The Eye of the Hurricane

I would give anything for a hot bath right about now.  

My room, although quite nice and situated on the 18th floor, has a serviceable and nicely-tiled shower - but no bath tub.  I am pretending it's a penthouse suite (even though it's still The Travelodge), but that is the one feature that is sorely missing.  Back home, I'm generally in my beautiful, deep, antique clawfoot tub at LEAST three times each day...sometimes four.  For me, nothing compares to a long, luxurious soak in a hot bubble bath, and my mind, body and soul are desperately craving one after these past five days. And right now, I'm about 18 baths behind schedule.....

Today was completely unstructured and lazy, and you will all probably be highly disappointed when you realize I have no exciting adventures, interesting characters or stories to tell or report about other than I took three, sinfully-lazy naps, organized and stored a huge number of photographs into my external hard drive for safe keeping, had some laundry done, snapped a few last pictures of Sydney before I say adieu to this incredible, vibrant and sprawling city and went back to my favorite Thai restaurant for one last plate of yellow curry with chicken.  It was my "oasis" day that I needed so badly after the grueling, time-bending, mind-warping pace and schedule I've kept since leaving lil ol' Everett, Washington.

Looking ahead at my itinerary, I see that I leave Sydney for Ayer's Rock in the heart of Australia's outback very early in the morning.  Incredibly, my flight lands at my next destination at 1:15 and already I have a tour scheduled at 1:45!  How am I going to possibly claim my baggage, transfer from the airport to my hotel, get checked in, deliver my luggage to my room and be ready for that tour all in the span of a half hour?!  Superman, show me the nearest phone booth, please!!

So this explains why I sorta "played hookie" today and caught my breath after the winds of global travel and intense tourism carried me away. 

As with all hurricanes, once the storm quiets down for the first half, and "eye" provides a brief respite- the second half of the storm stirs up again just as powerfully.