Carlos was sleeping in the bunk next to mine, who happens to have a snoring problem. But not one that is slightly irritating, he should come with a warning - seriously.. My reaction at four in the morning was “dude are you f****** joking” as I couldn’t imagine the level of snoring to be real!
Our first stop was the Opera House, which exudes amazing architecture, yet we all thought it was smaller than we had imagined. Still it’s a great feeling standing between the House and Habour Bridge. We swiftly moved onto the Botanic Gardens, which is pretty much next-door to the House. The sun was shining and we were all in a gloriously joyful mood. We sat somewhere in the middle of the gardens and opened a beer we brought over from the night before; one guy gave them to us. Well, after opening mine I saw some stuff floating around, it wasn’t the best sight - so we decided to nourish the gardens with our over fermented drink.
We sat and enjoyed the weather, something not presently available to us in Canberra. We then agreed that it was time to enjoy a proper beer somewhere. After walking down George St. which is one of the main streets going through the city centre, we saw a nice placed called the George (I think) and we all got a bottle of Peroni, minus Azim who was actually fasting during this period as it’s Ramadan right now. We felt tremendous compassion for him, we also teased him subtly: “beer Azim... want some of this cupcake?...” etc. childish, but expected I suppose.
Soon, the second group arrived and the group of twelve were complete. We chilled in our room for some time before heading out. Sheel, a canadian from McGill University had the urge to go to Hard Rock Cafe, something I don’t quite understand (especially when in Sydney); however, I, we were open to all. Plus, it was in Darling Harbour and it gave us the opportunity to check out the much talked-about area. It was immensely romantic, yet almost tacky due to the blatant aura of tourism lurking around. The Cafe idea failed as it was so busy, so instead we went into a nearby food court where I had a nice curry. We also merged groups with another lot from BnG (another hall in ANU), mainly because of the cross-cultural romance between one of our columbian girls - Paola - and a dutch guy - Frayek - (something like that anyway). From there we ended up in a German pub in The Rocks area. Now, it took a while to get there, as anyone who has travelled in a large group knows that there is no time for complete democracy in deciding where to go; someone needs to make a decision and then stick to it!! Just a bit of advice for anyone planning to do this anytime soon: be, or at least find a dictator of the group - it helps! We finished up in some club, dancing and laughing was on the cards...
From left: Juan, Trish, Andie (from US), Lina, Sheel, Azim, Jesus
Waking up after a few hours sleep wasn’t the best experienced, but we were all full of energy, because, “guys we’re in Sydney” - this was one of the quotes of the trip. We went on another tour of the city, doing all the tourist stuff. Five of us, Jeff (whom you should all know by now), Trisha, the crazy but funny Singaporean chick, Sheel and Jesus, pronounced as an “h” he’s a Spaniard from Madrid, also crazy! The star of the concert was Randy Newman, the composer of Pixar soundtracks. Unexpected performance, he talked a lot and made many jokes that I didn’t quite get, perhaps I should have had some of the wine at the bar before hand - may have helped? It was different, a coalition of stand-up and classical-music concert in one performance. The interior of the hall was mind-blowing, we all entered in completely awe-striken!!
sounds like you a great time there - hope you'll be ready for some more sightseeing soon ;-) x
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