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| Sydney Opera House Sydney, Australia |
We arrived at our
6th (and Kayleigh's 5th) continent around 7AM. Our flight out of San Francisco
was delayed by 20 minutes to 11:15PM Saturday to prevent us from getting into
Sydney too early on Monday- they apparently have a noise abatement program in effect.
We used the Sydney epassport kiosks to save a bunch of time, claimed our
baggage, bought an overpriced train ticket, and proceeded to our lodging at the
Intercontinental Sydney.
The wonderful front
desk representative took pity on us and gave us an 8am check-in. We had a room
on the 28th floor overlooking the Sydney botanical gardens and harbor, and it
was just minutes from the center of town. We became human again (took showers)
and relaxed a little waiting for Kayleigh to arrive. She got in at 8:30 and was
to the hotel by 10:30. Once she became human we wandered to the rocks
neighborhood for lunch. Australian winter weather is simply magical.
Temps were mid 60's with blue skies.
In honor of the fabulous winter weather lunch was at a rooftop
restaurant with a view of the Sydney Opera House. Mark had Chicken Schnitzel, Jen had Fish and
Chips, and Kayleigh had the cheapest
meal- Steak!
After lunch, we
wandered across the Sydney harbor bridge and took pictures of the opera house
and downtown. We made our way to the opera house and took an overpriced, but
well worth it tour. The opera house design was chosen from over 200
submissions. The process was a little
backwards seeing as though the design was chosen then the engineers figured out
how to make it happen, the entire process took many years longer to finish than
planned, and cost many times its initial budget. Being a government sponsored
project it was rife with bureaucracy but still an amazing result was able to be
achieved.
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| Sydney Opera House Sydney, Australia |
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| Sydney Opera House Sydney, Australia Photo by Kayleigh Madjar |
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| Well Fed Seagulls Sydney, Australia Photo by Kayleigh Madjar |
Since Jenny was so
well behaved on the tour, we got her ice cream. Kayleigh and Mark decided to
suffer and have some ourselves. While eating it, we decided last minute to
board a fast ferry to Manly to get blustery views of the Sydney Harbor.
Beautiful views were had by all, though it was a little cold.
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| Harbour Bridge Sydney, Australia |
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| Sydney Skyline Sydney, Australia |
We headed back to the hotel about 5:30. Kayleigh went to meet cousins from her Dad's side while Jen & Mark enjoyed a quiet evening (sleeping) at the hotel.
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| Sydney Skyline at Night Sydney, Australia Photo by Kayleigh Madjar |
