I arrived in Sydney at 8am on Thursday after a 14 hour flight out of SFO. Turbulence was a bit intense, my stomach flipped a few times. There were a couple of LOST moments… I got to the hotel, dropped my stuff off and went around the city for a few hours. It was probably about 90 degrees outside, and humid. But it was a beautiful clear day. Sydney is a really interesting town. The whole driving on the other side of the road is actually really scary, and hard to get used to. Luckily, in Sydney at least, most street corners say “LOOK RIGHT/LEFT” on the pavement so you know which way the traffic is coming from. A lot of buildings are made out of these sandstone blocks and it all looks really archaic. They also have these really cool town houses with wrought iron porch fronts, banisters, gates, etc. Very colonial/Old World looking.
Sydney also has a lot of parks and open lawns and gardens, and everything is within walking distance to the financial district and wharf. Urban wildlife is pretty out there. They have these ibis-like birds everywhere, equivalent to our seagulls/squirrels/pigeons. They also have seagulls and pigeons, but these birds really take the cake for ubiquity. The botanical gardens are home to a colony of hundreds of flying foxes (really big bats) and they just chill out hanging upside down in the trees during the day, making a lot of noise. In the gardens are also flocks of sulfur cockatiels (parrots) which are REALLY loud. The ponds have eels, which, according to the signs, often surface to eat wading ducks! Pretty wild, yeah? I didn’t see one though, too bad.
After walking through the gardens I headed into Hyde Park, a museum inside the old jail/asylum/orphanage/state building. There was a lot of info on the old jail boats (aka hulks), as well as some cool artifacts and exhibits. The title of the post is a quote painted on one of the walls, referring to the Asylum as the 'place' needed. There is also a list of all the men who were jailed there... one of them being a Johnston! He went away for life, which explains why we have no relatives in Australia I guess!
Upon leaving Hyde Park, I saw my first glimpse of probably the most iconic structure in the world next to the Statue of Liberty/Eiffel Tower/Roman Coliseum: the Opera House. It is not as big as I thought it would be, but still a very cool piece of architecture. It does not at all dominate the skyline, but it is the first noticeable building when looking at Sydney from across the Harbor. The Harbor Bridge is also very cool looking, but in an odd way. It is very plain looking in the sense that there is nothing really charming about it (living a few miles from the world’s most famous bridge has probably altered my perception, but oh well yea?).
After having sufficiently exposed myself to the most intense UV radiation I have probably ever experienced, I started to weave my way back to the hotel. On the way I stopped at a convenience store to buy, yes, sunscreen and aloe vera (each cost $17!! For a country that has anti-skin cancer campaigns everywhere, you think they would make it a bit more affordable). I also bought ten minutes worth of internet (for a dollar) to send a quick email home, letting the fam know I arrived safely (and only six hours after landing!).
I hung out at the hotel for a bit, and then got a $7 footlong at Subway (yea, it was pretty depressing. I wonder if they use the same jingle tho… seven-dollar…seven-dollar…seven-dollar fooooootlooooooong… doesn’t really work, right?) On my way to Subway, at about 7:30pm, the bats started to fly out of the gardens. That was pretty trippy. It was like something out of Indiana Jones… Temple of Doom? They don’t fly as low as the bats in Costa Rica, but it was still a bit eery… tho very cool. I think fly out to a different area to eat at night, outside the city. God knows why they don’t just live outside the city as well…weird.
Got back to the hotel and watched a NEW episode of SVU! Yea Kaitlin, they broadcast it down here. Afterwards, Medium was on (Mom…) but I opted to watch the Biggest Loser: Aussie Edition, and then part of a footie game (Aussie Rules Football, which looks like a lot of fun, and less intense then I thought… much less intense then rugby). They also have this really cool show about Bondi Beach, it’s like a real life version of Baywatch. After all the sun and fun I passed out for 8 hours and woke up and headed off to the zoo.
Taronga Zoo is across the harbor from the Opera House. Apparently students get a discounted rate, which I found out about after I returned back from the zoo (wonderful, right?) It was $48 for a roundtrip ferry ride, admission, and the sky safari lift/gazebo to the entrance at the top of the zoo (the zoo is on a bit of a hillside, with the harbor at the bottom and the parking lot way at the top). The zoo itself is pretty neat. Similar to San Diego Zoo, expect half the collection isn’t hoofed animals and you can actually see most of the animals well. They have all the typical Aussie fauna (koalas, roos, platypus, wombats, echidnas, spiders, snakes, etc) as well as a smattering of animals from all over the world (including a Kodiak bear, which looked a bit uncomfortable in the 90 degree 100% humidity) and a California sea lion, oddly enough. The zoo has just welcomed the birth of an Asian elephant, which was very small and very cute. It was so hot the keeper sprayed the two adults down with a hose, and when he hit the baby with the water it ran away haha! The giraffes seriously live on 10 million dollar property; their corral looks out over the harbor, and includes views of the city skyline and Opera House. Pretty amazing.
