Harbo(u)r City Adventures

Wow, so this seems like forever ago, but on the weekend of May 18 I went to Sydney with Lauren V and Litsa.

I should take this moment to identify all the players in this game: Lauren V is not my roommate Lauren, but she essentially is because her room is literally in the dungeon of our building and has no natural light, leading her to spend most of her time with roommate Lauren, Theresa and me in our apartment. Litsa, meanwhile, is awesomely Greek American, and her whole name is Evagalia Something Greek Georgakilas. We bond over ethnicity, unexpected nicknames, and halva.

So, Sydney: Lauren and I stayed with Amanda, a friend of Lauren's from high school who is studying at McQuarie University in Sydney, and Litsa stayed with a friend from home who is also abroad there. Our flight was absurdly early so that when we made it to Sydney we had a bunch of time to explore but very little energy to do it. A week and a half later its all sort of a blur, so I can't really tell you what I did when, but here are some of the highlights of my weekend:

We always ended up at the harbor at dusk, without fail. I tried to get there during the day to take good pictures, but even then it was overcast and cloudy so it just ended up looking like dusk anyway. Don't worry, though: Sydney is beautiful in any light, as hopefully this photo of the bridge proves.


Okay, so here is the deal: I love the Opera House. It is freaking awesome in all its strange, turtle-y fluidity. I love that it's white, I love that it looks like it could just stand up on one hundred little legs and scuttle off like a crab into the water, and I love its unrepentent modernity. What I don't love is its inability to fit into a regular camera lens unless said camera is eight trillion feet away. The buiding is just too freaking big. This was the closest I could get and still capture the whole building:


One night after dinner we wandered around town, waiting to meet some of Litsa's friends. We had agreed to find them at City Hall, which seemed like a good idea at the time. When we got there, however, it quickly became apparent that there was no way we could locate anyone in the crowd gathered around the building. Why? Because there were scores of people standing stupidly watching a woman throw burning sticks into the air. City Hall was festooned with chinese lanterns and red cloth, and the fire-lady was dressed in an abbreviated ceremonial dress. Here she is:


The crowd grew larger once the dragon-dancers came, wearing their enormous dragon costumes and playing head-achingly-loud cymbals. The colors and lights were fantastic, though. This was all clearly the lead-up for some sort of event happening at the hall, and our wait was rewarded when people in tuxes and gowns started arriving. The highlight of the evening, however, was when a veritable cadre of red motercycles sped up onto the sidewalk and faced off against the dragon-dancers while the passengers sitting side-saddle on the hogs got off, dusted off their evening wear, and swept into the hall. It was quite possibly the most perposterous moment I've ever witnessed, but unfortunately none of my pictures came out well. Sidenote: the event was not a fundraiser for a Chinese charitable foundation, as I had been guessing, but rather something called "Spark of Genius," which is a fundraiser for a schizophrenia foundation. I'm not sure where the Chinese theme comes in - maybe the dragons fighting the motorcycles while fire-bombs go off around them are all meant to symoblize what its like inside the brain of someone suffering from schizophrenia?

You can't do Sydney without a visit to a beach, so on Sunday we took the ferry out to Manly Beach. We chose Manly over Bondi because a) Bondi was going to be insanely crowded and b) we see Bondi Beach every week when we watch Bondi Rescue, a reality tv show version of Baywatch. In one episide a lifeguard saved a Polish surfer who got all huffy, insisting that he was a trained lifeguard in Poland who was an expert in judging ocean tides - it made for amazing viewing. But anyway, Manly. The ferry ride there was great - we were able to see the whole harbor from the boat. We also got mixed up in a boat race, as seen here from afar:


At some points we were a lot closer to the boats, so much so that we started cheering for one when they turned and waved at us. Some of the boats were sponsored by companies, and the funniest sight of the day was watching as the Yellowtail Wine boat practically capsized because they were tilted too low and their sail caught water. All of us on the deck of the ferry were yelling for them to tighten their sail up and get back in the race but they were just milling around or laying out on the stern, totally unconcerned that their boat was about to flip. I think its because their sponsors paid them in product rather than actual money, so they were three sheets to the wind by that leg of the race.

Manly is a beautiful beach with a lovely waterfront town attached, which we walked through. My favorite part of the town center is the fabulous sandwhich shop where I built what I think is the most amazing sandwhich ever: roasted eggplant, sundried tomatoes, cheese, lettuce, pickles and onions on a baguette with balsamic vinagrette dressing. So simple, but something about that place made it fabulous. I tried to recreate the experience back in my apartment but it just wasn't the same. So if you are ever in Manly Beach, go to the Manly Deli and get that. You'll thank me.

We sat around on the sand, eating our sandwhichs and making all the usual small-talk that happens at the beach ("oh, what lovely water, the sand is so nice, I think I'm burning to a crisp, yay skin cancer, what is that girl wearing, who does she think she is, oh my goodness sir, please put your swim trunks back on!") when a little boy ran up and kicked his soccer ball towards us. Now, Lauren V. and Amanda are friends from high school, where they were on the soccer team together. They both get up and start playing with the boy, who was five years old, British, and suprisingly adept at soccer. Here they are:


Our trip also included countless outings to the Paddington Market and the Market on the Rocks. The Rocks, in fact, was were we spent a lot of our time - a charming, if touristy neighborhood of Sydney filled with old buildings and nice bakeries, it abutted the harbor bridge and was a lovely area to wander through in the evening. While hovering around the harbor one afternoon we saw seven wedding parties in full celebratory regalia, so clearly its a popular destination. A couple of times I accidently wandered into a married-couple photo shoot under the bridge or bracketed against the harbor, and then I felt like a huge jerk.

We usually ended our days watching the sun set over the harbor, so I'll finish this post with a picture of Litsa and me outside the Opera House. We were waiting for the Opera House tour to start, and I can assure you that if you are ever in Sydney and have neither the time nor the budget to catch a show there you should definitely go on the tour. It is an amazing, weird, slightly ugly yet fascinating building and it will make the inner theater dork in you jump up and down like a little girl.

Litsa is covering her face with an article she had to read for class, but thats her trademarked hair-bump over the paper (Litsa is interrupting me to inform you that the technical name for her hair-bump is a bouf, and she doesn't appreciate my lack of respect for the title):


So that was Sydney, minus the huge amounts of food I consumed and the ridiculous sums of money I spent on sightseeing, snacks, and drinks. Next up: Great Ocean Road!