Sydney

After a brief flight, just under an hour and fifteen minutes I landed in Sydney, or the gateway to Australia as the locals call it and that's when the Melbourne bashing began. Everyone in Melbourne would not necessarily talk down about Sydney, but would definitely talk their city up. The same as a brother would pick on another brother. It's really enjoyable and entertaining.

First thing we did after checking into the hotel was start wandering as always. Found a restaurant to have a snack and a beer right on the Sydney Harbor. Great views and great food! Then came the Opera House tour. It was surprisingly interesting and fun to actually get to go into three of the theaters. When the tour finished we decided to see Karen O's "psycho opera" called "Stop the Virgens."

If you think you know weird, let me tell you, you haven't seen anything. This was one of the strangest and most confusing, yet entrancing and exciting stage production I've ever seen. I really couldn't give you any explanation as to what we watched, but I liked the music and the weird dancing was intriguing to watch. I have a feeling that everyone leaving the theater that night was confused about what they just watched. I'd say definitely check it out just because it is so...different.

Despite the oddity of the show inside the opera house, this production was a part of a big lights festival called Vivid Live. It opened with Florence + the Machine on May 27th and includes movies, music, art, and lights. It's pretty cool because all around the harbor are different light displays, culminating in this cool display projected on the sails of the opera house (sorry if the video quality is poor)

It's a very cool display and a great idea to bring in more tourists (like they need help with that). It also brings people who live in the area into the downtown area of Sydney, which is pretty cool too!


Yesterday was the day of our city tour. The guide we had was hilarious! Half the time I wasn't sure if he was just pulling my leg or was telling the truth about Sydney, but the whole group (five of us) got on really well with him. An interesting thing I noticed here was that the lines on the road are all white, even the ones that separate the different directions of traffic. Just an odd thing I noticed. We got some really great views of the skyline, ate some more great food, and asked Rick, our guide, where some pubs where the locals go were. He pointed out three of them and of course my parents and I, after relaxing a bit in the hotel, made tracks to the first bar:

The Hero of Waterloo. Upon entering the pub I could tell that everyone knew we weren't locals and were giving us some strange looks. Mostly along the lines of "how did these people find out about this bar." It wasn't in a very secret or hard to find place, but I guess not many people like to go out and immerse themselves in the culture around them. I'll never understand how people can travel anywhere and not want to try the local places.

We then went onto another local bar called Lord Nelson's and it was a small scale brewery as well. It has probably the best beer I've had so far on this trip. It was a crowded bar, which made me feel like I was in Madison. Packed with college-aged people, it was a great place!

Then we finally decided to get some food! Walked a short distance and figured out we didn't know where we were going (surprise, surprise!). So after some slight arguing my mother went back into Lord Nelson's pub and asked a couple at the bar.

They weren't planning to come along, but they figured that we'd get lost along the way. And hey! We made some new friends along the way! Now I have three friends in Sydney and two in Melbourne and at least one in New Zealand, where I'll be going in just over a week! I can't wait! Back to Sydney and the Australian Hotel. I wanted to go there to eat solely for the purpose of getting a kangaroo pizza, which I completely successfully!

The meat was surprisingly delicious and with barbecue sauce on the pizza it was delectable!  I highly recommend it. The next things on my list to try are emu and crocodile since I already ate vegemite and am planning to bring some back to share with everyone! That all happened in two days and I didn't even get to today. It wasn't that exciting, but it was definitely another fun trip even if I were tired from staying out with my new friends until 2:30 in the morning! Oh well, another post for another day! Time to get some dinner.