Exploring Sydney

Wednesday 13 October 2010

I thought I would share the pictures first, but now they are sent before some of the stories. That is okay.

Alison and I had a big discussion trying to figure out where we wanted to go first, but decided to go to Darling Harbour. It was pretty cloudy.

This is a place for lots of shopping, so it actually wasn't all that exciting for us. There were great views of the Opera House though. Then we headed out to Harbour Bridge. Getting there was interesting. We couldn't find where we could just cross. We finally found an entrance after many twists and turns. Then came the on slot of stairs. We made it across and got more pictures of the Opera House. The Opera House is actually made of tiles. It looked a bit different than you see in the movies of all white. Then we walked down a couple alleyways and cute walkways. One walkway was where the thugs used to hang out. We went to the Botanical Gardens and walked along the edge. We found stairs and decided to go up. Many people were running up and down the stairs, doing push-ups, stretching...We have noticed that there are only three categories of people here. People in business suits, people in jogging clothes, and tourists (in normal clothes). We were kind of curious why so many of the runners weren't working.

I found a water fountain. I turned the knob, and it came shooting out hitting me right on the forehead, which started dribbling down my face. Then I saw a flash and a guy was taking pictures...hopefully not of me.

We walked along and a place was handing out free Coon Sandwiches. It was cheese sandwiches (coon is a type of cheese). We found a place to sit and eat lunch. We got attacked by ants, so we walked through the gardens a while. There was some kind of marathon or something going on. Lots of interesting stretching a well. Bats were all over the trees and were quite active.

Then we went to the Art Gallery. We also went to a Cathedral, but they kind of kicked us out, because they were going to have mass. Then we decided to look for more appropriately priced fruit. We found a 7-Eleven (there are heaps around here). We went to the Opera House to see the sunset over it, but the clouds were rolling in. We didn't want to get stuck in the rain, so we started walking back. It was drizzling a lot as we walked. We quickened our pace...quite a bit. It came harder, so we started getting reckless and running out in front of cars. It didn't help that the streets lack some direction and signs. We were surprised they weren't honking and yelling at us. It rained even harder, so we sprinted to get to the hostel. We were getting quite wet.

The next challenge was to get to sleep. The walls here are paper-thing.