Sydney, Australia

             On Friday, 19 Oct 2012, we woke up early but lounged around our hotel room for a long time.  Finally we found out the location of the free “Green Shuttle Bus” and then rode around the central portion of Sydney, which took about 30 minutes.  On the second trip around, we got off at the harbor and walked around there.  The Carnival Spirit cruise ship was in dock, along with several harbor tour boats.  Since Jim and Gail had told us that Australian meat pies were a “must have” dish in Sydney, we bought two.  They were very tasty, but if Jesse had been hungry, it would have taken four of five of them to satisfy his appetite!  Just as we were starting to board the bus again, a German woman called out to us; she remembered us (actually Jesse) from our talking with her one morning on the Sea Princess.  From the bus, we also saw a woman that we had met from the Bahamas.  Sydney is a large city, but with 1,500 or so Sea Princess cruisers wandering around, we were bound to run into some of them.  We returned to our hotel room in mid-afternoon and rested until dinner time, when we walked towards Chinatown.  After checking out the menus (and prices) at several restaurants, we finally settled on the Sakae Japanese Cuisine restaurant.  The meal was excellent; moreover, Jesse ate almost his entire meal with chopsticks until he got a cramp in his little finger.  In spite of a few wrong turns, we made it back to our hotel room by 8:00 PM.



Green Shuttle Bus

Sydney Harbor

            At 1:15 AM on Saturday, 20 Oct 2012 we lurched to wakefulness when a loud, repetitive noise, followed by a loud announcement over and over, bombarded us: “The alarm has activated.”  Then, the repetitive announcement changed to “Evacuate the building.”  After pulling on our clothes, we joined others in going down the stairs to the sidewalk in front of the building.  Fire trucks sat at the curb.  Once there, we talked with a couple who often shared the dance floor with us in the Wheel House bar; it turns out that their room was just down the hall in the hotel.  The walk back up the 90 steps to the fourth floor totally woke us up for the next 1.5 hours!  After finally getting back to sleep, we woke around 8:00, ate breakfast, and boarded the free Green Shuttle around 11:30.   About noon we arrived at the harbor, where we purchased tickets for a harbor cruise for $25.00 AUD each, with a boarding time of 2:45 PM.  Then we walked along the pier to the Opera House.  Since neither one of us was up to following a tour guide around for an hour, we only toured the building exterior and the lobby areas.  (We had been told by someone that morning that the interior of the Opera House is “overrated,” which also influenced us.)  In a lower lobby, we ran into our Reno friends, Toby, Susan, Mattie, and Terry.  Amazing!  After that, we wandered around the pier and shared a waffle ice cream sundae until boarding time.  The harbor cruise lasted an hour and we enjoyed the scenery.  Afterwards, we took the green shuttle bus back to the hotel, where we lounged until dinner time.  For dinner, we had pizza and salad at Macchiato Pizza.  (Yes, the pizza was small and over-priced, but delicious; and the entire meal was probably the most nutritious one that we have had since leaving the Sea Princess.)



View from Sydney Tower Eye

On Green Shuttle

St Mary's Cathedral

On Sunday, 21 Oct 2012, we took the green shuttle bus to St. Patrick’s Church.  Since we must have arrived at the bus stop soon after it had left (and then we had to walk about two blocks), we were 15 minutes late – though there were several who came in after us.  St. Patrick’s Church has Mass on Sunday on the hour beginning at 7:00 AM through 12:00 noon, then again from 3:00 through 6:00, and finally a last Mass at 8:00 PM.  (We wondered where they could find enough priests to cover so many Masses.)  The inside is small, but pretty.  Soon after that, we found a McDonald’s, where we ate their “serious Lamb” (which we would call a lamb burger) and a chocolate frappé.   The lamb burger was topped with a fried egg, sliced beet, sliced tomato, and lettuce.  It was quite good.  From there, we walked into the entrance to the botanical gardens; however, since we didn’t feel up to doing a lot of walking, we didn’t go far.  (There are just too many things to see in Sydney!)  We walked to a place where we could board the green shuttle bus again and went to the Sydney Tower Eye.  For $25 each, we went up to the circular, glassed-in observation deck, where we walked around, viewing Sydney from all angles.  (We didn’t take the “sky walk,” which would have been higher and would require the wearing of a jumpsuit and tether!)  When this structure was built in September 1981, it was the fourth tallest structure in the world.  From there, we walked to St. Mary’s Cathedral and went inside.  The interior is much larger than St. Patrick’s Church.  Unfortunately, photography is not allowed, but the stained glass windows and altar are beautiful.  From there, we boarded another shuttle bus, this time revisiting Market City.  Jesse had wanted to return there, ever since our first visit there on Thursday.  This time Sally bought a Sydney shirt, her only souvenir from here.  (Jesse had found a khaki hat that fits him earlier in the day, after looking for one at every stop on our trip.)  For dinner, we decided to go back to the Japanese restaurant again.



Sydney Tower Eye

Harbor Cruise

              About the weather in Sydney, Sally expected it to be a temperate climate about like San Francisco or Los Angeles.  It is apparently sub-tropical, with palm trees everywhere.  It is spring here, with temperatures expected in the 70’s (though Australians use Celsius).  Saturday was unexpectedly hot, and the Internet prediction for Sunday was 86 degrees.  However, it was cooler than that because more clouds moved in.  Monday it is supposed to be 66 degrees, but we’ll just be going to the airport.  We purchased airport shuttle tickets from the hotel clerk for $16.00 AUD each.  We could have purchased tickets from the convenience store across the street for $12.00 AUD each, but we felt more comfortable making the purchase through the hotel.  We will need to be down in the hotel lobby by 8:00 AM.