The Sydney Opera House is one of the most recognizable structures in the world, which is saying a lot considering it was first opened in 1973. Honestly, I never thought I’d be able to see it in real life, let alone step inside. The Harbour Bridge is just another beautiful sigh that Sydney has to offer. As one of the longest single arch bridges in the world, it’s gives a breathtaking view of the Opera House, but also a once in a life time photo-op of the two side by side when you’re in the Botanical Gardens. On March 18th, Jenna, Jill, and I boarded a plane. Jill is petrified of flying, like the most scared person ever. I don’t mind airplanes at all, but listening to her on the plane was making me paranoid that it was going to crash. Obviously, it did not and we landed safely in Sydney ready to go to our hostel. We were staying in King’s Cross, a The next day we dedicated to sight seeing. We woke up bright and early only to find out that it
was raining. We didn’t care. We were only going to be in Sydney once and we weren’t going to let Mother Nature slow us down. After a quick train ride, we made our way down to Circular Quay and finally we got our first glimpse of the famous Opera House. I’ve never seen anything so beautiful. We took turns snapping photos and running up and down the steps. Then we saw the bridge and the photos started over again. Jill decided to go on an extreme boat ride on the harbour, so Jenna and I headed over to the Botanical Gardens and Mrs. MacQuarie’s chair. It would happen that on our walk the sun started to shine. After we
met back up with Jill, it was lunchtime. We found a pub, ate some fish and chips, schnitzel, and drank some beer. We wondered all over the city and then finally decided we were too tired to go any farther. We headed back to the hostel to get ready for dinner. Saturday night, we went to a quick Mexican restaurant located about 2 seconds away from our hostel. Jenna and I had decided that while we were in Sydney, we’d try to meet with our friend Andrew aka Nappy who is also studying abroad from Merrimack. He said he was heading to The Rocks to go bar hopping. The Rocks is an adorable artsy section of the city, just north of the bridge, where Jenna and I had ate the most delicious corn on the cob earlier in the day. It was really good to see Nappy and he showed us some fun bars in the city. While we were out, I made friends with a boy named Jonathan who was on a gap year after graduating from Princeton University (I know right, husband material). We hung out with him for the rest of the night as well. All in all, it was a fun night!Sunday’s weather wasn’t much better than Saturday’s and we got a little nervous about what we were going to do. We went off in search of somewhere to get lunch and finally found the only open food court in all of Sydney. As luck would have it, we left indoors to find that the sun had come out and it was now warm and bright. There’s only one thing to do in Sydney when this happens: Bondi Beach. Bondi Beach is one of the most famous beaches in the world because of its rips, waves, and location. The lifeguards at Bondi save over one thousand people from the rough waters a year.
There were jellyfish everywhere on Bondi, so I didn’t dare put anymore than a toe in the water. It was a nice beach, not very crowded considering its fame, but the view from on top of the rocks was beautiful. We headed home after a little while and got ready for our fancy dinner. There was one area of the city the girls and I had been dying to see, but hadn’t made it to yet; Darling Harbour. We had a heard of a place in Darling Harbour that has delicious kangaroo steaks, so we headed there. I had called Jonathan and he met us there. We feasted. The kangaroo (which Jenna so bravely ordered) was delicious, a little chewy, but full of flavor. I got risotto with scallops, which was equally as good. It was a fun night and having someone new with us to break up the conversation was a nice change of pace. After we said our goodbyes to Jonathan, we headed back to King’s Cross, went to a few hotel bars, and then headed to bed for the night. Monday we woke up, sad to be leaving such a beautiful city, but excited to get back to school and tell all our friends about it. Obviously Boston will always have heart, but I think that Sydney might be my second favorite city of all time. Visually stunning, hospitable, and cleaner than my own bedroom, it truly is a treasure in the world.
