I arrived at the Sydney airport to find out that the international terminal (where Andrea was arriving) was quite far away, and my best bet was to take a train. So I manhandled my bags down to the platform and took the AU$4 ride to the international terminal.

Andrea’s plane was a little late, but outside of having a sore bottom from sitting for 15 hours, she arrived little worse for wear. We hopped a cab and headed off for The Rocks.

The Sydney Harbour B&B is a nice little place real close to the Opera House (you can’t see it from our room, but you can from a room on our floor). Our room, the Macquarie Room, is on the third floor, so I had to lug the luggage up numerous flights of stairs. It’s a nice little room with a private bath – however the bath is down the hall (it’s our bath, but not quite what I was expecting). So far it hasn’t been an issue, and since we have the floor to ourselves tonight at least, it’s no big deal.

We went down the street to The Australian, a pub and cafe that specialized in gourmet pizzas. Andrea just wanted soup, but I was feeling adventurous, so I had a half crocodile, half kangaroo pizza. The crocodile was like slightly fishy chicken (yeah, yeah, I know) but the kangaroo was excellent – very much like venison. It was sliced thin on the pizza, and it probably would’ve been a bit tough if it was cut any thicker.

Andrea awoke this morning saying that that was the best night’s sleep she’s had in a long time, so I guess this trip is starting off well. We went downstairs and had a great breakfast, and then headed off on a walking tour of central Sydney.

At the end of the street we came upon an outdoor market under the Sydney Harbour. This was good for almost two hours, as we wound around the stalls. There was one lady selling these oddly shaped scarves which, when worn, looked really nice, so Andrea bought a few of those. We bought a boomerang and a larger aboriginal club, and heard our first boomerang joke: What do you call a boomerang that doesn’t come back? A stick.

We then made our way past the street performers of Circular Quay, including one young woman who put herself into a 16″ square box. On the other side of the quay is the famed Opera House, and went spent some time wandering around it. There was only one opera scheduled during our trip, called “Norma”, and since we aren’t opera buffs enough to see something this obscure, we bought tickets to “Clan”, which promises to be a sort of aboriginal Cirque du Soleil. They were also much less expensive than the AU$203 for the cheapest opera tickets, although it is in the drama theatre and not the main opera hall.

From the Opera House we made our way down to Hyde Park. This was past a number of older buildings, including the Sydney Hospital. We at lunch, late, in a basement cafe called “The G Spot” and then headed back to the park, which was the supposed start of our guide book’s walking tour (we did it backwards).

After a side trip to see St. Mary’s cathedral (a truly awesome and huge church) we grabbed a taxi back to the B&B, where Andrea took a nap and I sat down to write this out. I should probably go and wake her up, and then we plan to head over to the Harbour Hotel, which claims to have a wireless hotspot.

If the bandwidth is decent, I’ll upload some pics from my last day in Melbourne and our first day in Sydney.