksia[Banksheh].") and got off at the deserted "Banksheh" station. I took Sydney's CityRail to Redfern Station, got lost again, and eventually found my hostel without looking at my map (yay for photo-memory!)

Quiet Banksia station on a Thursday night

I immediately got a good vibe from Sydney. Even at 9 PM on a Thursday, it pulsed with a quiet sense of activity. I strolled down a street looking for something to eat. People keyed into their houses and apartments, someone hailed a taxi, patrons at a Lebanese restaurant talked in Arabic. Some guy was walking his dog. I picked a Thai restaurant at random (almost no takeaway places would have been open at 9:30 in Auckland) and was treated to a simple and delicious tofu and vege satay. Even so late, the tiny place had other patrons. Three friends had met for a late dinner, a woman with an American accent asked for a takeout box for her food, the laugh track from How I Met Your Mother rang out on a TV in the background. I've said his before, but Sydney seemed like a real place, with real people going about their lives. It made me want to join them.