The Ambassadors
R. A. Miller
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(Editor's note: This is a long story. For a print-friendly copy, click here.)

We made the roughly 20-hour flight to Australia because we thought it would be a novel place to get drunk.

Some people cross the globe for history, culture, or an event of world-class proportions. We had no such motivations. While on holiday Stateside, some Australian friends mentioned a favorable exchange rate, free use of an apartment, bars open 'til dawn, and hospitable women, so with little forethought or research we slapped $2,000 in airfare on our respective credit cards. A few weeks later we touched down in Sydney.

Like Arthur Phillip, who ferried the first payload of British convicts to colonize the island in 1787, we found nothing as we expected.

Day 1 - Saturday; Sydney

The Boeing 747 400ER is the largest passenger plane in the world. I know this not from researching airplanes but from my seat assignment: 55G. I am not in the last row of the plane. I am not even in the last section. Some poor bastard is sitting 20 rows behind me. In the time it takes to disembark, he could unpack, cook, and eat a frozen pizza.

Rob, who shared my flight, clears customs effortlessly. I do not. More than an hour after we retrieve our baggage, we grab a cab for the city. We direct our cabdriver to Kings Cross, location of our Aussie friend Troy's vacant studio apartment.

"At 8 a.m.?" the cabbie asks quizzically.

"Yes. Take us to this address," I say, handing him a piece of scrap paper with directions to the studio.

He shrugs as he puts the car in gear, and I wonder if his reaction has anything to do with Troy's cryptic e-mail adjuration to ".just keep your American street smarts. Sydney is a big city."

The apartment building is on a quiet, unremarkable street. We pay the cab driver precisely double the amount we were told to expect, and we wait for the caretaker to provide us with the keys. Waiting is an art we will perfect before our time in Australia is done.

Inside we face the first of many logistical dilemmas: We have spent 21 hours in transit, 1 hour clearing customs, and 1 hour waiting for some jackass to deliver us the apartment keys. We also have spent 60 seconds realizing that three 30-year-old men will not survive the night in a 12' x 12' flat without benefit of AC. All we want is a few hours sleep, but we know we'd better fix the lodging situation quickly before Rutt shows up on his later flight. We drop our bags and venture out to Kings Cross.

Our best option is the Kings Cross Holiday Inn - slightly nicer than the typical Holiday Inn in the States. They have one room available: two twin beds. We take it and order cot service for Rutt before we head back to Troy's to retrieve our bags. Without a working cell phone, the only way we can advise Rutt of our lodging

change is by scrap paper and chewed bubble gum applied to the front door of Troy's apartment building. Odds of this important memo lasting six hours to deliver its message: 1 in 15. First lesson in international travel: Don't be late.

A crew of prostitutes is punching in for the morning shift as we traverse the Cross again with our bags in tow, and they recommend we rest our travel-weary souls. If I thought they'd let me sleep I might consider it, but I persevere.

Rutt roles in a few hours later - apparently the gum-stuck note held better than we expected - and we're ready to hit the town for our first night in Australia. We find ourselves at a high-top table in hotspot The Bourbon, which is holding a private party that our globetrotting Australian friends arranged for us to attend in their absence. It is 9 p.m., and clubgoers are just filtering into the open-bar affair. We're on our third drink when we make contact with the natives.

"If you're looking for a place to set your drinks, I think we have space available," Rutt says to two Australian girls as he motions to the tabletop. They laugh because space is not yet at a premium in the near empty club, but they stop anyway.

"I'm Matty, and this is Kat," says the petite brunette. "Where are you guys from?"

"We're American," Rob says proudly, eager to unveil our novelty status.

"Oh," Matty replies bemusedly. "How long are you staying in Australia?"

"We'll be a few weeks, bouncing from place to place," I answer her, going into some detail about our poorly planned upcoming travels - to which she responds with the obligatory "that's great" and "oh, you'll have such fun." I try and steer the conversation back to her and her girlfriend, but as quickly as the two women had appeared, they leave the table.

We replace them with a threesome of new ladies, who spend some time trying to determine if we're Canadian or Irish before we announce our Americanism. I isolate one of the girls at the bar.

Katherine tells me of her only visit to the States - when she was in her teens - and compares the experience with the other nations she has explored. She's engaging and rather funny, and we chatter through a couple more rounds before she asks me if I'm proud of my country.

"How do you mean?" I counter, only vaguely aware of where she's taking this.

"I mean, do you think America is doing the right thing? Do you think Iraq is fair?"

"I dunno," I waffle.

"You don't know? So you really haven't thought about it?" she ripostes. "That seems to be a very American response."

"Well, it'll probably surprise you, but I only played a very small role in deciding if we should attack Iraq," I defend.

Sarcasm translates poorly in Australian, and Katherine launches into her thesis statement: "Americans are really quite predictable - whether it's your national leadership or just a bunch of sailors visiting Sydney for a weekend. You think you can do whatever you want and the world will forgive you because you're American. You don't think about consequences because you mostly never have to face them."

I begin the delicate task of addressing Katherine's points on world politics while trying to keep myself in the game, but it's too great a challenge. The Bourbon's sound system is bumping and the crowd has grown thick.