Outback Wanderers: Day 30: Driving in Sydney & the Big Interview

December 14, 2010

There something about the signs in Sydney. It has happened on the highways coming in to the city, in the Blue Mountains, on the foot paths in the CBD and on the walk trails around the caravan park. They lead you partway to your destination – and then they leave you stranded, not another sign to be found.

It’s been six years since we lived in a city so maybe we just don’t understand how they operate, which is certainly at a more hyped-up level than we’re used to after so long in the bush. On the day after our arrival we decide to drive into the CBD to investigate the parking situation in anticipation for our interview at the American Consulate the next day. Our GPS is on the blink and won’t tell us how to navigate Sydney so we’re on our own – with only general maps. Thankfully we have a laptop and mobile Broadband so I prop it on my lap in the passenger seat, connect to Google Maps and work out a plan for how to get from the caravan park to the CBD. The problem is Sydney is checkered with toll roads. Cryptic signs supposedly tell you how to negotiate the tolls, but it’s clear they don’t like cash and we haven’t a clue what an e-card is. Our aim quickly becomes to avoid them. It’s not that we don’t want to pay; we just don’t want to get caught in a situation where we’re trying to figure out how to pay – while a stream of restless drivers waits behind us.

So Google Maps has us heading towards the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Great idea – we’re tourists after all – but the big red and green toll signs increase and it’s clear we’re trapped. Only here are a couple of lanes that don’t have red and green toll signs. So we take one – why not! And before we know it we’re cruising over the bridge in a traffic-free lane while the majority of morning rush hour traffic is queued in the three lanes to our left, dutifully paying their tolls. At the end of the bridge is another row of toll booths – ah, now it’s clear: we have to pay after we’ve crossed. Only no one’s stopping and the booths don’t seem to be in operation. We coast into Sydney wondering how we managed a free entry.

We pull up behind a delivery vehicle in a ‘No Standing’ zone to regroup. I google ‘Sydney CBD carparks’ and find one close to the address of the American Consulate. Traffic is bumper to bumper at 9am and our journey of one kilometer takes us ten minutes. We take a sharp left when we find the big blue “P” sign at our destination and descend into an underground carpark. Several luxury cars are queued in front of us. After each one moves through the boom gate, it stops and a finely-dressed, impeccably groomed man alights, a suit slung over one arm, briefcase in the other hand. We get to the boom gate and discover it costs $16/hour to park -- $35 for two hours. I think we’ve made the wrong choice here. We smile at the unsmiling lady at the gate and tell her we just want to turn around, which she agrees to let us do – no charge.

We try another car park but can’t negotiate the one-way roads and the heavy traffic enough to explore that option. I’ve had enough of this and direct Johan, via Google Maps, to Mrs Macquarie’s Rd in the Royal Botanic Gardens. Ah, once again green surrounds us – and there’s ample parking -- $4.50/hour. We can relax.

I suggest we skip the whole idea of driving the car into Sydney for the interview. As we need to get our car serviced, we’ll book it in for 7.30am tomorrow, get a lift from there to the train station and take a train into the city. Getting around crowded, hurried places isn’t easy for us – Johan’s back pain is always a threat and stress increases the likelihood that it will interrupt our schedule. But after today’s driving experience, it seems a less stressful option – and Johan agrees.

The Big Day comes: our interview at the American Consulate for Johan’s permanent residency visa. We’ve brought a bag of city attire – nice shirts, slacks, jewelry and make-up for me. For some reason it seems necessary to impress them. We rise at 6am, shower, a quick breakfast and we’re on the road by 7am, aiming for the Subaru dealer a couple of suburbs away. But traffic is heavy and the going is slow. We’d been warned by signs on the motorways to expect traffic delays on Tuesday morning as there was a major city event taking place. We’d seen signs of it at the Opera House the day before– bandstands built and temporary fencing to barricade the onlookers. Helicopters hovered overhead sending an ominous drone across the city. We had no idea what it was all about.

At 7.45am, as planned, we get in the service centre transport vehicle with two other customers getting their cars serviced. A young man drives us to the nearest train station, full of enthusiasm about the day’s event: Oprah’s in town. His sister won two free tickets and how lucky is that? He’d found out recently that hawkers were getting $20,000 per ticket -- $40,000 his sister could get if she’d only sell them. But no way; who’d pass up the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see Oprah? I mean, really, the President was here a couple of years ago and no way was the security as tight as it is now. But he wasn’t going to join the thousands queued up around the Opera House for a potential glimpse of the celebrity. Better to just watch it on TV. “Better to just not watch it,” I say with a smirk, but then regret it. Who am I to destroy the celebrity fantasies of the young with my middle-aged cynicism?

