Sydney- Expensive doesn’t even begin to describe it

We are in Sydney. It is so nice to hear English everywhere you turn. We have TV on right now playing another game show- “The Singing Bee”, but this time we understand the show and the rules. Game shows seem to be popular everywhere. Maybe they are also popular at home but we don’t know because we never tune them in. In Europe we watched them under the pretense of learning the language- here we have them on just to laugh at the silliness.

We are staying in a very nice little boutique hotel- the Best Western Stellar. It sits on the edge of Hyde Park across the street from a Marriott. It is a suite hotel, and in the reservation I asked for a high floor with a view. We ended up on the top floor (sixth) with a view of the park. We have a nice little kitchenette with coffee making equipment, a microwave and a small refrigerator. One of the other luxuries (I wasn’t even going to mention the bathroom in the room rather than in the hall) is a washing machine and drier in the laundry room across the hall. All of that comes at a price- $165 AUD, or about $150. I keep reminding Mike that it is close to our 100 Euro a night budget. But the expensive room pales in comparison to other costs. We went to see our first movie in months (assuming you don’t count the marathon of movies we watched on the plane coming here) for $31 admission for two.

One of my favorite memories of Sydney was visiting the zoo and looking back at the Opera house and the harbor. That is on the agenda for tomorrow. Today we went to the historic area- the Rocks and visited the weekend arts and crafts market. We purchased a week pass for the public transportation so we are taking the subway around town and the ferry to the zoo. The transportation pass was the bargain price of $31.

The Australian people are so easy to like. Two tall, tattooed and wild looking teenagers asked Mike to take their photo today where we were sitting in front of the Opera House. He agreed but pointed them to me, saying that I was the photographer of our team. They whipped out a cardboard covered disposable camera and Mike laughed and said he thought even he could figure out that camera. They got a good laugh over the ribbing about their camera and sat together for a “cheese” and the snap of the camera. That is a little like the other young people we see around town- a little wildly dressed yet good natured and fun loving.

The back to back trips from Italy to Seattle then two days in town and on to Sydney has been hard on the internal clocks. We arrived here early in the morning and slept several hours that first day. Then, we were awake early the next morning (2:00 is very early) so we read for awhile then slept for a little while. We had a similar night last night. Hopefully we will sleep better tonight.

I will write tomorrow and let you know if the zoo lives up to memories.

Deanne