Sydney, November 1: getting acclimated

My mini list for Sydney included:

11/2 10 am tour of Susannah's Place

11/3 7 am tour of the Sydney Opera House

LEGO store

Bondi to Coogee to North End Maroubra Beach

Walk across Harbour Bridge to Luna Park

Spoiler alert: everything except the walk from Coogee to Maroubra Beach took place, and that walk was replaced by the Spit to Manly hike instead towards the end of the trip.

We landed bright and early at 7 am Sydney time. No idea what time that equated to in New Jersey. As Americans with our preapproval paperwork already done (called a travel visa), we sailed through security in the haze that accompanies such a long journey. A month later I don't remember anything about the experience. As we carried all our luggage with us for that leg (after Ashley and Yoran both had luggage problems this year, I didn't want to risk it at the beginning of our trip), we left the airport and took the train into the CBD.

We knew we were too early to check into our room, but we tried anyway. They held our luggage and promised to send an email when they were ready.

We started on our To Do List by walking towards the Harbour Bridge. Along the way I knew we were near the World's Largest LEGO Store. I could sense we were close to it, but I couldn't remember exactly where it was. A quick Google search (isn't technology grand?) brought up the location on a parallel street.

Having seen the LEGO version of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, we still wanted to step on the real one. However, we kept getting distracted along the way. 

Food became a priority. Is it time for breakfast, lunch, dinner, or something else? I found a breakfast salad at a Belgian Chocolate Café that covered all bases. We never did return for Belgian chocolate, though. 

After enjoying a filling lunch sitting outside with the sun shining on us we were fortified enough to get distracted again. We all know the bridge wasn't going anywhere.

One of my searches before we left New Jersey was to see what was happening at the Sydney Opera House while we were in town. I was excited when I saw "Sunset Boulevard" on the schedule, but paused on buying a ticket when I saw its closing date was the same day we were arriving. It made absolutely no sense to buy a ticket to an extravaganza for the day after all that traveling.

But, Sarah Brightman was the lead. Yes, the Sarah Brightman who originated the role of Christine Daae and has not performed since then. THAT Sarah Brightman. We could always sleep later in the trip. Right?

We walked to the ticket booth and gently asked if there were any seats left. Nope, they were sold out. Before walking away in defeat I asked if there were any standing room only tickets. The young ticket agent looked and much to our collective surprises, there were tickets! We booked tickets and hoped standing up would help us stay awake.

Speaking of staying awake, our room was still not ready, so we kept walking. This time we did walk across the bridge and admired the views. Similar to last year, the walk took us to Luna Park.

The Bridge looks great because
people are constantly taking
care of it. He was painting it.

While walking around Luna Park, I received an email that our room was ready! As much as I wanted to click my heels three times and arrive at the hotel, I instead used Google Maps to figure out the fastest route. My notes say we took mass transit, but I think we walked across the bridge again to Circular Quay to catch a tram to Chinatown to figure out the right streets to the hotel. In our defense, Google Maps made it sound like we stayed on a road that became a park. When we arrived at the hotel and I was handed a wooden cardkey and found out our bags were already in our spacious 15th floor room, I felt I had landed in heaven.

While walking around Sydney, I surprised myself by how much I remembered. I felt like a local showing Don around. Passing familiar places and sharing memories with him. I was only there for six days, but it was long enough to imprint stories. I was really happy to be back.

The bed called, so we rested up before the show. 

What were we thinking?