Sydney

We took a wander to Circular Quay the first night (after getting Zarah a phone)

I can’t believe I climbed that bridge 20 years ago!

Lines and angles everywhere, the light plays beautiful games. And I have a brilliant wife who talked to the ticket agent about what was available, too late tonight, but pretty affordable tickets for Tosca tomorrow!

Morning walk to see old buildings downtown

And new buildings taking all the space they can while leaving some old. It’s neat how they preserve some buildings.

We took a boat to Manly Beach

So many sail boats out in the harbor.

Botany Bay really is a huge inlet and has so much water and so much coastline.

And Sydney Harbor National Park.

So green and windswept.

Pond on a cliff.

There was a lovely panoramic view.

Cemetery for those who were quarantined out here before going into to city.

Such a lovely cliff to rest on.

There was actually a plague outbreak in 1900! I didn’t know it was still around!

Cutest cafe with such a nice view over the cemetery, bay and city.

Evening walk to a lookout explained by a local mob member.

A gorgeous city from the ferry

Quick dinner with live music before the show.

In the opera house!

Looking up

Having wine and looking out the windows at intermission. Tosca was pretty controversial at the time. Sexual innuendos and the heroine murdering the bad guy. Not bad for 1900.

Next day at the botanical garden, there is a cool live wall mosaic

And ibises in the trees

And allowing for their photo ops

And a southern right whale.

And an echidna

Very civilized place for a glass of wine at lunch

I appreciate the sign pointing to the “kiss and ride” area.

And popcorn and a movie in the evening

ANZAC Memorial under a bit of construction

Movingly done and much bigger than it seems.

Video of annual parade

Very well described different roles in the war.

St Mary’s cathedral

The Hyde Park Barracks Museum. It was really fascinating and well done. You have earphones playing information based on your location. This is voices reading letters from courts and criminals sentenced to being sent to Australia. There was a real push to get laborers over here to build up the cities. Lots of people sent for simple things like stealing handkerchiefs.

Barracks with hammocks. There were times it was so overcrowded there were these and another layer of people below them on the floor, with the rats. There were early phases where it was a pretty reasonable work load and people found their own housing. Then the barracks were built and people were on top of each other and the system required more violent control and heavier workloads to sustain itself.

Dioramas and explanations of tensions between settlers and Aboriginal residents whose culture doesn’t include ownership of land. There is so much parallel between our countries and the systematic slaughter followed by assimilating schools and discrimination down to today. Australia is better about land acknowledgments, a formal apology and National Sorry Day every year. And Aboriginal people couldn’t vote until 1962 and they still do not have legal recognition of mob (we would say tribe) entities.