Friday in Sydney

Friday December 4, 2009                      Sydney, Australia

Sydney is, in general, a very expensive city.  Restaurants in particular are high.  We went out to the Circular Quay and visited the Overseas Passenger Terminal where our cruise ship, Holland America's Volendam, will dock Sunday morning.  A tourist guidebook highly recommended the Quay restaurant in that building, and we were ready for a good dinner.  Fortunately we looked at the menu posted on the window outside.  Four course dinner, fixed price, $155 each!  I figure that restaurants like this purposely set their prices outrageously high in order to keep out the riff-raff like us.  It certainly was effective at that purpose!  Instead we went back to Potts Point in the vicinity of our hotel and ate at Maggie's, a very nice Bavarian/German restaurant.

By the way, the Australian dollar is close to the same value as the US dollar, about AUS$1.10 per USD.

One of the real bargains in Sydney is the 7-day CityRail TravelPass.  For $38 each, you have unlimited travel on the extensive train system, all ferries, and the  city buses.  We have made good use of it, including a ferry ride across the bay to the Taronga Zoo.  So now I have live video of an authentic red kangaroo.  Paula's highlight was seeing live a critter called a quoll.  This was particularly meaningful because she had made a Halloween costume of this creature for our son Nathan - - at Nathan's request.    Overall, though, the zoo was disappointing.  Much of it was closed or cordoned off for construction and remodeling, including the Platypus pond.

We revisited the Domain park, formerly the domain of the colonial governor.  Here is a proper picture of the famed Sydney Opera House and the Harbor Bridge, taken from a lookout point in the park.

Here is Paula sitting in "Mrs. McQuarrie's Chair".  Governor McQuarrie was the first ruler of the Australia colony, and had great influence over the early development of western civilization on this continent.  His wife had this bench carved out of the rock, and most days she would walk down here, right next to the water, and sit and read or visit with friends.

It is summer here in Australia, and many of the young women are wearing miniskirts - - some would be more appropriately called microskirts.  Today was particularly windy.  As we were walking along, a gust blew one girl's skirt completely up around her waist.  As she struggled to get it back down, a fellow next to us smiled at her and said, "Airy, ain't it?"   She shot back, "Whadja expect - feathers?"