Visitors!

This past week I had my first houseguests in Sydney! Rochelle and Stephan came down for ten days, and even though I had to work for a good portion of those days, I managed to squeeze in some leisure time. I took work off the Monday they arrived in Sydney, and met them at the airport to show them back to my house in Cronulla. They were a little tired from the flight, but jetlag from Seattle to Australia actually isn’t too bad (apparently it’s awful on the way back to the US). They really wanted to see the beach so we headed down there pretty much right away for a swim.

 
I had to work Tuesday, but Rochelle and Stephan met me at my office in the city for a few drinks. After 5:00 on Tuesdays, the Australian Museum is open to adults only. They serve beer and wine, and there is live music while you wander around looking at the exhibits. I would definitely go back since I probably only looked at half of the exhibits-the Aboriginal art exhibit was my favourite, but they had a lot of other nice exhibits specific to Australian animals, dinosaurs that used to live here, birds, etc.

Here we are at St. Mary's Cathedral before heading into the museum.

Saturday and Sunday were my only days off, so we had to cram in as much touristy stuff as possible. We went on a free walking tour of the city that I had gone on with Tony and Katrina when I first arrived in Sydney. It was fun to learn about places I walk by everyday without giving any thought. For example, in the Queen Victoria Building there is a clock donated by the Queen of England, with a letter enclosed that cannot be opened until 2080. Or the glass floor in Custom’s House with an extremely accurate model of the city underneath. Or the barracks near Hyde Park where convicts as young as seven years old were housed.

Sunday we took the ferry to the Taronga Zoo, which is probably the nicest zoo I’ve been to. It’s up on a hill on the north side of Sydney Harbour, so you get glimpses of the skyline while you walk between the exhibits. I finally saw a platypus! They’re usually very shy, but this one was swimming circles right in front of the glass. The Tasmanian devil was asleep in his den, but I still got to see him up close. I didn’t realize this, but the devil population is currently threatened due to a facial cancer that has a 100% mortality rate. It’s a very unusual cancer because it is contagious, and devils pass it when they bite each other in fights-very sad!

View from the ferry to the zoo.

 Making friends with a wallabee.

That night we went to opera bar and relaxed with a few beers. It was a really warm night, so we could sit outside with a view of the harbour and the hundreds of bats that were flying out of the botanic gardens. It was a really nice end to their time here, and I was really sad to see them go. Hopefully I get some more visitors soon!

View from Opera Bar.