SYDNEY — I’M in Australia. I had zero to do for a few minutes and figured the Hamptons are too far. So I did the only intelligent thing. I went to Australia.
It’s great. Friendly. Easy. How our country used to be. To enjoy yourself here, you need only understand Fraffly Strine — the local Castillian lingo for Frightfully Australian.
An Aussie pal told me: “Sydney’s my favorite city in the world. Only problem is it’s just too far away.”
That guy who hoisted himself hundreds of miles above Earth? Then parachuted down because he, too, had nothing else to do that day? Or maybe because the only thing playing in his neighborhood theater was a Mel Gibson movie? Anyhow, that dude’s whole trip was shorter than the Sydney run.
I mean, we’re not talking a quick hop to Cleveland. Forget crosstown and the Lincoln Tunnel at rush hour. Think: Flying to LA, collecting your luggage, hauling it by hand onto an airport bus, wrangling your way across LAX to some condemned section of the terminal that is further than Tahiti, checking in for the next leg — then — ta-da! — a cozy 15-hour ride 7,500 miles across the Pacific.
First you need a touch-up because before you arrive your roots will out-silver Santa’s. I told my hairdresser spray, tease, back-comb, shellack, anchor it. My scalp was stiffer than the shot of truth serum Romney wants to give Obama. Bend down, I could scrub a pot. Back into a helicopter, I’d dent the blade.
Then came security. Queen Kong, the TSA gorilla, wanted to know what’s hidden in my top knot. After a thick rubber glove pawed my scalp, I left America with the same hairdo as Ed Asner.
I’ve not flown Virgin Australia before. In fact, I can’t remember back to any association ever with the word virgin.
Virgin Australia’s great. Full-length flat-out beds with quilts and pajamas. Special johns “For Ladies Only” with theatrical dressing room light bulbs surrounding the mirror. A lady pilot. Squeaky clean surroundings. My housekeeper should take notice. Ceiling lights in the shape of stars as though you’re peering into the sky. Beautiful friendly stewardesses who smile not snarl, “You tawkin’ t’me?”
And they feed you constantly. Dinner, breakfast, snacks 38,000 feet over Samoa only, being half asleep, I couldn’t say what they were if I were on the witness stand. And cutlery. Real knives.
Sydney is the second-most expensive city after Tokyo. Dress code? None. They voluntarily say, “We’re too casual, too lazy, we don’t have to.” Also because “We’re a beach environment.” Sydney’s three attractions are the city, the beach, the bush.
Near Miu Miu, Prada, Hermes, Ralph Lauren, dinner wardrobe is jeans, T-shirts. Maitre d’s frown on shorts.
Australian designers do nifty clothes. Not exactly dirt cheap. One orange suede and leather suit cost more than the airfare. A beaded jacket — $2,500. Everything retail. Aussies can’t even pronounce the word “wholesale.”
They run an operation called Chic in the City. It does chauffeur-driven tailored tours with a personal stylist on a champagne pit-stop shopping schlep. If you don’t like the clothes, so what . . . you’re so bombed you don’t care.
Reese Witherspoon, Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian and other skinny bodies with fat budgets scour the city’s trendy Paddington area. Its Zimmermann shop has now opened in SoHo. The Anna Thomas boutique, which sells to Nicole Kidman is on Queen Street. Oprah stocked up on multicolored suede fringed flats at Nat-Sui, a shoe shop in the Woollahra section.
Besides clothes, you can also pick up tidbits. Hugh Jackman’s around shooting “Wolverine,” Cate Blanchett’s getting very political, Robert Pattinson was just here staying at the brand-new QT Hotel.
Long before Naomi Watts, Geoffrey Rush and Russell Crowe came a savvy sailor and born cartographer named Captain Cook who discovered this place in 1770. In 1788, the first fleet landed here — 17 British ships with 1,028 felons onboard. The largest floating prison with the largest penal colony in history sailed to what they believed was the end of the Earth. And with the largest moat in captivity.
Laboring on farms and stone quarries, they set up the city for the king. How they handled things then, I’m not sure. It was weeks before my time. How descendants handle things now, I know. They’re the best boozers in captivity. A newborn Australian’s first words are: “I’ll have another, mate.”
Today Sydney has Bondi Beach. Plus Centennial Park, which is second in size to Central Park. There’s Redfern, the equivalent of Paris’ Left Bank, where same sex couples live. Here they’re called “DINKs.” That stands for “Double Incomes, No Kids.” It has spas, five-star restaurants, painted sunsets, the world’s most glorious Eero Saarinen-designed Sydney Opera House ($250 a seat), where Saturday night I heard “Madame Butterfly.” I know you’re all crazed about checking out the new Barclays Center, but, trust me, Giacomo Puccini’s not a shame for the neighbors.
Come . . . hop on a plane . . . spend a weekend in Sydney.