First day in Sydney

Yes, this is a giant UGG boot

I woke up so excited this morning - we were going to Sydney. Our campus (dorm) hosts lots of events for both the Aussie students and international students. One event was a tour of Sydney. Turns out it wasn't much of a tour at all. We all thought that we would be getting on a bus outside Campus East and head to Sydney to see the sights. In actuality, we walked over to the train station (about a 5 minute walk from campus) and bought our tickets. At least now we know how to get tickets to Sydney. It's about an hour car ride from Sydney to Wollongong, so I thought that's about how long the train would be - maybe even more like half an hour with all the stops, turns out it's more like 2 hours.

St. Andrew's Cathedral 

We got off at the City Hall train stop and walked up to the streets of Sydney.  By the time we all emerged from the underground train stop it was about 12.45pm. We were all starving so our 'tour guide' (one of the RAs) told us to go find lunch somewhere around the stop and meet back at 2pm. We stopped and ate kebabs and pizza (after discovering that Pizza Hut in Sydney is really expensive), and the friends I was with tried Turkish Delights - they weren't big fans. But we were in Sydney and we were about to be shown the sights. Or so we thought.

Ceiling inside the Queen Victoria Building

When everyone had gathered after lunch our guide told us that there were some things to see along the road we were on and if we just stay on it, it would bring us to the Harbour. So we all started walking together as a group towards the Harbour. We walked through the Queen Victoria building which was really beautiful. And then while we were stopped at a light when we got distracted by a parade, so we figured that we were in Sydney - so why not check it out. It was a parade to free Cyrus. There were a lot of older people and some people dressed in what I think is traditional dress. It was a pretty unexpected sight, but it was interesting. But we also lost the group we were with, so we decided to venture off on our own - we knew our end destination was the Harbour Bridge so we started to make our way through the outdoor mall.

Being tourists

When we got to the Harbour it was surreal. We were in Sydney. We walked along the Harbour and got to the perfect spot between the Bridge and the Opera House. So obviously we all pulled out our cameras and turned into complete tourists. None of us could believe that we were actually there - that close to the Opera House. We walked up to the building (thinking that it was just one building), but turns out its made up of different sections. In my mind it was one huge building with a grand entrance, but I guess you can never really know a place until you go there. The color also threw me off. It always looks so beautiful and glistening white, but up close it looks kind of dirty (it's made of copper). When you go up even closer you can see all the detailed tile - not at all what I was expecting. But we were at the Opera House, and it was still so surreal - so we had to touch it.

Opera House at night

We walked around for a while and then stopped in a some souvenir shops before getting dinner. We didn't want to leave until we saw the Opera House at night, so we just explored around the Harbour. After having a really fast dinner at an Italian restaurant we went back and saw how beautiful the Opera House looks all lit up - it was absolutely beautiful. But it was cold and we still had a 2 hour train ride home so we headed back.




Tomorrow is the first day of classes. It's so weird to think that I'm actually here for school when there's so many things I want to do and so many places I want to visit. The more I learn about what there is to do in Australia, the longer my list grows and now I just need to figure out how I'm going to be able to make time to visit all these places (good think I only have classes on Monday and Wednesday!).