Sydney

Sydney was a great trip, but I want to avoid doing a travel monologue. Too boring even for me. I'll try and tell you the highlights. The funniest part of the whole trip was the ride to and from the airport. We decided to get an airport shuttle service to the hotel. After being slightly deceived by the person at the counter, we bought our tickets. We head to the pick up point to be loaded in like cattle for the ride 8 km into the city. The driver must have stopped off at every hotel in Sydney before reaching ours. The trip on the shuttle bus was longer than our flight from Brisbane. I was fuming that I had been conned into buying a round trip ticket! The thought of doing the trip in reverse was too much. I was also worried that we had just seen every square inch of Sydney. We had arranged a private tour guide to drive us around the next day to show us the sights, but surely we had already seen everything on the circuitous route from the airport. What could be left?

The next day, our guide Victor drove us to see the main tourist attractions (again) in Sydney and all around various neighborhoods. We went out to Bondi Beach (which we hadn't seen on the shuttle bus) and looked at the houses with a 10 million dollar view. It was a pleasant way to spend the day and it gave us a good picture of Sydney and the surrounding areas.

We scheduled a tour of the Opera House. My parents were disappointed there was not an opera performance while we were there, but we enjoyed looking around. The building itself is impressive and looks much different up close then I imagined. The roof is made up of millions of small tiles. For some reason, it always seemed smoother in the pictures. Elliott and Tim went on the walking tour that included 200+ stairs, while the rest of us opted for the elevator tour. It was fun to compare stories afterward. The staff loves the fact they treat everyone equally - no one is to be seated after the performance has started and everyone must queue for their own drinks. Even the sitting Prime Ministers of Australia!

For Elliott, perhaps the best part of the trip was the hotel. We had an interesting room where you could open a screen that let you see into the bathroom from the bedroom. We had many hours of speculating...Why would someone want such a good view of the toilet? The hotel had a nice gym that Elliott really enjoyed. Oh yes, and a bathrobe. Compared to a tour of the Opera House, I think the hotel made a more lasting impression.

I'll close with the return trip to the airport. We debated scrapping the pre-paid ticket and just taking a cab, but decided to see what would happen. In a relaxed frame of mind, we prepared ourselves for another hour and a half trip. We were picked up in a smaller van this time. As we got in we noticed the passengers already in the van looked a bit shaken. Tim started to close his window, but the driver insisted on fresh air. At this point, the driver took off like a rocket. From the back seat, I could see my parents being buffeted by the force of the wind. It was like pulling G forces! The lady in a seat next to mine insisted Elliott wear his seat belt - she was fearing for her life as her seat was not equiped with a belt. We arrived unscathed at the airport and were uncerimoniously dropped off any old where. Mom and Dad stumbled from the van...You should have seen their hair! It was like they had been in a wind tunnel. You couldn't make it stand up like that with any amount of hair gel. The kind woman passenger took pity on us and told us how to find Qantas. Luckily, Tim was able to get us into the Qantas Lounge and we were able to calm our nerves at the bar and buffet.