Tuesday

Mark and Heather's kids are so cute - having them here makes us miss our little ones at home even more! Here's Lynette and Ava reading Don't Let The Pigeon Drive The Bus. That's one of Ava's favorite books too, Nicole!

And little Jonathan emptying a kitchen drawer...again!

This morning we headed to the Opera House, stopping to take pictures in Circular Quay on the way. It was another gorgeous, sunny, slightly cold day. Everywhere we go the Australians keep telling us we've come during the COLDEST time of year. Everyone is wearing scarves and many are wearing boots (Uggs being the boots of choice, naturally.) Guess how "cold" it is? By midday, usually about 60 degrees. Guess we should have brought parkas...

Here we are!

The tour was quite interesting. You learn a lot about the history of the Opera House, like the fact that the design was the winner of an international competition. However, during the decison process it was initially thrown out as being too weird (it was 1959 after all, not a lot of "modern art" type buildings...) And the fact that initial projections were that it would take 3 years and $7 million to build. 14 years and $100 million later, it finally opened.

The trademark white sail-like outside is actually not smooth and white like it appears. The entire thing is tiles with self-cleaning tiles in 2 different tones, white and peach, in an chevron design that completely disappears from a distance.

The inside is almost as architecturally interesting as the outside, with lots of exposed granite, steel beams and concrete, which enables you to see a bit how it is constructed.

There are actually 5 theaters inside the structure and they have over 2500 events there per year! We got to see the insides of 3 of them. This theater is uses primarly for music events, from symphonies to pop/rock. However, it's also been used for circuses, large comedy events and more. In fact, Arnold Schwarzenegger won his last Mr. Universe competition in this theater!

Aboriginal street performers at Circular Quay

After lunch (amazing tapas as a place called Spanish Terrazzas) we went to the Centrepointe towers, Sydney's version of the Space Needle, but much higher. From up there you could really see how water is everywhere in the city.

The Way Out

Everywhere you go in the subway, trains stations and even stores there are signs that say "Way Out" the way we'd expect to see "Exit". We thought it was kind of quaint and then today when we were in a very large mall and wanted to leave we saw signs that actually said "Exit." We started joking with each other about "Exit - what's that? Is that like "Way Out?" Smart-aleck Americans. After following a long procession of "Exit" signs around we finally determined that no, in fact "Exit" is NOT the same as "Way Out" here and instead pertains to Emergency Exits which, like in the US, are firmly locked in non-emergencies. About 10 minutes later we found the "Way Out."

Before heading back to Mark and Heather's for an authentic Australian lamb dinner (thanks, Heather!) we took a quick walk down to Darling Harbour, home of the Sydney Aquarium which, we have been assured, is much cooler inside than it looks outside. Sounds like we'll hit that on Thursday, as we're off to the Blue Mountains tomorrow.

The ride back to Manly this evening provided more beautiful views of the city and another stunning sunset...

Oh, and 12. That's the number of dialects/languages we heard today walking around the town. Not only is city full of tourists from around the world, but residents too, it's quite something. The Austrian restaurant was entirely staffed with Germans and Austrians, and the Spanish place today was all Spaniards and one columbian.