Kiwi Paradise : Opera House Tour and Crossing the Bridge

My goal for Sydney: See as much as possible in the week I'm here.

So I was up and gone by around 9 to catch the bus. The other girls had gotten in yesterday morning but had left by 3:30am so they were all still pretty exhausted. All of them have tickets to see the ballet at the opera house but paying $80 for a ballet isn't really my thing so I opted to take a tour of the opera house instead. The tour was only $28 and I got to see all four theaters instead of only the one that the production is in. The opera house is amazing! Obviously the architecture is incredible but also the beautiful woodwork on the inside is also amazing. Funny- there are bright fuchsia pink seat cushions in the largest theater and bright purple carpet in one of the lobbies. As part of the hour long tour we watched a few video clips talking about the history of the opera house. I didn't realize how recently it was created- it was finished in 1971 after almost 20 years of work and millions of dollars (originally it was projected to take 3 years and only a few million dollars). I'd definitely recommend it as a must see in Sydney!

Afterwards I had about an hour before I was to meet up with some of the girls from the group so I walked over to the botanical gardens and ended up catching a tour of the government house. This house is where the governor (the first woman governor) of New South Wales conducts government business. The tours are only Friday-Sunday because the building is in use. It was really awesome! The building has been around since the 1800s sometime and looks just like a castle. We saw a gorgeous ballroom, dinning hall, drawing room, etc. It was so cool!

Then I met up with Elise and Sara at the harbor bridge and we walked all the way across it. It provided such a beautiful view of the harbor, the opera house, and the city. We got to take a ferry back across in time to walk back into the city and find dinner. We decided to go to McDonalds just because they were advertising "the taste of America" with their new New York, Texas, and California burgers. So we thought we'd try that taste of America and see if it was valid. It was pretty good but I'm looking forward to getting a real taste of America when I go home on Thursday.

Finally, we decided to walk around the harbor at night. The city lights are amazing and I loved following their reflection on the water. We wondered around the opera house again and then decided to venture home. We didn't realize that the bus from the train station (we were at a different train station) stopped going around 9:30 and we got there around 10. So we had two options- walk home or get a cab. We decided the best option was a cab- this decision was reinforced when a bunch of crazy rugby fans showed up clearly a little more excited than normal as well as groups of police officers bunching up around the train station. We made it home exhausted and very much looking forward to our beds! Boy was it a great day!! :)

Opera House purple stairs

This is the end facing the harbor. You can see the bridge through the "ribs" and the water through the bottom of the glass.

The outside is covered in thousands and thousands of tiles made in Sweden. They are cream and beige colored that creates a cool optical allusion of a white opera house.