Sydney; Night and Day

Winter in Sydney = shitty...

I woke up this morning to a very dark... very wet day... Due to that, it gave me a good reason to enjoy a little bit of a sleep in while I waited for the rain to break, after last nights musical entertainment at the bar downstairs in the form of 2 guys playing and singing blues, harmonica and all, I wasn't feeling too bad about sleeping a bit longer and awaiting dry climate.



Unfortunately the dryness that I spoke of, did not come and so after a $35 taxi cab ride I arrived outside the Sydney Aquarium which was very busy and very full of people trying to get out of the rain and out of the puddles it seemed, since the café outside the main entrance and ticket desks of the Aquarium was filled to the brim with wet umbrellas and long line-ups to get hot coffees and hot pies. But there is something to be said for an iPod, a camera, quick feet and high volume, based around the fact that I was surrounded by school groups and screaming children and some adults as well yes.

Either way the Sydney Aquarium was great, larger in comparison to my last Aquarium visit in Melbourne which was under extensive restructuring and repair due to the winter slow months so I was told, either way any building that has dugongs (2 of only 6 in the world that are in captivity), lots of sharks and stingrays and a habitat full of adorable, fluffy, buggy little penguins well that is an automatic win in my books and it ended up being a great way to spend a few hours on our rainy miserable day here.
I braved the storm I suppose you could say and stepped out into the light to moderate rain ready to hit my next stop even though I had yet to figure where that would be just yet. I will say this, the Sydney Wharf area is beautiful, especially in the misty haze of a rain storm.

With my fancy Bombers jacket and my very handy Tasmanian hat keeping the water somewhat off me I spent the next 3-4 hours trucking around the streets of Sydney, trying to find more then anything somewhere to have a cold beer, after the 2nd hour I came across a nice café/diner set on the side of a financial building, not touristy (which was great), not filled with tourists (which was better) and I enjoyed a nice lunch alone watching the throngs of business folk come and go through the busy doors of the large building. I was in a kind of bliss just walking the streets and enjoying my headphones in, stopping into a store if I thought it looked interesting. I still needed to pick up a few things from the tourist shops before my day of walking around ended so I headed towards one I knew of and then started the 14 block trek back North on George St to get back to my hotel. Stopping at a few more shops on the way home I picked up what I wanted to grab and went back to enjoy a little bit of quiet around and some guitar before my dinner/night cruise this evening.

At 6:20pm I started out for Circular Quay where the boat cruise would be taking off from, it was just out my window, I can see it from my hotel window and it really isn't far, just 3 or so blocks which seemed easy! ... At about 6:45pm I was 10 blocks in the WRONG DIRECTION! Soaked literally to the bone, not okay. but I was also the crazy one running through the puddles, across the sidewalks through the now POURING rain! I was ready to just go home and get room service, then I saw the bridge and I realized I was literally a block from the Wharf and therefore the boat.
So, drenched and ready to just go home, I climbed aboard Captain Cook's Adventures tour boat where a very cheery and very fun little lady brought my a good strong whiskey and before I knew it I had a wonderful dinner , listen to the 'cruise line singers' band playing... very cruise-ish mixed with opera wannabe music... but entertaining none the less. Only catch? Lots of love songs, like ALOT, and sappy crap lol thanks for making my choice of going on a romantic dinner cruise around the harbor of Sydney alone even more pathetic. But I milked the pathetic-ness I myself displayed and turned it into a very beautiful trip and a lot of fun. The photos are to prove it.

Rain and all the day was great, running through the streets, dripping wet and soaked to the bones was the best part I think or at least it is the part I will remember the most, much like running through the streets in San Fran (I believe it was) with uncle D and Aunt Kim and pops, after getting stuck in a very random downpour that almost saw us washed into the river!
Anyways, tomorrow is an easy day, I am going to try to find a book store so that I can find the true prize I have been looking for for years now; a very old, very rare edition of "The Divine Comedy" or aka Dante's Hell, that will be posted everywhere if I do actually find this thing!
Then I might take another stroll around the city, sit on the tourist bus for a bit, maybe get off at a few places and go for another walk back to the hotel like before. It is nice to get some stretch into me before the very long flight home. Then in the afternoon I have a trip to the spa and special attention to my knee again before the very long flight, might enjoy some time just relaxing at the spa for a while and finally having a laid back dinner, watching the footy on television, packing up perfectly and then getting to bed early to be out of here by 6:45am and off to the airport to come home.

Great trip, amazing experience, but I'm tired, cold and homesick and I want to go home to my family.

Till next time

-A.G