I came down from Cairns and spent a few days in Sydney before heading out of town. It was a little rushed, though my bank account is not sad to leave Australia by any stretch of the imagination.
On the subject of money, Australia owes me an explanation on why the 20-cent coin is the size of my freaking face while the $2 coin is easily dismissed as loose change. Another concept: paper money. Or credit cards. Get with the program, guys.
Sydney is much more the laid-back beach town that I was expecting Australia to be full of. It’s basically got the not-British-but-basically-trying-to-be vibe (metric: stuff named “Victoria” per sq km) of a town like Toronto, but with the west coast US life philosophies. There’s not a ton of “must-do” agenda items outside of the opera house, but it would be a wonderful place to waste the summer away hanging outside reading a book.
Yup, it’s the middle of summer. My condolences to any blog readers from Chicago. Close your eyes and visualize. Mind over matter!
Through another chance meeting enabled by Facebook, my friend Jenny, who was in the same major as me at Berkeley, was also in Sydney at the same time. She had done a similar move of taking 6 weeks in between jobs to travel through Asia and Australia. It’s the thing to do, folks.
One month into blogging and I still don’t remember to take all the relevant pictures. Apparently we never got one together. Regardless, Jenny had a good time in Australia too.
On Sunday, we met up for some food and wandering around a few neighborhoods, then went to a show at the Opera House. For some reason I had always pictured the Opera House as being more of an architectural landmark than a common destination, maybe because the classic photo is always taken from across the water. In reality though, it’s a major destination right in the middle of things with several different types of shows per night, and also is a great place to hang out at.
Chilling out. Side note: one effect of going to Sydney is that you wind up with an awful lot of pictures of this building.
Dude, seriously America?
The show we went to was very cool, and definitely not what I was expecting. The best description I can give is that it was a circus/comedy/cabaret act. The funniest part of it was when a girl from the audience was asked to come up to the stage and was asked if she had ever ridden a unicycle. After some comedic back and forth, she wound up getting placed on top of the host’s shoulders while HE rode the unicycle… so she was about 12 feet off the ground and completely, utterly terrified.
Mario, Queen of the Circus! So called because of his Freddie Mercury tribute act. Also, enjoy the picture, because the minute this act comes to US, it’s going to get torn to shreds by the lawyers and their meddlesome safety rules.
The mildly disturbing contortionist act ended with a passionate speech to remind the audience that, yeah, you really can do whatever you want for a living. Though I think some jobs require some… special abilities.
On Monday, I took the ferry over to the suburb of Manly, where I had signed up to do a dive at the aquarium there. Pictures to be posted once I get access to a CD drive.
Transportation sponsored by Dr Pepper Ten
Of course, it being Monday, it was also time for…
SUPER BOWL MONDAY!!! Time zones are weird, man.
For whatever reason, most of Sydney is apparently 49ers fans. It was a good game despite the fact that the reverse outcome would have been preferred. I do have to confess that I skipped an hour of the game to take a nap on the beach though. Do you blame me?
I came back to Manly again on Tuesday, this time for a surfing lesson! It was a total blast, and much more a workout than it looks. The instructors were great about getting us up to speed quickly. Obviously I spent a lot of time floundering around but was able to stand up on the board a couple times while riding waves by the end of it.
Surf’s up
Manly is a small town but a great place to hang out near the beach. I spent a couple hours just hanging out, having lunch, reading, etc. Very relaxing.
Not a lot to report other than that. Lots of wandering around, doing errands (haircut, laundry, etc), and spending crazy money. Still, Sydney was a great place to stop for a few days and get a few shades darker in skin color. I heard a few people mention that they preferred Melbourne so we’ll put that on the list for next time!
Next step is off to India. It promises to be quite a bit more challenging but I’m looking forward to the adventure!
sehpayne 