The Grand "debut" Sydney Trip
General Facts
Occurance: A week in April, '04
Setting: Sydney, Australia
Amateur Travelers: Josh (14), Hannah (12)
Experienced Traveler/Chaperone: Lydia (15)
Hosts: Matt & Tach
Important Facts
Place We Trashed: The above mentioned host's flat
Credit Card We Maxed: Tach's
How Much Yoghurt Lyd Ate: Over 2 tubs
How Many Healthy choc Chip Muffins She Ate: a plate full
Who Spent the Most Money Quickest: Josh
Who Was in Amazed Awe the Most: Hannah
Who Gave Away His Mobile Phone: Matt
Who Slept the Most: Lyd
Who Made Us Clean Up the Flat Before We Left: Tach
Well, here we are, the long awaited Sydney photos. ;) We might as well start when I began clicking my camera: the day we went to Governor's House. It's such a grand old house. It has tons of rooms (I wish I could say 100 but I can't remember), and the first three rooms you walk through are just galleries adorned with woppa big painted portraits of each Governor General that's served in Australia. I just happened to notice that one of our worse generals just happened to have the biggest painting--do wonder if that says something....
There's the front. Or bit of it anyway, and those two flags on the top are the Aussie flag and the NSW state flag.
The one really disappointing bit about the tour of the house was that they wouldn't let us take photos except for in the ballroom. Something to do with preservasion I think, but it's beyond me. Anyhow, he's a really bad photo of the ballroom. I forgot to turn the flash on--oops. Gorgeous chandelier, though, don't ya think?
That's one of the windows that opens out to the front grounds. It was a fairly nice house. It was made back in the 1800s and so takes after that style. I loved the furniture, the wallpaper was kind of eclectic and weird though....but maybe that's how they liked it back then. Oh, and I have to tell you! There was going to be some formal dinner there with some "Her Excellency" attending. What we found interesting was there was 4 forks, and 5 glasses--all for only 3 courses. The fact that we had no idea what each was to be used for, I guess, says just how much of high and mighty etiquette we know. Yikes. Mum would be agast.
There 'tis. Our *proof* photo that we were actually in Sydney! Hannah is on the left, Josh in the middle, I on the right, and the beautiful Sydney Harbour Bridge in the background. If any of you can remember any of my posts from when I was there, look closely at the shirt I'm wearing. It's my knew, $10 buck one! *can stil feel that thrill of a good bargain*
BTW, we were just beside the Opera House when we got that shot.
And we were on the other side of the bay near the bridge when Hannah took this shot of the Opera House. Crazy, eh?
You really just have to excuse them...
Oh, look! They're finally behaving. BTW, see the pilon (huge structure at the end of the bridge) behind them, that's the one we climbed up (there was a looooot of stairs). The view is great! As good as being at the top of Centre Point Tower.
And there's centre point tower. It's taller than all of the sky-scrapers in Sydney (I think...I'd like to believe anyway), and so cool. There's heaps of huge binocular things, and on one floor theres this moving restaurant. All the walls are glass, and because it moves around in a circle, anyone eating there gets a full view of Sydney. How cool is that?
That's bits of the pilons you can see on either side of the picture, and there on the corner where the structure starts, you can see a group of people. They're just beginning their coupla of hour climb right over the top of the bridge! I'm so gonna do that someday. Hopefully at sunset. Apparently it's gorgeous then, you can look back on the city and out on the bay and everythings tinted in sunset colours. Kayci, when you come visit, we're doing it, okay?! Maybe with your "sweet-talking-Texan speech" you could get us in without paying. Oh, now that would be something. lol
Oooh, the world looks rather funny from way up there....
There is my grand shot of the bridge in all it's splendour. Interesting, there's two flags on the top of it too. Probably the Aussie and state flag as well. You know, Sydney isn't actually the capital of Australia? Canberra is, but nobody ever really remembers Canberra. Sydney's the "big" city, the famous city.
Now *that* is the underbelly of the bridge. We were down in The Rocks weekend markets, and coming out of the last of them it was kind of weird to realise we were right underneath the bridge. We saw climbers there too. There's climbers crawling all over the bridge. They're just everywhere--like ants.
The Rocks is the oldest part of Sydney. It's real touristy, full of little cafes squeezed in here and there and spilling out onto the still rocky back alleys. It's real quaint and heaps of fun to walk around peeking in shops like the Puppet Shop (you actually have to find your way down underground to these rooms covered from wall to all over the ceiling with every imaginable puppet), and STICKY, the lolly (that's candy) place. They make all the old hard boiled lollies there and you can watch them rolling them out. Very cool.
If you have look real hard at the left of the mural you can see it says The Rocks, Sydney.
You know what happens after a really long day on your feet. You didn't get any lunch, everyone's been digging their hand into the jar of lollies from STICKY, and your in a crammed train carriage on your way home. Add two guys with an earplug in each ear that's blasting upbeat classical music and waht do you get?
A very shocked group of train carriage people.
They were--this is utter truth--actually bobbing and waving their arms in a random psycho fashion. Then, as you know happens when there's loud music in your ear, giggling really loudly. Of course we were also high on sugar and were somehow finding it all rather amusing ourselves. The thing was, us three girls were sitting on the bench at the front of the carriage that's facing the rest of the unlucky occupants. Lucky for the boys all they could see was the backs of their heads. It was us they were watching as we tried every possible means to keep a straight face.
As you know, males see this as a challenge so they keep going--getting ever worse. Until they were standing up between the seats doing a full body dance. *hides face remembering* Talk about embarrassing. Half the people were trying to be civilized and look at the window. Others, like one guy two seats in front of us just decided he'd found is evenings entertainment. And yet, another guy directly behind Matt looked like he wanted to push him out the window. lol
We had been trying all week to get a sister shot. We finally got it--on the last day and with the last shot left in the camera. It's rather interesting coz' you can see Kurk, the one who took the photo, in the front window behind us!
And last but not least is my favourite photo from the trip. My "artsy" bridge shot.
There was only two shots left on the film (we hadn't gotten our sister shot at that point), but we were walking along the side of the bridge when I looked up into the scructure of it and saw how the sun was peekign right through the frame work. On impulse I took it. And I'm glad I did.