Days 70 & 71: Sydney, Australia (March 18 & 19, 2011)

Argh!  It will not stop raining!  :(  It's really putting a damper on my fun in Sydney, although to be honest, Sydney has been one of my nicest stops because I've had people to spend time with and easy stuff to see and do.

Yesterday and today both I didn't get out of the house until well past noon.  Both days I had some business to take care of (pay bills, the never-ending search for my next hotel, etc) and I chatted with some friends.  I also took the dogs for their walk.  A long one the first day and a short one today when the clouds burst open.  Apparently dogs, at least Oscar and Ella, like the rain even less than I do, because they wanted to run straight home.  And Ella's a little chubby, so she looks pretty funny when she runs.  Hmm... I need to take a photo of all the animals I'm watching here.

But after finally making it out of the house yesterday, I made to the wharf area known as Circular Quey (pronounced "key"), where I strolled through the streets, back and forth across the Harbor Bridge, around the Opera House and through the Botanical Gardens.  Sydney could be a medium/big city in America, really.  It's clean with tall buildings and nice parks, etc.  There are modern conveniences.  The trains appear to go most everywhere, and there are lots of ferries.  If I manage to make it out of the house before noon tomorrow, I might ride one, just for the views of the city.  I had been invited to go for a boat ride today, but the constant rain meant those plans were cancelled.

There seems to be a lot of water-based transportation here.  That's not true of all places surrounded by water.

Last night was fun.  A friend of Brian's, James, who I met one time years ago, lives in Sydney with his wife.  James and I and two of his friends went out to dinner.  Being this is Australia, we started with a few drinks of course.  Everyone was outgoing and friendly and wanted to hear about my trip. 

We thought it would be romantic to all sit on the same side of the table.

I'm starting to become self-conscious talking about my trip.  Even though my head knows that to each new listener, it's a new story, I've told so many people about my trip that I'm starting to worry I'm both boring and a braggart.  Maybe that's a good thing, because I sure don't want to be one of those people who won't STFU about all of the cool places I've been to, and blah blah blah.  So all this talk is getting it out of my system.  There was a lady on our tour to the Red Center who kept up a steady commentary about everywhere she'd been, with these minute details that no one cared about (down to the makes and models of cars she drove!).  After several hours of that, I started avoiding her, which wasn't easy when there were only 22 of us.  So listening to someone like that reinforced my self-consciousness about boring the pants off of other people.  And now of course I'm re-reading this post and and I'm like, "man, this is boring!"

At night, this light show plays all along the roof of the Opera House.

The big thing (ok, only thing) I did today was go to the opera.  I saw the full-length version of The Barber of Seville (short version included below).  It was a lot more fun than the last opera I went to, Tosca (at The Met!  OK, I will brag a little bit), but to my (admittedly, untrained) ear, I don't think the quality of the singing was quite as good as the last one.  Figaro was pretty impressive, though:  a good singer and good actor.