As our plane rose into the clouds and our coastal North Queensland home became smaller and smaller, Lindsay couldn’t keep the tears back any longer. I knew how much she enjoyed our time in Townsville, but it wasn’t until that moment, her head buried in my sweatshirt, that I realized it really had become our home. From the time we started thinking of spending this year in Australia, almost everyone asked why. My stock answer, which also happens to be true, is that although we have done a fair amount of traveling, neither Lindsay nor I had ever had the opportunity to actually live in another country. As we proceded south toward Sydney, I reflected on how incredibly lucky we were to have chosen Townsville, to have made the friends we made, and to have had so many wonderful experiences here. Townsville was not just a home away from home…it was just home.
Ok, enough with the sappy stuff. We had an adventure to start. We arrived at the Sydney airport at 5pm on Friday April 23rd, caught the train, and checked in to the YWCA near Hyde park. Its fun to stay at the Y…W…C…A! Well, it was cheap, clean, and in a great location. We had to make a quick turn around as soon as we arrived because we had plans for the evening. All gussied up, we caught a cab to the Sydney Opera House down near Circular Quay. After a quick meal of sweet potato chips and soy/ginger brussel spouts at the Opera House bar, we proceded to the concert hall and took our seats for a symphony/classical guitar performance. Our seats were located behind and to the right of the orchestra (the only ones left when we booked), but they turned out to be a real treat. The music pieces they were playing were percussion-heavy, so we had a great vantage on their use of the tipani, water-gong, xylophones, etc. By the way, I am not being sarcastic, it was really cool. After the show we were pooped, so we went straight back to the Y and crashed.
The next morning we got up and went for a fantastic run from our hotel through Hyde Park and all the way down to the Botanical Gardens. The weather was perfect and people were out to enjoy it. After a quick jog past the Opera House, we ran back to the hotel and cleaned up. From there we were off to the Sydeny Fish Market, where apparently 15,000 tons of fish is sold every year. After a bit of gawking on our part, we sat outside and fended off the voracious seagulls, who were after our lunch of fresh oysters and mega-sized plate of tuna and salmon sashimi. Next we went to Circular Quay where we caught the ferry to Manly Beach. It was a great ferry ride over providing amazing views of downtown as well as the other parts of the harbor. In Manly Beach we relaxed by the water and found ourselves a nice rooftop bar to share a plate of wedges and a pint. That night we got takeaway Turkish food and watched Iron Man in bed. Not the most exciting Saturday night in Sydney, but we had fun.
The next day was April 25th, ANZAC day. It is essentially Australia’s version of memorial day complete with parades and ceremonies. After a morning of working and blog writing, we emerged from our hotel room into Hyde Park, the epicenter of Sydney’s ANZAC festivities. Our timing was perfect. We watched as a a long parade filled with veterans, bagpipe players, current soldiers, etc. marched on past. The rest of Sydney's CBD (central business district) was completely empty due to the parades, which was a site to see in itself. After a quick lunch, we went out for another run around the city which was great. That night we we got suckered into eating a couple of burritos from a local “Mexican” restaurant. We couldn’t help ourselves. It had been so long since we had had a burrito, that even the little voice in our heads that was saying “remember you fools, this is Australia, there is no way this is going to be a good burrito” wasn’t enough to keep us walking on past. So we got the burrito which had all the right toppings and would have been good had the meat not been seasoned with Indian-style curry sauce. Later we ended up having a drink in a posh piano bar in Kings CRoss before retiring for the night.
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