Crystal Waters

Day 1

After travelling for 22 hours by plane and several hours of waiting in lines we made it to the Women’s College located on the University of Sydney’s campus. It’s definitely summer here and very warm. I already received my first sunburn after walking around the campus for 2 hours, so much for spray on sunscreen. So far Sydney doesn’t look too different than most large cities. Some exceptions include people walking around barefoot everywhere (and not just the bums). Everything is in bloom and beautiful. The majority of the campus appears to be built using brick. On a walking adventure into the main street I noticed that the mailboxes look my like birdhouses and they are rather small like you could walk away with them.

Sydney is similar to most large cities in the U.S. Some of the main differences include the food choices here are mostly Thai. On Kings Street just up from the Women’s College, we passed at least 5 restaurants featuring Thai within a six block walk. Everything is a more expensive here too, especially food and drinks, however sales tax is included in the price so you always know what your bill will be. People don’t really tax here either which is another surprising difference. For dinner the first night I tried an octopus salad, quite unusual but pretty good tasting.

On our second day here we went to the Sydney Aquarium. The coolest part was walking into a tunnel for the shark tank and watching them swim over the top. Another favorite was the platypus. It was much smaller than I’d expected and rather playful. Another funny thing about Sydney are the expensive shops. On the way home we passed a Gucci store. In the display windows were “art creations” of purses made to look like every kind of animal from an owl, to a snake, a kangaroo, and a koala bear. And to wrap up my evening I found a cockroach on my towel. Having never seen one before, I think they are really weird. And their long antennas are rather creepy. Sydney might be a bit different after all.