Sydney, just like America, but cleaner

The upside of travelling across the globe using frequent flyer miles is it’s free. The downside is that there can be 3 layovers and 40 hours of travel time. We flew on Lufthansa from Istanbul to Munich (opposite direction of Sydney) and then to Dehli. In Dehli, we had a 6 hour layover, which we were glad to have had since their transfer system was crazy. Instead of getting off the plane and going to your next gate, you go to a transfer desk where there is an agent that has to get you a boarding pass. We were a bit worried we’d miss our flight because there was a group of mostly French travelers who had barricaded themselves in front of the transfer desk. Apparently they had missed their flight and had been waiting for a solution for over 24 hours. Don’t piss French people off, they are good at complaining. We felt sorry for them because the transfer desk people were pretty inept and wouldn’t tell them what was going on. In our case, some guy took off with our passports, and after several times asking when he would return (the answer was always 30 minutes), he thankfully came back after 3 hours. The flights on Thai Airlines to Bangkok and then to Sydney were great, good meals and in-flight entertainment.

We landed in Sydney and hopped on a train that took us a medium sized walk away from our accommodations in a neighborhood called Kirribilli, which was right across the harbor from the Sydney Opera House. Our first impressions of Sydney was how clean and how lush it was. The weather was amazing and you don’t know how much you appreciate English speaking countries until you haven’t had it in 3 months, especially with their silly Aussie accents. Some of our favorite phrases are ‘brekky’ for breakfast, ‘G’day mate’ (they actually say that, minus the ‘mate’), ‘Mackers’ for McDonald’s, ‘Sunnies’ for sunglasses, and ‘How ya goin’. Sydney is so nice, we would highly consider living here if it weren’t so far from friends and family. And the fact that Australia is crazy expensive given that the Aussie Dollar is so strong now.

There was a ferry stop conveniently located down the hill from where we were staying. Here is a shot of the Sydney Bridge from the ferry on our way to Circular Quay, the main terminal. Their ferry system is pretty extensive, kind of reminded us of Venice.

We walked around the city and ended up in Darling Harbor, which is a really nice area around the water with shops and restaurants. This picture is taken from a bridge that spans the harbor and that the monorail runs overhead on.

This is a war memorial in Hyde Park, pretty interesting with its art deco style. There are war memorials everywhere in Australia and we were told that they have the highest per capita war memorials of any country. They mostly center around WWI, where the Australians were heavily involved, especially in Gallipoli where they fought the Turks.

In the foreground is a really nice fountain, and in the back is St. Mary’s Cathedral, it is a pretty massive church, but so modern compared with what we saw in Europe.

Going south from Hyde Park towards Sydney Harbor is a row of some of the older, original buildings of Sydney. They include the customs house, the Rum Hospital (named because the group that built had done so in exchange for a monopoly on the Australian rum trade), and the pictured building ‘The Barracks’, which was effectively a prison for incoming convicts from Britain. Nearby is also the New South Wales parliament, where we sat in on a live session. Very much like British parliament where people are yelling, booing, hissing, and making disparaging remarks during speeches and presentations. It’s even more comical in person.

The Royal Botanical Gardens is one of the nicest parks we have ever visited, and it’s free! It is right in the city and includes many different areas and immaculately maintained gardens that display a range of vegetation, including this plant filled glass pyramid. It also had…

Many flowers, which we stopped to smell…

Desert plants and succulents…

Birds of all sorts, and bats aka flying foxes, which we saw flying after the sun went down…

And amazing views of the harbor and city.

We got close up to the Opera House, which is actually three buildings, one small reception hall, the Opera, and the Ballet. The architecture is so unique and the setting out on the Harbor is amazing. Throughout our travels, after finding out we were Americans, people asked if we were here for Oprah, who filmed a couple episodes at the Opera House. She is huge down under and was the biggest story on the news.

We made it out to Bondi Beach, which is a large, crowded crescent shaped beach about 30 minutes outside of downtown Sydney. It is a backpacker haven with a bunch of shops along the water. The weather was hot, but the water a little too cold.