Sydney

We spent a morning hanging around Brisbane, trying to stay cool. It was SO hot there. We caught a mid-afternoon flight to Sydney so that we could be comfortably in town for the fireworks on the 31st.

Our hotel ended up being just across the way from the famous Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge. When we first arrived there was a cruise ship in the harbor, but once it left for its journey we got our first glimpse of the Opera House. SHE IS LOVELY. SO LOVELY. It was surreal. The definition of surreal. I’d wanted to go to Australia since the womb (I’m nearly certain that is when the desire formed) and it never felt quite real that I was actually here until I saw the off-white sails of the Opera House. That’s right, it really photographs as stark white but it is not at all. It is very much a cream color with hints of gray even. We were a little surprised by that. She’s still a vision, though.

Goodbye, ship!

Hello, love!

We hopped across the street from our hotel to grab some Italian food. The Aussies LOVE Italian food. They actually claim spaghetti as a local dish. We sat outside and people-watched. Jackson actually got fish-n-chips, but I stayed with the restaurant’s speciality. We wandered around our area of town, “The Rocks” before calling it a night. Our “honeymoon suite” looked out onto the Opera House so I spent some major time in front of the windows soaking it in.

YUM!

Isn't she lovely?!

LOVE the bridge

NYE

We woke up and put on our walking shoes. Sydney had a Hard Rock Cafe down in the Darling Harbour area of town which meant we had to get there to get a guitar pin for my Mom. It was a HOT day in Sydney which was nice, of course, but it made the walk a little sweatier. Also, people have no sense of personal space here. It amazes me how people will just slam right into you on the street rather than moving over. We’ve joked about sharpening our elbows for when this happens! Anyway, the Hard Rock Cafe was in a mall area so we grabbed a Chipotle-like lunch and grabbed their WiFi to FaceTime with MacKenzie Petefish (the world’s sweetest puppy). She’d crossed the state and gone to a dog beach in Ft. Lauderdale with Grammy, Aunt Kathy and Gracie. She was exhausted and didn’t feel much like talking to her parents. ;)

Darling Harbour

Loving the skyline

Inside the cathedral

St. Mary's

We wandered back towards our area of town and stopped in at Hyde Park. The Australians are not creative and basically named everything the same as places in England when they settled their penal colony hence the familiar sounding name. I’m kind of obsessed with how nice Sydney’s Hyde Park is. It is lovely, absolutely lovely. The trees are gorgeous and on its border if this gorgeous cathedral. We popped into St. Mary’s after finding that it was open for prayers (I love that about cathedrals. I’m not so sure that churches around us would let you just hop in when you feel like praying. I would be wrong, as I have never really tried it, but it just does not seem likely.) and gave our thanksgiving for such a cool trip and to ask for the Lord’s protection over all of the celebrations of the new year. There is just something about kneeling on those sweet protectors in a cathedral that makes you feel like your prayers are being sent extra quickly! I like to joke that I was Catholic in a past life, much the chagrin of my priest friend since that would imply reincarnation. ;)

Caprese salad! YUM!

THIS. PIZZA. 

We wandered back to the hotel to get cleaned up for dinner. We went to another Italian place near our hotel which turned out to be incredible! Jackson had one of the best pizzas I’ve ever stolen pieces from and my chicken pasta dish was divine. We shared a delicious Caprese salad, too. I even splurged and got peach iced tea (from a bottle, lame) WITH ICE. YUM! We did not want to get too far from the hotel as we knew the rooftop would fill up quickly.

Pre-show beauty

We went to check on things around 7:15 and realized that we hard to score a spot then or be out of luck. We did not plan to be up there for so long, but such is life! That was a long time to stand in “thongs” (flip flops)! My knee was KILLING ME by the end. I’d say the view was worth it, though. They had an aerobatic show before the sun went down which was AMAZING. We loved it. We ended up standing next to 3 couples from Florida (originally from Iowa and Illinois, though) who were down celebrating one of the guys, Corey’s, 40th birthday. Corey was the most annoying man to ever hail from the United States which means Jackson thoroughly enjoyed him. I was also next a 27-year-old British fellow traveling through Australia and New Zealand until April! (Spoiled Europeans with their generous vacation time and lack of judgement for taking time off!) I did not catch his name but we chatted easily throughout the night. It turns out I enjoy the British more than I previously thought. Corey was pretty well into his night of celebrating by the time the final fireworks show went off so I tried to be understanding of his demeanor, but if that man said “bloody bloke” in a terrible Aussie accent one more time, he was going off the roof. :) That said, the fireworks displays (one at 9pm for the kiddos and another one at midnight) were NOTHING SHORT OF AMAZING. At times the whole sky was so bright that it was daylight again! Total the displays lasted about 20 minutes and cost the city of Sydney $7M (AUD) just in explosives! Wild! We read that about 1.5 million folks came into the city for the fireworks so I am sure their consumption taxes more than paid for the display. It was certainly impressive. It was also really cool to be in 2017 while all my friends and family were back in 2016! I’ve always been kind of obsessed with the whole concept of “see you next year” so it was pretty fun to literally greet folks from the future. Nerd alert. I know.

After the show ended we made the quick descent to our room to watch all the other revelers make their way home. Our hotel ended up being just a perfect place to catch the show. We made friends with a German couple on our sailboat tour who emailed us saying they “sweated for 15 hours to see 20 minutes of fireworks!” I was quite thankful that we only put in about 5 hours when the heat had dissipated. The show should certainly be on everyone’s list of things to do!

On a boat (again!)

We slept in on New Year’s Day because we knew most places would be closed and because we’d stayed up late. We eventually caught the ferry to Manly Beach to check the place out. It is a little peninsula known for lovely beaches. I think we were more excited about the ferry ride to see a new side of the city!

Fine. I'm obsessed.

Front view

Seafood chowder!!!

We ate a nice lunch and took in the sites of the area. We took a walk along the boardwalk and just enjoyed the amazing people-watching opportunity. It was quite a warm afternoon so the sea breeze felt really great!

Admiralty House is the official Sydney residence of the Governor-General of Australia*
*Nope. I don't know what that means!

The bridge from the ferry

We got back and decided to walk over to the Opera House to take a closer look.

Sydney from the Opera House

Closer look

Check out the tiles

Petefish.

I don't know what I thought the "sails" were made of, but tiles was not it! There are more than 1 million tiles that cover the roof. It was so cool to be up so close to it. We did not go on the tour as this was just an insane time to try to visit. Maybe next time!

Handsome date

We decided to try a place called Ribs & Burgers in The Rocks area again. It was really good! They make their chicken wings with bbq sauce here which is interesting to me. They really need buffalo sauce and they'd be all set! ;) We'll soon be doing a hop on, hop off tour of Sydney to make sure that we see all the parts of town we want to before heading to New Zealand!

Sadly, we got word that MacKenzie was not pleased with the fireworks displays done around the Naples area. Thank goodness Gracie was there to comfort her! :)

Scared puppy