World taught us all about the native fruits of Australia, including, but not limited to, dragon fruit, star fruit, and jakfruit which weigh about 20kg on average. He also told us that dragon fruits are a natural way to lower blood sugar, so needless to say I tasted about 5 pieces. After purchasing some honey-roasted macadamias and tasting chocolate macadamia nut spread, we got back on the bus and headed to the natural bridge. Once we arrived I was immediately reminded of a tour I took this past summer in the White Mountains of New Hampshire of the Lost River Gorge. They are similar because there were beautiful waterfalls at both places and caves; however, in New Hampshire there was a lot more freedom. I was not able to climb through tiny openings of holes at the natural bridge as I was in the White Mountains, but we had fun nonetheless. Our tour guide educated us about strangler fig trees, which wrap around other trees and kill them until all that is left is the outside shell of the fig tree. It was really quite riveting. We asked if we could eat the figs because we were now in native-fruit-trying mode, but he said that
although the figs are not poisonous to birds, humans should not ingest them. After admiring the beauty of the natural bridge and seeing bats fly in and out of the cave it had created, our tour took us on to the next stop. Along the way, we looked out the windows to the amazing countryside of Australia. Most people tend to this that Australia is just like the coast of Florida and is all beaches, however, there are more green mountains and sugar cane fields in Australia than I’ve ever seen in my life. Unfortunately for us, Saturday was a little cloudy so we couldn’t see the tops of the mountains too well. John explained that on the highest mountain you could see the outline of Mount Warning, which is a volcano that erupted millions of years ago. An hour drive outside of Southport is where Queensland meets New South Wales, the state in which Sydney is located. John pulled over so tourists like us could take pictures on both sides of the border. Our last stop before lunch was at the Best of All Lookout where you could literally see for miles and miles. Even though it was cloudy, it was still easy to make out where we had just driven from and where we would be going next. It was amazing, truly breathtaking. For lunch we stopped at the Springbrook Manor, a little inn located inside Springbrook National Park. We saw a pony and ate some lunch before heading out to see the last three waterfalls of our tour. The first falls we looked at were at Goomoolahra and come from MundoraCreek, which is the main water supply for the Gold Coast. John explained that we would see two more falls after this and that Goomoolahra was the smallest of the three, but it was also the falls that we could be closest to. Next, we headed to a lookout spot for Rainbow Falls. It is given this name because when the water is falling the bottom acts as a prism and creates a rainbow. Finally, and most remarkable, was Purlingbrook Falls. This waterfall flows off a 106-meter drop. As we stood in awe, I noticed that there were people far closer to the falls than we were, so I asked John if we could take a walk down. His replied, “Sure, if you’ve got an hour and a half to spare. It’s a 4 kilometer walk, I’ll come back for you tomorrow and pick you up.” Needless to say, we didn’t get to go down there. It was still gorgeous though. John was so charismatic, funny, and informative that we decided if the chance ever came to do a tour again, we would try to get him as our guide. More tired than ever before, Cathy, Jenna, Julia, and I boarded the bus one last time and headed home after a fun-filled day.
course was a communications course, but it turns out to actually be a psychology course. I still find it to be interesting and I hope that it will help me better my relationships and my interactions with people, both skills, which will be necessary when I become a world famous politician (it’ll happen, don’t worry). My journalism course seems to be very interesting as well. My tutor is not formally a teacher, but he has been editor at four different newspapers in Australia as well as two newspapers in London. This class is clearly just an elective, but I find it interesting. The first day we learned about grammar, something I thought I was good at, but I was wrong. My hope is that by the end of this class, my grammar skills are close to my sisters, but I doubt that will happen.
week study break before finals and I only have two finals, so there will be plenty of time to get out there. And, even if I don’t, I don’t think it would be hard to convince either of my parents to go with to the outback with me. As for Melbourne, it has its appeal, but it’s a city. I want to go, I want to experience it all, but in my opinion, if I go to Sydney, it’d be like going to the United States and seeing New York, but missing out on Miami. It would be awesome to go (and I’m sure I’ll find time for it), but it’s not a priority at the moment. One last place I have recently taken an interest in seeing is Tasmania. I met a girl who lives there and asked her if it was worth seeing. Obviously, she said yes. She said that Tasmania is beautiful and there are a lot of mountains and hiking to do. It sounded like a place I might want to see, but we’ll have to see what other trips I end up taking in my short five months down here. It's crazy to think that I've been gone for almost a month already. Time is flying by and I'm having so much fun. I don't want to think about leaving... ever.