The train ride goes well, despite the full trains and the hurrying masses who aren’t impressed by the bewildered tourists stopping the flow to negotiate buying a ticket at the vending machine. But we manage it. Rumbling over the Sydney Harbour Bridge is nearly as breathtaking as our free ride on the motorway yesterday.

We arrive in the CBD in plenty of time. We rest on a bench mesmerized by the frenetic flow of humanity in the shrouded dimness of tall buildings, everyone intent on going somewhere. Martin Place is the heart of the CBD, but we don’t know which of the impressive ornate buildings houses the American Consulate. While Johan nurses his back pain, I go off to investigate its location. By the time I return, we have ten minutes to get to the 10^th floor of the MLC building. “How did you know it was there?” Johan asks, obviously impressed by my navigation abilities, even without Google Maps. “I just looked for the tallest building around and figured that’s where the Americans would put their consulate,” I quip. Well? I was right.

Getting into an American Consulate is only slightly more harrowing than getting through security at airports. Drivers licenses are confiscated as are all hand bags, electronics and mobile phones. They let us take our water bottles, but only after we’ve taken a drink to prove the contents aren’t lethal. We’re then escorted to an elevator where we’re told to ascend to the 59^th floor - no escort; could be too dangerous.

We both expected a somewhat formal interview situation with a stiff-necked bureaucrat around a table in a private room where we’d be asked all sorts of questions about our private lives. But the employees of the Sydney American Consulate stay well-barricaded behind bullet-proof glass plates. Though our interview was scheduled for 9am, a sign asks us to take a number when we arrive and we then wait for 45 minutes before it’s called. While we wait, other immigrant applicants are called to the windows where they stand for an interview that can be heard by anyone seated in the waiting area. I’m starting to feel very uncomfortable about this – as soon as our number is called, we’ll be required to stand up immediately, move to the window and stand for an interview that could take 10 or 15 minutes. In my experience with Johan’s sciatica problem, this is a recipe for disaster.

But Johan’s drugged up with extra doses of pain medication and though the pain has been threatening all morning, is hasn’t come in hard enough to slow our progress. When he’s called to the window, he pulls it off beautifully. I’m usually pretty attuned to his pain, but I didn’t even know it had come in during the interview until he told me after it was over.

The whole process seems like an exercise in bureaucratic compliance. There are no personal questions, as we’d heard with the other applicants, and they even accept the photocopies of the papers we’d submitted for my 2009 U.S. tax returns – even though they hadn’t yet been verified by the IRS. The only thing pending is receipt of the Australian Federal Police check, which we will receive in the mail in the next week or two.

It all seems too easy! We are giddy with relief when we descend from the 59^th floor to ground level and celebrate with a coffee and croissant at the nearest cafe. Our goal to reach America by next April seemed certain.

My goal for the day is to walk across the Sydney Harbour Bridge, which I’d only found out was possible when I’d heard some friends had hiked across it during a recent visit to Sydney. We kiss good-bye at the end of Martin Place and while I go off to find the Bridge, Johan goes to Hyde Park to people watch.

It's the lunch hour on the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Amongst a few intrepid tourists are a stream of joggers, some with armbands measuring their pulse, and well-clad business men, pens in pockets, runners on their feet, and young thin office clerks, tight fitting dresses with plenty of cleavage, clunking along in oversized runners. Everyone seems on a mission to get somewhere, or to get healthy. Everywhere we've gone in Sydney, people are running.

I stand at the north end of the bridge looking down. There is a park directly below, a circle of green grass edged by foliage that juts out into the harbour. A man with long disheveled hair and black clothing is walking in the middle of the park, which is otherwise empty. He walks five paces, turns abruptly to his left, walks a few paces more, stops, turns a full 90 degrees and walks another ten. His walk is erratic but consistently focused on a section of about ten square metres in the middle of the park. It’s not intentional. He’s not practicing some latest eastern path to well-being. He’s just nuts – or so he seems in a city full of purpose.