A brisk half-hour (well, more like a vaguely meandering forty-five minute) walk took Jim to what he could definitely recognize as a football stadium. It initially surprised him how much it looked, well, like any other football stadium (big one—not like Marywood’s, but more like the Eagles). He’d somehow expected something vastly different. He supposed it was different enough to have an outdoor stadium—he knew other states in the US had those too, of course, but it hadn’t really struck him how temperate the climate in Sydney must be to have a stadium without a roof.

But then again, he was standing in front of it in the local equivalent of Scranton December in a light jacket, so it made sense.

What was satisfyingly different were the signs out front advertising what he assumed from the names must be different versions of rugby: the Australian Rugby Union and the National Rugby League. He stopped by a ticket office and made the mistake of revealing this ignorance to the ticket-seller; while he did, actually appreciate his newfound knowledge of the difference between a line-out and a scrum restart for a ball sent into touch, the half hour of eager discussion that led to that knowledge could perhaps have been better spent.

Or could it? After all, he was in Australia. What better to do than to learn Australian things and engage with Australians about them? And while he was thinking about the tactical implications of a 13-man vs. a 15-man side, or a 4-point vs. a 5-point try (which was apparently the term for what his brain insisted on calling a touchdown) he wasn’t thinking about Scranton, or anyone he’d left behind there.

OK, he was thinking about Dwight, because oh my god there was no way that if he came back to the office and started talking about rugby Dwight wouldn’t start quizzing him about the difference between rugby union and league and could you imagine how shocked and discomfited he’d be if Jim actually knew the difference? And then he and Pam could pretend to be on opposite sides of the divide, and have a whole back and forth about whether it was better to allow deliberate throwing of the ball out of bounds or not, and make Dwight stomp back to his desk in frustration while they air-fived…

Somehow everything came back to sharing things with Pam. But at least this had taken several steps to do so, and that was progress of a kind, right? He thanked the friendly box office rep and bought tickets to one match of each kind, as well as accepting directions (which he promptly forgot) to other venues where he could see the same sports if he decided he liked them. He doubted he’d spend his whole vacation wrapped up in rugby but hey, it was better than drinking and the guy was nice.

He also stopped into the ARU gift shop when he saw a flyer about a local competition in rugby union called the Schute Shield.

He ended up with a mug and a pen emblazoned with the logo and a half-baked plan about copying the font and creating an R….maybe someone he knew with graphic design skills could help…

Well, it had been nice not thinking about Pam while it lasted. He headed across the street to the cricket oval (now there was a sentence he’d never thought to himself before) and decided to see if they also had a chatty ticket-seller he could engage with in order to disengage his brain.

He really needed to stop using the word “engage.”

**

Pam got out of the Central train station and started walking. In the station she’d found a handful of brochures—some for hostels, since she was short on money and didn’t know when she’d find Jim (and even if she had…her mind shied away from the idea of assuming she would be able to, um, sleep in the same accommodations that he had) and some for cultural events. She’d grabbed the ones she thought Jim might gravitate toward: the National Basketball League, for instance, although it turned out (she discovered later) that they didn’t play in June. She’d also taken a few for herself. If she was here, in Sydney, instead of on her honeymoon (and wasn’t it depressing that her honeymoon with Roy would have cost less than the ticket here, and she’d been somehow proud of that, like saving money by just driving over to the Poconos again was some great idea?) she was going to do the things Pamela Morgan Beesly had always wanted to do. Like see great art—one of the brochures was for the Art Gallery of New South Wales—and visit important historical places—the Australian Museum and the Anzac Memorial joined the stack—and oh yes, see the Sydney Opera House. Apparently they were doing a Beethoven festival—she’d definitely have to go. Imagine, not just seeing the Opera House on the skyline, or visiting it on a tour, but actually going and hearing music there…her mind boggled at the idea of plain, homebody Pam Beesly doing that.

But maybe a better, fancier, newer version of her could.

The version that had finally realized that what she had with Roy Anderson, while it was always going to be important to her, wasn’t what she needed now, and had called off the wedding.

The version that had flown thousands of miles to actually be in Sydney already.

The version that was going to enjoy her damn vacation, whether or not she found Jim Halpert.

Although she did hope she’d find him.

Still, she probably wasn’t going to find him immediately, and well, the Art Gallery was open, and she’d always wanted to visit a big flagship art museum.

And that was how Pam Beesly found herself staring at a lovely painting of cows in front of a peaceful rural scene, and almost not bothering to wish that Jim were there to see it with her.