Most impressive at the zoo is their free flight bird show in their open air amphitheater. It honestly puts wildlife theater to shame (sorry Bidegainberries) hahaha… The show starts with a dove flying out of nowhere and unfurls a sign on the stage (which says Taronga Zoo Free flight Show or something like that) And then a voice over explaining the origin of birds according to the Aborigines starts to play, starting out with something like “At first, there were only black birds (and a black bird flies out and walks around on the stage), but then the bird cut itself, and the color began to show” (some black parrots with red heads flew out) and so one with the voice over until the host walked out. He would call out the birds and they would fly into the amphitheater from various places (the trees, around the bend, out over the audience, etc… pretty wild). \
He kept the birds on stage for a few minutes, gave a good info session and if the bird did any tricks he would do that as well. This one bird (some buzzard) picked up a rock and cracked open a fake emu egg; he had a barn owl find a tape recorder playing a frog vocalization that a little kid volunteer from the audience hid on stage; the juvenile Andean condor ran around the stage and jumped all over the guy like a dog haha; a parrot flew into the audience, took a man’s coin and brought it back to him later in the show.. you get the idea. The end was pretty epic. A bunch of random birds flew out of nowhere all around the amphitheater while some majestic score played on the speaker. Pretty neat.
After coming back from the zoo, a bunch of UC kids had arrived at the hotel and we all met up for a cocktail hour, with FREE appetizers and water! That was a lot of fun, we all made the usual small talk (where do you go? Where are you from? What year are you? What’s your major? Etc…the standard meeting-new-people-in-college questions) After that, people sort of migrated in large groups to go get dinner and drinks. Lo and behold it started to pour buckets, but as it was still at least 80 degrees outside, it wasn’t too bad. A group of us went out to a pub and then a few other local watering holes to celebrate our first night as a collective group in Sydney. It wasn’t a very big night, considering we had to wake up for orientation at 8am, and I told nearly everyone they had to save themselves for my 21st the next night!
The next day we had a two hour info session on a lot of random things, but it was all very fun and entertaining. We grouped off and had a competition to decipher the meanings of a few Aussie slang words (how good are you? Arvo, agro, dag, bikie, lolli…). The prizes were various Aussie foods, including a jar of the famed Vegemite, which is not half bad. After our session ended we were bussed to the ferry depot and put on a boat to Manly, a beach town outside of Sydney. It was a crummy day, but still really hot and the beach was pretty nice so it was still a good birthday!
A group of us walked on a footpath around to another cove and discovered a wedding photography session as well as a nice inlet to swim in. A group of people started huddling over something on a pathway that lead down the beach to the water, and so we walked over to investigate. It was a miniature octopus.
Tim: “Oh, what are they called?”
Local: “Issa gloomy!” (He really said, It’s a blue-ring…)
Tim: “Woah! Are they poisonous?”
Local: (really excitedly) Oi yea! They’re deadly mate!” (Liz White knows all about that though, right? haha)
We were graced on the ferry ride back with the presence of a really nice middle aged couple on holiday from England; the woman was celebrating her 50th birthday, funny enough, and we all had a long chat with them about various things, including the rules of cricket since we tried to watch a game the night before and were all thoroughly confused. After washing up, a group of about 8 of us went to dinner, where one of the girls told the waitress it was my birthday and everyone in the restaurant sang ‘Happy Birthday’ as well as ‘For He’s a Jolly-good Fellow.’ There was another group celebrating a birthday there too, and they gave us 8 pieces from their cake, which was very nice of them. We went to a few pubs and clubs after dinner, and everyone very generously bought me my drinks, which is, of course, always a welcome gesture to be sure! All in all, even though it poured, and even though I could legally drink in the country already, it was a pretty awesome birthday. Thanks to everyone who made it out and shouted a round!
Sunday we had another orientation, this one a bit more boring, but hey, can’t complain too much right? After, the same group from the night before plus a few extra friends headed to Chinatown to witness the New Year celebration, which was a bit nonexistent. We did see some lion dancers, but that was about it. After grabbing some food, we headed to Darling Harbor and walked through the Australian Naval or Nautical Museum, which featured exhibits on the U.S. Navy, mythical creatures, and some mentioning of the history of the Australian navy and its early commercial history; something for everyone yea? I liked it so much that I got lost and had to be called over the PA. Thank god no one knew my last name so the message just said “Will all students from the University of California report to the entrance,” but it was still a bit embarrassing when I started to hasten back the way I came.
Upon reaching the hotel, a few of us went across the street to the pub where you get 30 minutes of free wireless internet if you purchase a beer. The internet was way too slow to make it a good deal, I couldn’t even open my email inbox or update my facebook status. We went to an internet café where I sent some emails and tried to read through all my facebook messages (thanks all for the well wishes!), but alas my time ran short and so I left.
That evening we went to O’Malley’s, an Irish pub up the street from the hotel, where they serve 8 dollar pitchers of domestic beers (trust me, a definite steal down here) and have live music every night. We had a great time, and it was really crowded with drunk, singing Aussies. We even snagged photo with the singer of the night, Otis! Great guy! After that we headed to our favorite place of the weekend, the Eye Bar, which sells drinks for $3.50 and has the funniest Irish waitress (from County Galway, good on ya) who calls everyone ‘darlin’ and asked us for help to do the math for pricing our drinks. Great gal for sure! After that we headed to a club where us and two others were dancing. We requested some hip hop music to be played, to which the DJ replied “I only play techno.” Ok, thanks mate. You’re really rocking the place with all 8 of these people on the floor…but some people showed up later and it got fun pretty fast. One guy had some pretty sweet moves…(a new variation of the spin move, Rosa! Hahaha)
Well, I know that was long (congrats if you read the whole thing!) but if you know me, you know I like to tell stories (especially good ones… I often tell them multiple times by request!). I am sitting in the airport now waiting to board my flight to Melbourne! I guess that’s it for now.
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