After we got through customs, Red got us week-long train/bus/ferry passes and we traveled to a suburb about an hour away from the city called Cambelltown.
I'm not partial to the suburban communities, but if I ever have to live in one I'd like to live the way our landlords did.
We stayed in a travel trailer in this back yard. But the backyard was also a garden with vegetables and other plants, a fountain, a grape arbor, a separate room that served as a meditation retreat, a small bathroom to the side and even a small chicken coop in the corner. (The only thing missing was a Koi Pond.)
Whenever I opened the door of the trailer it seemed like one of the couple's toy poodles was out there to see what I was up to.
Everything seemed to be overflowing with life. Its extremely difficult to get plants to grow that way where I am from. It was a peaceful setting and very beautiful.
All we did there was pretty much introduce ourselves and drop off our stuff, but the gentleman was nice enough to drive us back to the train station and advise us to be careful not to hang around the train station too long after dark.
After getting back to the city, Red decided we would walk through Hyde Park on our way to a place called Darling Point (at least I think that was what it was called, it was either that or The Rocks but they're nearby each other). But first we stopped by Coles and got food.
(Coles is not a clothes store, its a grocery store in AU)
We got fruit and I think stuff to make sandwiches (white bread and canned chicken are popular cuisine choices for Red).
Afterward we walked through the urban areas and I proceeded to get completely lost in the city.
(not in a good way)
I was completely disoriented as to which direction we were going. We would turn down a lane or cross a street and turn again. I was sure at several points we were going in circles. I felt out of control and I didn't like it.
Walking through Hyde Park, we stopped and went through the ANZAC Memorial.
(it's sideways because the computer won't let met turn it...Red took the picture.)
Its for the soldiers from Australia and New Zealand Armies. Started during WWI, when troops from AU and NZ made a batallion to serve in the war. It was apparently a period of time that helped the country define its cultural identity: even though AU was originally a place for outcasts of the British empire, the people of Australia were eager to help the mother country in the war effort. The memorial is a patriotic icon.
It would have been really nice but the whole time we were exploring it we were also carrying these great sacks of food in our hands. It felt really out of place. Like going through the Lincolin Memorial with a shopping cart (which im sure people have done before but i don't think its a good idea)
(Nothing like exploring a war memorial with your groceries)
Then we ate lunch next to Capt. Cook :)
Red was trying to psych me up for this "really cool" thing that turned out to be an underground moving platform :-|
It was pretty long and the walls were painted with new-agey stuff. Red was trying to make the experience a suprise but it didn't work out the way she expected. When we got to the end there was a parking garage, we took an elevator to the open are where a whole bunch of people were standing around.
She said "OK just imagine all of these people aren't here and you can see a hill, the hill is actually the top of a parking garage."
(The hill/park is called "the domain".)
I didn't appreciate this 9th wonder of the world at the time because there were a whole bunch of people standing round us so I couldn't see the hill.
We walked past a bunch of other things (Like a prison and a fountain and a HUGE library and a few other things). Since we were carrying bags and I wasn't dressed nice I didn't want to go inside St Mary's Cathedral (We did go later Tho.)
Then we passed Circular Quay. (I kept pronouncing this place wrong Quay is pronounced like the thing you use to.start your car and pretty much means "a line" as in "to line boats up next to a dock" presumably "Circular Quay" refers to the fact that the dock is shaped in a half-circle, and the boats will have to "line up in a circle" in order to dock.)
Circular Quey is located RIGHT NEXT TO Darling Point. And there is a train station at Circular Quey. So we could have skipped walking through that expansive urban area if we'd we'd started from this point and gone to Hyde Park from here.
Dammit.
Then we found a nice comfy place on the pavement and sat there for the next 8 hours 30 minutes.
I was exhausted in body and mind. And since I'd stopped moving about I was starting to feel it.
I laid down for a while, but as the place started to get more crowded Red insisted I sit or stand.
"You shouldn't be tired, you slept on the plane."
(I should have prayed for the Lord to give me patience. But as it was, I didn't kill Red, so I guess it turned out OK.)
The fireworks came from all different directions: from the opera house in front of us, from the Sydney Harbor bridge to our left, and from some undetermined point behind us.
They had some go off at 9 pm and some people left after that. We got a little closer to the shoreline before things got really really crowded again.
Besides the fireworks, there was this really cool stunt airplane flying about the harbor early in the evening and this extremely annoying and repetitive beatbox music coming from an outdoor pub that persisted throughout the entire period of the time we were there.
The fireworks were pretty cool, but not something I'd ever do again.
On New Years Day we got to sleep and later went to the Sydney Eye. Red said it wasn't that cool, but it was important to me to try to get oriented to the city since I'd done a pretty bad job at it upon my arrival.
I wrote some postcards for my family (That I'd gotten at Woolworths, which is another supermarket there), but couldn't send them off at the
highest freaking postbox in the southern hemisphere because when I asked if they sold international stamps they said no :(
It was about this time Red encouraged me to start sharing the experience on FB. I tried to make at least one post a day saying stuff about my trip. I also tried to keep a journal.
We also went to the Queen Victoria Building, which is a Mall right in the middle of a bunch of streets. The pedestrian traffic is so heavy there, they actually stop all four lanes of the intersection near the entrance so people coming from all different directions can get across.
Later we walked across the Harbor Bridge (The one you are allowed to walk across).
And went to a place called Luna Park: Which is a legit 1930's style amusement park. I guess Red had been there a few times just people watching, but after seeing the anti-gravity one we decided to try a sampler of two of the rides.
