On Our Own in the Big City

Becky continues...

On Thursday morning, Bob took us to a train station in a neighboring town and we traveled into the heart of Sydney. We arrived in the central station and navigated our way (with the help of several patient and friendly folks) to the correct light rail train and on to Darling Harbor.
 
Our hotel was right on the Harbor and the room on the 8th floor looked out at the water, boats, city, and Center Point Tower. We spent the afternoon walking around the harbor looking at shops, having lunch, and enjoying several hours at the National Maritime Museum. We toured a 1950's era Australian destroyer and a submarine! Most fascinating, however, is an ocean-going and very accurate replica of The Endeavor, Capt. Cook's ship. It's amazing to realize that this man who began sailing in the 1770's and over the course of his lifetime sailed around the world - including the Puget Sound - and "discovered" Australia for England.

Our intention that evening was to walk to over to the Sydney Harbor to go to the concert at the Opera House. However, after walking all those hours, we opted for a cab ride. As Dave said in his earlier post, we'd bought tickets to see an American (irony there, don't you think?) singer, Idina Menzel, perform with the Sydney Symphony. All we knew about her was that she'd performed on Broadway. We soon learned that she has a whole concert hall full of enthusiastic Australian fans, many of whom seemed to know the lyrics to her songs by heart! The symphony was directed by a beautiful young woman conductor! Ms. Menzel has a voice that more than filled the concert hall for two hours. She began the concert with "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," and ended with an encore of "There's a Place for Us." In between were songs from Rent and Wicked, plus a little Lady Gaga and Judy Collins (to name a few).
 
It was after 10:00 PM when the concert was over and when we spilled out of the Opera House with the throngs, we had to figure out where and how to hail a taxi. Remember - we live in Oak Harbor. That's not much preparation for being in a city of 5 million plus people, all of whom seem to know how to get the attention of a taxi. When we finally managed to get one to come to a screeching halt near where we were waving our arms, we jumped in and the maxim "time is money" became apparent. Let's just say the ride back to the hotel took a lot less time than did the ride to the concert!  This guy was fearless (not a term I'd use to describe myself at the time) and skillful. Remember: as we're hurtling through the streets packed with taxis, buses, cars and people everywhere, this guy is driving on the "wrong" side of the street! By the way, as I was clutching the car door handle, Dave was grinning and admiring the driver's "skill." (From Dave... He really was good!.... quick, smooth and always under control... never wild, jerky, or erratic.)

Some views of Darling Harbor from our hotel window.  Do you see the destroyer and the submarine at the far left?

Three floors of shops and restaurants within the "Harborside" building in the foreground.

There is a Starbucks tucked underneath the elevated street right at the end of the harbor!

 

Ibis, anyone?

A wonderful recreation of Cook's ship Endeavor.  Really fun tour!