A jam-packed weekend in Sydney

This past weekend I had my first visitor in Sydney. It was my friend, Heidi. She is American, but has lived in Brisbane for the past two years. We had lots of fun when I visited her in Brisbane, and it was my turn to return the favor and show her a good time in Sydney. Seeing as Heidi only had a few days here (she arrived late on Friday and left Sunday evening), we had to cram a lot into a short period of time. This was obviously not a problem; we both enjoy doing tons of stuff in a short amount of time. Best of all was that Heidi wanted to do lots of touristy things, so I got to be all touristy this weekend. Hurray! 

On Saturday, we woke up early and headed to the city. We stopped for breakfast at the Opera Bar before heading to the lush Royal Botanical Gardens. We walked all around, and stopped at Mrs Macquarie's Chair. This is an exposed sandstone rock cut into the shape of a bench, hand carved from sandstone in 1810 for Governor Macquarie's wife, Elizabeth. I'm still not quite sure why Heidi was so keen on seeing this, but I was very happy with the gorgeous views of the Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge on the way there. Gorgeous!

Hm. Did this tree just fall over? 

We saw heaps of yellow-crested cockatoos. Number 097 was pretty cute. 

This looks just like the Botanical Gardens in Brisbane. Unfortunately, we did not see any awesome water dragons like we did in Brizzy. 

The castle-esque Government House 

Next on our itinerary was an hour-long guided tour of the Opera House. Ahhh! You can imagine how excited I was. We got to hear all the history, stories, and magic of this iconic building. There were about 10 other people on the tour. Our guide, Bruce, was knowledgable and nice. 

Fun facts about the Opera House:

• The Danish architect Jørn Utzon was initially rejected by three judges in the 1956 competition to design the Sydney Opera House. Luckily, his entry was picked out by the fourth judge who arrived late. The American architect Eero Saarinen thought Utzon's design was fantastic, and deserved a second look.  
• Jørn Utzon beat 232 other entrants from 32 different countries.
• The construction of the Opera House cost $102 million. The original estimate cost was $7 million. Ooops...
• The Opera House took 14 years to build.
• There are a total of 1 056 006 ceramic tiles on the sails.
• The tiles are beige and off-white, not white. If they were white, you'd be blinded when sunlight hit them. 

We worked up an appetite walking around the Opera House. We ate lunch at Eat Love Pizza, which is located smack in the middle of Darling Harbour. The sun was shining, and we were in very good spirits. We also had tons of good food and wine, so that obviously added to the experience. Since I've been in Australia, I've become very fond of Groupon and Scoopon. For those of you who aren't familiar with these sites, they are deal-of-the-day websites that feature discounted gift certificates to different places. We got an appetizer, an entrée, dessert, and a bottle of wine for $49. Such a good deal! (Side note: Australians call the courses different names than what I'm used to. An appetizers is an entrée, and an entrée is a main. Weird.)

Beautiful Darling Harbour

We spent a great deal of time walking around on Saturday. I have no idea how far we walked total, but our feet were getting tired after a while. We were very temped to catch a ride on the Darling Harbour train at one point. 

When I visited Heidi in Brisbane, she made sure I had heaps of awesome culinary experiences. I made sure she got to taste the oh-so-fantastic gelato from Messina. A phrase you can often hear from Heidi is "beetus", which is a slang term for diabetes. Though I understand that diabetes is a serious medical condition and not a laughing matter, hearing Heidi say this in all seriousness after every indulgence is truly hilarious. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: thank goodness I do not have a Messina close to my house as I have no control over myself when it comes to Messina. Messina is truly the best gelato I have ever tasted. I aptly demonstrated my complete lack of self-control by having gelato twice in one day. In my defence, we were in the area (twice). Oh... And it's super delicious. 

BEETUS!

After finishing up our extremely tasty gelato, we made our way to the Shangri-La Hotel. I've been to this hotel once before, and ever since that visit, I have wanted to go back. Having a visitor made this the perfect opportunity! We got there early, patiently waiting for the elevator to open and take us to the Blu Bar on the 36th floor. To our surprise, all the window spots were taken by the time we got up there at 5:02pm. How did they get up there without us seeing? So sneaky! Regardless of our not-so-perfect seats, the champagne and cider we had still tasted excellent. We awkwardly huddled around the lucky people by the windows to get a better glimpse (and some pictures) of the beautiful view. 

The last thing we managed to cram into our jam-packed Saturday was a visit to the Sydney Lyric Theater. We spontaneously booked tickets to see "Strictly Ballroom" while on a sugar-high at Messina. This show is based on the 1992 movie, and tells the story of an Australian ballroom dancer, Scott Hastings, struggling to establish his personal style of dance in his way to win the Pan-Pacific Grand Prix Dancing Championship. Heidi and I agreed that it was a cross between Footloose, Save the Last Dance, and Dirty Dancing. Though there could have been more dance offs, it was highly entertaining! 

After a good night sleep, we woke up bright and early, and ready for our next exciting day.  We went and saw the cool documentary Great White Shark in 3D at the world's largest IMAX theatre. Seeing this made me even more disappointed that I don't have time to go cage diving with these fascinating creatures in South Australia. I think my Grandma is pretty pleased that I haven't done this; her exact words when I told her I was considering it were "Susanna! Do you want to kill me? I would die!!" No need to worry, Grams. There's not enough time left in Australia for those sorts of adventures! 

Sunday was truly a day filled with aquatic adventures.The other aquatic things we visited were the Australian National Maritime Museum, the Sydney Fish Market, and the SeaLife Aquarium. Aside from going on a whale safari (which is still on my to-do-list), I don't think there were many more aquatic things we could have visited yesterday. 

We were drawn to the Australian National Maritime Museum because of the life-size whale photography exhibition by Bryant Austin. The pictures were very nice, but there was only one full life-size picture of a whale... And it was of a Minke whale, one of the smaller whales! We wanted to see a life-size picture of a Blue whale. We would've settled for a Humpback whale, too. Oh well, it was still fun (and it fit into the aquatic theme of the day). 

The Sydney Fish Market was about a 15 minute walk from Darling Harbour. It was quite the place! Lots of stalls and restaurants selling fresh local seafood.

The SeaLife Aquarium was very similar to other aquariums I've visited, but we did see some really cool things I hadn't seen before. Definitely worth a visit!

We were fascinated

Fluorescent jellyfish 

Coral fish 

I wonder if it's official name is "chainsaw shark". Doubtful. 

All in all, it was a great weekend spent with a very funny and entertaining friend. I was sad to send her off to the airport Sunday evening. On the bus home from the city I realized that Isabelle and I will be on our way home three weeks. How has time flown by so quickly? 

I can hardly believe it is already June 16th! My fantastically awesome friend, Trine Lise, turns 26 today. I don't know what I would do without this wonderful girl in my life. I wouldn't mind being in Norway right now to give her a great big hug. I guess I will have to wait until July 8th... 

Gratulerer med dagen, kjære panda! Jeg gleder meg masse, masse til å se deg om 22 dager! 

Bestefar is a big fan of Trine Lise, too.

Love, 
Suzy