Sydney and the World Master Games

October 10-18th Sydney and the World Master Games
Registering for the Games apparently 1 day late…Yikes
We were having a great explore of the wine region when we decided to pop on the news to find out that there have been some problems with the registrations at the games. We looked puzzled at each other wondering why people were registering ahead of time and sloughed it off that they were probable keeners. The complaints were abundant with stories of people waiting 4-5 hours in line. We did not panic as we were leaving in the morning the next day thinking that we were only 2 hours away and we will check it out as soon as we arrive.
Sydney is a beautiful but massive city full of causeways, bridges, tunnels and toll roads. Our GPS was an old out of date one and quit on us the moment we entered a tunnel. As some of the exits are in the GPS was “recalculating” (add British Accent) all our wrong turns. You know you are beginning to lose it when you start pleading with the GPS to please give better instructions or personifying the damn thing.
We were staying at Bondi Beach in what looked like an old Victorian home. Tracie wouldn’t tell me much about it ahead of time but kept reminding me of how great all our other accommodations had been thus far and I needed to keep an open mind. Looking back I was pretty good remaining calm after all of the warnings.
We finally located our house on Paul Street and met the resident manager who proceeded to show us the place. It immediately reminded me of a University residence which I attended 25 years ago. Complete with its common room and shared bathrooms. The kids were embracing the idea as soon as they entered and were greeted by a barrage of German, Austrian, French, Dutch and Swiss students all around the age of 20-26 who were in Australia on a sabbatical or going to school to learn English.
The resident manager was a right proper gay Australian chap who had spent the past 40 years in the hospitality industry working all over the world and had spend the past 15 years or so in Thailand before retiring. He returned to Australia battling skin cancer and a poor, if not, nonexistent, pension ( I owe, I owe, it’s off to work I go- hum to Snow white and the seven dwarfs theme).
Anyway I digress, the masters, we need to get to the Masters to register and find out when we play. By the time we finally unload the van it is 6:00P and Tracie finds out that the games started early today in the morning. We begin to get that sinking feeling and yell at the kids and Stan that we need to leave to find the Olympic grounds and since it is night time and the GPS is questionable that we would take the train to Homebush Olympic grounds. A 15 minute jog to Bondi Junction, 20 buck and shitty directions where we have to take three separate subway trains and we were off.
We arrived at Homebush Station close to 8pm and raced over to the registration desks which you would be happy to know was not crowded at all. In fact I believe we were the only ones there. I first went to the squash booth and found out that I had missed my first match. The coordinator made some phone calls and reorganized the draw so that I could still play but I would have to complete an extra match. I happily agreed and then proceeded to the Badminton booth and Tracie figured out that the matches for the next 3 days involved teams only and individual events started after the squash finished on Wednesday. All is good and we didn’t let anyone down especially my doubles partner Brian Johnson who was meeting me in Australia with his wife Jean and two boys specifically to play in the masters.
I am stressed out and need a drink. I didn’t have to play squash until 8am the next morning.