Sydney II

We had quite a few more fun days. Tuesday morning we got up and watched the news.  There was a quite strong tropical cyclone coming in to Kerns.  There has been a crazy diversity of bad weather since we have been here; now tropical storms are added to the diversity of fires, floods, and droughts.  Crazy!  Anyway, we spent Tuesday exploring Sydney since we had little time to explore the night before.  We picked up a map and took off walking.  We started out toward the bridge and opera house; the most touristy parts of the city.  It was stiflingly hot outside and humid, so we wore little tank tops and shorts… perhaps I should have brought more than one pair of shorts with me… oh well.  I bought sunscreen to protect my already burnt shoulders. Soon after we left we got to an art museum which had free admission, so of course we had to walk in.  There was a great diversity of works there and we spent a lot of time there.  My favorite piece was of course a painting of a knight with his horse saving a damsel in distress.  I was hoping to find a knight of my own in this trip, but I guess seeing a picture of one was almost as good. There was also a sculpture of a man fighting a giant snake… awkward.

After a bit, Steph and I decided that we should leave the museum to explore the city more. A block or two after we left, we got to the royal botanical gardens which were amazing.  We went to a café in the garden and I bought the most amazing iced chocolate drink (these yummy creations are made of a few scoops of ice cream floating in milk with chocolate syrup added and whipped cream on top.  The whipped cream here is not like our processed sugared stuff… it is cream that is whipped, so it is rich and creamy and a true dairy product, but not sweet.  So, when it is added to a drink, you mix it in and it makes the flavor so super rich.)  We found a nice spot in the gardens to have our lunch and drinks; we were under a giant tree with a great view of the ocean and beautiful trees.  It was probably the most romantic picnic spot I have ever been to… if only I were there with an attractive man rather than Steph… if only I were eating a great lunch rather than a pb+j and fruit, but I won’t complain… Steph is a great travel companion and pb+j’s are cheap and yummy.

We explored the gardens for a bit longer and I made some friends with some friendly trees (and some intimidating ones). 

Cute friendly tree... right?

WRONG: angry killing tree!

We then made our way to the opera house and got to explore the tourist part of the city.  We were close to the lovely harbor bridge.  We wanted to walk across the bridge, so we made our way to the foot of it… apparently it is quite difficult to find the foot of such a large bridge.  We ended up wandering for quite a long while before we found the stairs up to the bridge.  We did find some interesting shopping areas and got to explore quite a bit. The view from the bridge was great!  The guard rails on the pedestrian walkway on the bridge were entertaining… wire mesh going rather far up that curved up above our heads with barbed wire at the top… a completely un-jumpable bridge. 

We had a bit of time to kill before dinner and we were both hot, thirsty, and rather exhausted, so we went back into the gardens in search for water bubblers (not fountains here apparently) and after we filled our bottles, we found a nice looking tree with nice thick grass beneath it and decided to lay down for a bit.  About an hour later lovely low flying cockatoos woke us up.  Those birds make such lovely squawking. That being said… that was the best nap of my life.  At least the best public nap of my life.  I wanted to give that tree a hug after such an amazing nap. 

We went to dinner at the foot of the opera house.  We ate outside next to the harbor at a higher class (probably low class for the area, but higher class than anything I have been to before) Chinese place.   After they took our orders and brought our drinks.. a waitress came over and put our napkins on our laps.  I found this experience rather frightening.  I like good service at a restaurant, but I prefer to do little things myself.  While eating with my chopsticks I was very careful not to get any food on my shirt or face for fear that the waitress would come back over and wipe it off for me. Thank goodness I was able to get all of the food from my plate to mouth without mishap.

That night we went out to an Irish pub.  It was the only bar in the area that looked laid back but still had people in it.  While there we made friends with a group of men who were in the city for a conference (they all worked for footy teams).  The group was made up of one guy about our age who was rather nice, a 30 something guy who was awesome, some older men, and one older guy who none of us could understand.  He talked out of the side of his mouth and had a very heavy accent and a very deep voice… all factors that made communication impossible in a loud bar with a live band. When he spoke I heard something like, “Shavawka, gla-waa fla makka vla”. Conversations were amazing and they taught us a new game of darts.  It was a great night.