G’Day, mates! Today’s adventures had Steve and me high on
life and lookin’ fancy! This was so close to a perfect day, I think I could
relive it over again and never tire of it. First stop, The Sydney Tower!
Really the first stop was the computers in the business
center of the hotel. In all, I got close to 100 birthday wishes on Facebook!
What a wonderful thing to wake up to! Now to find breakfast… Nothing too fancy,
but I did have a fantastic latte and a delicious bacon and cheese bread thing
from a bakery in the Westfield Mall food court. Fuel for the day! Now the fun
can truly begin. Off we go to the Sydney Tower Eye!
Of all the places I’ve been to the top of—Washington
Monument in DC, Eiffel Tower in Paris, Tokyo TV Tower, Empire State Building,
Space Needle in Seattle—I’d have to say the Sydney 360-degree view from up top
is one of the most breath-taking! Pictures will come soon, no worries! Since we
did our viewing around 9:30 or so, I think we really got some perfect morning
light. The Opera House and Sydney Harbor Bridge are quite dramatic against the
water, there are lots of green patches around the city, we even saw a monument
and a couple of other points of interest that we didn’t even realize were there!
Steve and I both like to go up high to get a good view of the places we go. =)
Next up: The Sydney Harbor Bridge Climb! Steve has done it
before, about 5 or 6 years ago, and he’s the one who suggested we do it. What a
fun and stunning experience! Our guide, Nick, was a lot of fun. I could tell
that all the guides we saw enjoy their jobs. They were cracking jokes with each
other, with the tourists, etc., and they just seemed to truly be having fun—and
in turn, we tourists all had fun as well!
To do the Bridge Climb, you have to sign a waiver, of
course, and you have to really suit up with loads of gear, including a
jumpsuit, hat, hankie (not sure why!), harness, radio and earphones to hear the
tour guide, a knitted cap, sunglasses strap (if you’re bringing sunglasses),
key around your neck for your locker, and… I think that’s it. I think. Anyway,
we geared up, trained on how to use the steep steps (like a ladder)—one person
at a time, three points of contact (i.e. two hands and a foot, or one hand and
two feet), and watch your step! There were about 14 of us, plus Nick the Tour
Guide, and off we went! Nick helped us connect our harnesses to the safety
wire, and we started our trek to the top! There are over 1,400 steps, I think
Nick said, but it was really an easy “climb.” Nothing too treacherous. We got
to hear bits of information and interesting anecdotes about the bridge and
Sydney in general throughout the 2 hours or so of our journey, and we got to
take lots of time to stop and take in the view at four or five places along the
way up and back down. The way you do it is, from the main part of Sydney, you
go up on the right side, the same side as the Opera House, across the tiptop of
the center of the bridge, and back down the left side. The views from all over
the Bridge were absolutely magnificent. I think this certainly had to be one of
the most memorable and worthwhile activities from the trip. What a way to spend
mid-day!
Next up, lunch! Steve and I were both quite hungry, as it
was after 3:00 pm by the time we got around to lunch. I got a “chicken burger,”
which was a chicken sandwich, but Steve got a more Australian sandwich that
included Australian beef and a fried egg! If you’ve never tried fried egg on
your sandwich, don’t turn up your nose. It’s quite delicious!
After lunch we headed back to the hotel to freshen up for
the thing I was looking most forward to and the first thing that entered my
mind as a “must-do” for this trip… an opera at THE Sydney Opera House! Steve,
of course, was less enthusiastic about going to the opera, but he said we could
do anything I wanted. If we did nothing else, I wanted to do an opera—ANY
opera—at the world-renown, iconic venue. Mom brought me my favorite dress when
she came to visit me a couple of months ago, so I had it altered to a high-low
hemline (it needed a bit of updating), and I even bought heels to go with
it—and most everyone knows I don’t wear heels, but for this, I made an
exception! Steve brought a suit to wear, so we looked like quite the fancy
couple!
We saw the opera called Don
Pasquale, set in 1940s Italy, about a man named Don Pasquale who decides to
marry to prevent his nephew from inheriting his fortune when he dies.
Unfortunately, he falls prey to an elaborate scheme involving a false marriage
to his nephew’s girlfriend (unbeknownst to Pasquale), who fools him into
thinking she’s a shy and sheltered girl, but once she’s trapped him in
marriage, she spends lots of his money, redecorates his house, and wreaks havoc
for him! In the end, the nephew marries his girlfriend, Don Pasquale allows the
nephew to inherit, and all is well. Most operas end in tragedy and are many
hours long (three or more), but this one was light-hearted and only two hours.
See? I’m a pretty nice girlfriend. I didn’t make him suffer too long, and he
even said he was looking forward to it more than he thought he would—even
enjoyed it! The opera was performed in Italian, but most of it was translated
into English with surtitles (at the top, as opposed to subtitles at the bottom
of the stage). We took the train back to the hotel and were pooped by the time
we got there! What an experience!
Sunday morning, we went to breakfast at a little café on the
corner before a member of the church picked us up for services that morning. We
went to mass the night before (Steve is Catholic, for those who didn’t know
already), so Sunday we went to my type of service. The group there is around 40
people, and they were all so friendly! We were dropped off for lunch at
Circular Quay and spent a relaxing afternoon there before heading out to Manly
Beach. Supposedly it’s so-named because the first European sailors to come in
saw the Aboriginal men there and said they looked very “manly.” =) We didn’t
get in the water or even go out on the sand, since it was pretty cold (don’t
forget it’s winter here Down Under!), but the view from the shore was quite
beautiful. It’s the South Pacific!
On the way back to the ferry that would take us to Circular
Quay, Steve and I stopped for hot chocolate at a place called “Chocolate and
the Bald Man.” It’s such a neat concept! There are hot chocolates of many kinds
(Steve and I both got the Danish Toffee Chocolate), strawberries with your
choice of chocolate for dipping, chocolate-banana pizza, tarts, cakes, brownies,
cookies, even your own choice of chocolate to eat straight. The hot chocolate
was just right for a chilly evening.
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