Day 2 – Sydney

Last night before we went to dinner, I noticed the cruise ship had departed, so I got a picture without one in the way.  (This morning another had replaced it.)

Then we we headed down to The Rocks, an area in the city center, for dinner.  We chose The Fortune of War, which claims to be Sydney’s oldest pub.  

However, we learned on the Hop On/Hop Off tour that at least two pubs in Sydney claim to be the oldest, so who knows?  I did have to spend some time googling ingredients before making my selections.  I learned that a pint is about 1/3 bigger than a schooner, grissini are breadsticks, baby cos lettuce is baby romaine, and a rump steak is a round steak.  All good to know. 😃

They actually had live music, so we stayed to watch a couple songs before heading back to the hotel for a good night’s sleep. 

This morning we took a leisurely stroll from the hotel to the Opera House.  Came across this on the way.

And this guy was having an early lunch.

The tour was really interesting.  Here’s a selfie Lee took outside.

We learned that the sails are made of 1M ceramic tiles.  And, the men that built them did not use any safety harnesses while building them and they claim no workers died.  Hmmm…

There are two large auditoriums – the Concert Hall, which seats 2,700 and the theater, which seats 1,500.  There are also 3 smaller theaters.  In one, they were going to be performing a Dungeons and Dragons play.  Pretty cool.

Outside the large theater, the carpet is a deep purple.  The famed singer Pavarotti was performing there, but refused to walk on the purple carpet due to superstition, so they had to change the venue to the other theater.

The other large theater has a huge pipe organ, but we weren’t allowed to take pictures in there because they were setting up for a show. Our tour guide, Blondine, went into a lot of detail about the Opera House designer (Utzon), and the political shenanigans that caused him to close his business, leave Australia, and never see the completion of the Opera House.  However, she said his son is now involved in maintaining the structure, and the year before Utzon Sr died, the Opera House was added to the Unesco World Heritage Sites.

After we left the Opera House, we stopped into a few little shops.  Lee picked this up to look at it, then said, “Ewww!”

We then stopped for lunch and these little guys came in to have a snack.  The waitress said they come every day, just the two of them.

After lunch we went to the Sydney Tower Eye, the tallest building in Sydney.  (I posted a picture of it yesterday.)  So we went up to the top and took some pictures.

This is Archibald Fountain, commemorating the association between Australia and France during WW1.  Behind it is St Mary's Cathedral, the largest church in Australia.

On the way back to the hotel, we came upon this building, which made me laugh.

Random fun fact – Sydney news uses the same music as NBC Nightly News.  And they show a shit ton of US shows here.  I had to search to find an Australian show.  (It’s the Game Show The Chase, and half the questions were about American stuff. I’m not actually sure if they stole our show or we stole theirs.)

That's about if for today.  Tonight we are going to try to find an Open Mic so Lee can impress another continent.😀

(Posted January 29 4:22PM)