The anti gravity one was like being spinned around the inside of a huge bucket so you stick to the walls and the floor beneath you drops. Red was a lot more courageous then i was. She was moving all about and I just wiggled my arms a bit. It was still really fun.
Afterwards we went on a ferris wheel and annoyed the whole world by yelling "Hi!" and waving to random people as if they were the long lost family member we'd been dying to see every time our gondola came down to earth.
One of the days on our way back on the train, we stopped at an outback steakhouse (just to see what it was like cuz you know, it's themed australian) and surprisingly enough they don't try very hard to convince you of that, it actually looks like a regular diner inside...
(In my home country, these would be labeled "mate" and "shelia")
We went along the Sydney Heritage Walk to a place called "the rocks" which is where all these really really old buildings are from when the convicts first came there and they built all their buildings out of...you guessed it
Rocks.
Next we went hiking at the Blue Mountians. They look a lot like what I think the Grand Canyon might have looked thousands of years ago: covered gum and evergreen trees, a lovely temprate rainforest. And because the trees are so oily, there is a blue-haze when you look out into the distance ("That's why they're called the blue mountians!")
Its also my living vision for Mirkwood.
It was a pretty steep climb down (I was clinging to the side rail on account of my poor footing)
Luckily, we were able to ride a rail on the way back up. (We even lived dangerously and tilted the seats 'suicide'-style.)
Unfortunately I don't currently have any pictures of this leg of our journey because my camera decided to malfunction that day.
Sadness
We went to Manly Beach via ferry. It was pretty funny because we would walk past businesses there and they were called things like "Manly Beauty Parlour".
Gotta love australia and their hugely creative place-names! The beach was pretty crowded, but Red said it isn't most of the year (it is summer in December and January down there and also it was new years holiday)
(We didn't swim that day)
We also took the 'free tour' at the maritime museum (which pretty much consists of walking around the lobby, gift shop, and the haurbor lining it.) If we'd gotten there earlier in the day I would have paid to go inside because there was a Viking exhibit and I have another Ginger sister who loves Vikings and I'd have loved to tell her about it. As it was, I did get a few viking replica things in the gift shop. The historical boats.outside were pretty cool too. One of them was used as a refugee ship during WW2.
It was somewhere around this time that Sherlock Season 3: Episode 1 came out. Our And because I followed the right people on tumblr, my newsfeed was blasted with these glorious gifs of Benedict Cumberbatch long into the early, early, early hours of the morning.
Red and I are single, and virtually every time we walked past a male who in Red's eyes is reasonably attractive she would try to draw my attention to him.
Eventually the interactions would go something like this:
Red: "Hey, look at that cute boy over there!"
Ebster: "Is it Benedict Cumberbatch jumping through a window?"
Red: "No."
Ebster: "Then I DON'T CARE."
Over the weekend, our train had track service so travelers would have to get off and take a bus part of the way. This made he 1 hour trip wards of three hours. Gratefully, we'd decided to go camping on an island in the bay where they used to have a prison, make war ships, and had a school for girls...(not all at the same time, obviously)
It was a really pretty place, and you can do a lot of exploring of these huge old industrial buildings and prison ruins. I kept thinking that there are a lot of places like that in the states (Like the Russian River Fort in Northern California, which I was fortunate enough to see and explore...before it got locked up) But they are locked up and no one actually gets to explore them in the same way.
It was breeding season for the seabirds on Cockatoo Island, so they were super-aggressive and territorial, we got harassed by them several times. (Once at night, while Red and I were ghost-hunting, which was very very funny).
The next day we went to church. It was testimony meeting sunday, which is when members of the congregation are invited to the pulpit. Sometimes it is very uplifting, and people share a devotional, a scripture or a spiritual experience. Other times people use it as a way to introduce themselves whilst crying. This meeting was a little bit of both. We stayed for the whole three hours.
The church was in a tall city building, which was kinda cool and different from what I'm used to.
Afterward we went to the Botanical Gardens and the Opera House (which is actually peach colored-looking, I'd always thought it was silver/white).
The park on the way there is like a fourm set up for public display and debate. I met a guy who advocates the translation of english into a photonic (sound based) language. And saw a guy named Mr Bashful who didn't seem all that bashful at all.
(They have this weird automatic bathroom thing.That was a bit freaky.)
There was also a display on the conversion of energy to matter using the egyption god horus: it showed how different symbols in his icon were meant to represent different steps in the process.
All very fascinating.
At the botanical guardens, there were these pools in the botanical guarden with fish and eels in them. The eels look like really long fish...like snake-fish...but their faces were pretty similar. I kept saying stupid things to Red, such as "Do you hear that, Highness? Those are the shrieking eels! They always make that sound when they're about to feed on human flesh!"
(But we fed them breadcrumbs from the ruined loaf of white bread instead).
The last day we went to Bondi (the last letter is pronounced like the letter itself, it does not take the place, or have the value of the letter Y. (Which I think is dumb).
And my camera broke (which was also dumb)
We also went to a bunch of other places along the coastline, including a place that is so notourios as a place to commit suicide that there are cameras set up along the cliffside walk. Very, very sad. But also fascinating, because I'm morbid like that.
The next day we flew to Melborne.
Edit: a few more pictures just cuz I want to..
(St Mary's Cathedral)
(Red Punching a T-Rex during our "free tour" of a sydney museum)
A Lovely Cockatoo Island Sunset
(This is the outside wall of a big, tall "green" building)
We also went to a cool art museum, but unfortunately it was illegal to take pictures there.
I learned about an art series called 100 aspects of the moon, it was beautiful and I loved the the asian folk tales behind each of the pieces I saw.
I also saw a big huge version of this touching picture:
(
