Cruel, not Unusual Do I care about The Race That Stops the Nation? No, I do not, except that it is cruel and enriches parasites.

Sydney’s Gatwick There’s a long-standing call for Sydney to have a second airport. The traffic through the existing airport is stalled by capacity and by the curfew. Eliminating the curfew is one option, but the position of the airport means a lot of people would be seriously inconvenienced by the late-night noise, so it’s unlikely to pass the palatability test among the political set. There’s also, however, another issue, one that isn’t addressed by any of the proposals for a second airport: the capacity to funnel those travellers into the city. All those additional cabs and private cars aren’t going to do much for any of the motorways in existence, already carrying more traffic than they were designed for, and then what are you going to do once you hit the actual city limits? As it is, four-lane traffic reduced to two lanes at the margins causes considerable pain. The single train servicing the existing airport is inadequate, as is the rest of Sydney’s commuter rail, so don’t expect that to get better anytime soon. Successive governments have failed to address the issues other than by redefining what constitutes “late” or reducing service. Imagine what building an airport further out would entail, and what that rail system would look like. Oh, the pain. Forget it. Virgin’s dummy-spit over international-to-domestic transfers, calling the current system at the current airport ”third world” isn’t so far off, although at least some parts of the third world, like Singapore, do quite well, thanks. I had more trouble in Switzerland transferring terminals, although that also involved an additional security check and customs. (What did they think I did after the first security check and while I was on the plane? Build a rifle out of cheese and biscuits?) There is effectively no existing infrastructure to transfer between terminals. But let’s think about that in relation to travelling to Australia. How many times will an international arrival require transfer to a domestic flight? If you’ve come to Sydney, more often than not you are not then on your way to Melbourne or, for that matter, to Wagga Wagga or Albury. It’s possible; it will happen; but enough to build a light rail transfer facility? Maybe not. A Virgin Airways executive may do it, in order to bounce around the places his or her planes go to in Australia, but business travellers more generally will come to Sydney to be in Sydney etc. There just isn’t the same level of international commerce headquartered in the regional cities and towns that’s going to see a lot of flight-hopping. If the conversation prompts improvements, let’s start with fixing the problems the current airport presents. This could mean building that second airport as a replacement for the majority of international flights, leaving Kingsford-Smith for the domestic – so long as there’s a good transfer function built, of course.

Travelogue, last leg After Rome, we flew to NYC, caught a cab to LaGuardia, and visited Mom & Dad in North Carolina. Then, after a too-brief visit, back to NYC. We stayed in a Holiday Inn in Long Island City, with a very nice view across the East River. As much as we wanted to see everything, we couldn't, with only two-and-a-half days of tourism available to us. We missed a few things due to a lack of prior research and no local expertise beyond my memory of the subway system. Luckily that was enough, mostly, for a few highlights. I don't often miss living in NYC and doubt I would be successful transitioning back, as the up-front costs would be extraordinary, but it was nice to see the old place, including many of the new things I've read about. So much new; it was good to see. So much old; it was good it's still there. (The subways, however, need a serious upgrade. Rome and Berlin were so much quieter and cleaner. Although their maps aren't as good as the MTA's.)

Travelogue, part 4 Rome, the Eternal City. Absolute chaos. More tourists than I've seen outside of the Louvre, in Paris. Our hotel wasn't great, but it was less than 2 kilometers from the Colosseum, another 2 to the Vatican, so we had no trouble getting around and seeing as much as we could in two days, which was a lot. Romulus' & Remus' mom doesn't look too impressed, but she's everywhere. The Swiss Guard really do dress like 1970's McDonald's employees, but with spears and metal hairnets. You cannot escape the crowds at any time of day.

Travelogue, part 2 Christo. I've missed all the installations he's done since I first learned of him, including the Central Park "Gates", so I didn't, even after reviewing the web site, have much sense of what the "Big Air Package" was going to be like. We trained out from Berlin to Oberhausen, where a disused "gasometer" stands, and where Christo has previously had an installation. It was built in 1929 and was the largest in Europe. It is indeed enormous, a tourist destination in its own right, apparently. Christo's installation on this occasion was an "air package", which is the format he started out with, back in the sixties, and has come back to now and then since. This is the biggest. There is no clear way to describe the experience other than "awesome".

Travelogue, part 3 So, after Berlin, we flew to Pisa, where we didn't stop, but caught a train up to La Spezia and then on to Riomaggiore, the southernmost town in the Cinque Terre region. This was a true highlight of the trip. The landscape was incredible, mountains straight up out of the sea, terraced for olives and grapes, but much of it still wild, too, with each of the five towns along the coast being perched and clustered right on the edges. Italians seem to like their cats, too.