Sydney!

Friday


After my week of work and tennis coaching, I left on Friday night to Sydney to join my Belgian friends Kristina, Jonas and Lynn. I took the airport train to Sydney Central Station and then it took me almost 30 minutes and four phone calls to find my friends. Conclusion: the Central Station of Sydney is huge!


Saturday


On Saturday we woke up early to visit the Blue Mountains! I only have one picture and as you can see it was beautiful!

Lynn, Jonas and Kristina and one of the tree sisters in the background

NOT!!!  It would have been... if there were no clouds and rain... We gave up after seeing one of the three sisters. We decided to go to Bondi Beach and we visited Tuur, a friend with whom I studied at the VUB. He gave us a short introduction to Bondi Beach. We walked on the beach and then to the cliff to make lots of pics.

VUB @ Sydney

Beach

Bondi Beach

We visited Tuur's place and then we had a drink at the bar where he is working: FREE cocktails! :-) We had dinner all together at a pizza place! It was nice to see Tuur again. The VUB goes down under :-)

VUB 

We moved to another hostel located close to Paddy's Market. Small hostel but everything ok.


Sunday


After a good night of sleep we went to Paddy's market to buy some cheap souvenirs and... umbrella's!

Paddy's Market

Then we took the Free bus to Circular Quay to have a look at the most famous buildings of Sydney: Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. We took heaps of pictures (op zijn Australisch :-)).

People climbing on the Harbour Bridge

Sint Gabriel @ Sydney

Me

Unfortunately the rain forced us to go inside so Kristina and I decided to do the guided tour in the Opera House. We got to know very interesting facts. It was definitely worth it. Some facts:

- It was planned to take 3 years to build it, however, it took 16 years
- The original cost was estimated at 7 million AU$. , however, it costed 102 million AU$
- Lleyton Hewitt married there
- All the glass of the Opera House comes from France
- More than 2600 people can seat in the concert hall
- The Danish architect never visited his finished building
- There are more then 2600 events a year

We saw a rehearsal in the concert hall of the Youtube Orchestra. They auditioned online and the best musicians came to Sydney for a concert. The concert hall was so beautiful with all the lighting effects. A picture of the places where it was allowed:

After a quick lunch we took the ferry boat to Manly. On the boat we had some nice views on the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge.

In Manly we walked through the main shopping street and we went to Manly beach. However, there was not much more to see here...

 Shopping Street

Manly Beach

On the way back to the hostel we passed the Queen Victoria Building which is one of the many expensive shopping centres in Sydney.

After a short power nap in the hostel we walked to Darling Harbour to make some beautiful night pictures of Cockle Bay Wharf. Suddenly it was 10pm and we still had to eat.

A higher quality pic with Jonas' camera

Me

After dinner we walked again to the north of Sydney to see the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge by night! This was amazing! The Opera House was projected with lights in different colours and different figures.

Some more pics with Jonas' camera

Monday


Monday morning we went to Harbour Bridge (again :-)), but this time to walk on it. Other things we did on Monday:

The Sydney Tower: highest building of Sydney with very nice views
Walk through Strand Arcade (another shopping centre)
Pass St. Mary Cathedral with fountains
Strolling in Hyde Park and the Botanical Gardens where we saw lots of fruit bats in the trees.

Paper flowers

Fruit bats

View from Sydney Tower

View Sydney Tower

At 5pm it was time to go to the airport. I was exhausted and missed the take off... I was sleeping already.

Although the weather was not what we had hoped, I had a great time with my friends in Sydney!

Cheers,
Jessie