Friday in Sydney

Friday 19 July 2019

Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Today I booked a Hop on Hop off bus tour around Sydney, as well as a tour of the Opera House. As I was making my way to the bus stop, I watched it drive away as I was standing waiting to cross just on the other side of the road. A mother and a daughter visiting from North Carolina missed it as well, so we all waited at the stop for the next one to come, getting to know each other in the meantime. The daughter was majoring in Zoology, so naturally, we both geeked out talking about our majors haha! I made it to the Opera House with enough time to take a couple of pictures outside before the crowds came.

Once inside… WOW… an architectural masterpiece in every facet! And the story behind it of how its iconic design was originally rejected by the 3 judges, but once the 4th arrived he was the one who saw its potential! Also in the construction of it, it took them 3 years to find the right shape of the shells to where the outside would be supported and the interior reflects the designers' vision (Joan Ultzon).

The Opera House took 15 years to build and cost $102 million dollars! But this fee they got covered in 18 months from a state government-run lottery haha! There are 10 sails in total and they were appraised at $6.5 million dollars! The beautiful concrete interior comprises just a portion of the 25,000 tons of concrete that make up the whole place!

After the tour it was around lunchtime so I headed to the other side of Circular Quay (pronounced Key) to a historic Sydney neighborhood called The Rocks. They had a weekly market going on so I walked around there for a bit and grabbed some margherita pizza from one of their pop up shops.

Afterwards, I walked back to the other side to hop back on my tour bus to finish the rest of my tour around Sydney. I got a beautiful up close view of the Sydney Harbour Bridge on the bus tour! It has an 8 lane highway, 2 railways, a bikeway, and walkway! It took 10 years to build and is nicknamed the “Iron Lung.” You can also pay to walk across the top of the bridge and there were people doing it that day even though it was incredibly windy... but you are strapped to a cable lol. To wrap up my day I hopped on another bus that was apart of my ticket that brought me out to the famous Bondi Beach! My first time finally getting to see the water off Australia’s coastline and yikes was it chilly (granted it is their winter right now). Bondi has a famous surfing club aptly named the “Icebergs,”  because to become apart of the group you must surf every sunday for 4 years! That is true dedication!!