Adios Australia

Day 16

My last day in Australia. Such a sad day. Of all the places I have traveled, when it comes to big city feel with a lively night life, nice people and tons to do, Sydney is definitely at the top of my favorite list. It's sad to be leaving it as I have felt welcome everywhere I have been and it's hard to imagine I have to leave.

I woke up this morning and turned on the TV as I have every morning to check the weather and guess what? It's sunny and 76* in Melbourne today....and by the end of the week it'll be the same in Sydney. Seriously?!?! And what about Sydney right this very moment? I opened up the blinds and guess what? Rain. Awesome. I headed to Wynard station, picked up my last order of their delicious sushi, ended up at Circular Quay where I ate it while people watching and trying to enjoy the harbor. My flight isn't until late tonight so I decided to head to the casino to spend my last hours in Sydney. Time well spent huh? Don't judge me. Spent a little time at the roulette table and ended up winning $100. Not bad.

Overall I had a great time in Australia. Sydney's mass transit was amazing and cheap, Aussies are environmentally conscious, particularly when it came to toilets (there are two buttons, one for lots of water to push...well you know, down the pipe and one for less water), and I noticed that all students wear uniforms. Sadly, the worse part of my trip was hearing the weather man this morning say that Sydney just recorded its coldest start to summer in 45 years....that WOULD happen to me wouldn't it?

The flight back to Kuwait was a little rough. I was unfortunate in my seating assignment, which is always the case on a long flight isn't it? I was literally surrounded by kids under the age of 6. It felt like I was at a daycare. Sleep was tough to get with all the crying and kids running up and down the aisle. When I arrived back in Kuwait, I couldn't help but compare it to Australia.The differences were drastic. The entire drive back to Arifjan all I could do was think about how clean Sydney was and then I'd wake up from my daydream and see all the trash strewn about along the side of the road.

Welcome back.

Pollywogs and Shellbacks

Day 15

For those of you who have known me for a while and remember my time spent abroad in 2005 during college aboard the MV Explorer on my Semester At Sea program might recall that during those three months, I crossed the equator. What some of you may not know, is crossing the equator on a ship is a special occasion. There is a nautical tradition, an initiation rite, that takes place the day you cross it that includes running around like a crazy person, having ground up fish guts dumped on you, kissing a fish and finally the hand of King Neptune (God of the Sea) who is played by the ship's captain. Weird, I know. Moving on. The reason I bring this up is because those who have not traveled across the equator on a ship are called Pollywogs while those who have are given the name Shellback or Sons of Neptune. If you are fortunate to cross the equator at the international date line, you are inducted as one of the rare Golden Shellbacks.

Over the years I have been trying to come up with a design for a tattoo. About a month before I went to Australia I had finally finished what I felt encompassed becoming a shellback as well as my travels I have been fortunate to do. I decided to get it done at Bondi Ink in Australia....here's what I came up with:

Rain Rain Go Away!

Day 14

I had hoped that maybe today would have been different from the previous days since yesterday was so nice....no such luck. Rain. Again. WTF? Tried to go hit up the Botanical Gardens but couldn't stand the driving water pelting my face....so I stayed in (with the exception of getting more sushi from Wynard station.. yum yum!)

BONDI!

Day 13

Today was a relaxing day, spent it at Bondi Beach. So far it was the only sunny day since I got here so I figured I'd take full advantage of it. I bought a coconut at the shop behind the beach....delicious! I think I might have to move to a state or country that has coconuts readily available to me!

Opera House

Day 12

It took me nearly two weeks but I finally got around to touring the famous Sydney Opera House, maybe you've heard of it? As skeptical as I always am, I was surprisingly entertained by our guide who must have been or wanted to be a thespian. He was very energetic, lively and kept everyone on their toes with his wit. I realized during this tour, how little I really knew about the history and architecture of the Opera House and what it took to make the concept come to life. Many do not know, but back in the early 1900s where the Opera House sits, was once the last stop on a train line. In the 1950s the council members for the city of Sydney decided they wanted to build an opera house and opened up a friendly competition with well known architects of the time from around the world. Ideas ranged from typical square buildings, to a outlandish lavish ideas. In the 1950s the board assigned to deciding the design had tossed out all the submissions and decided on a modest design that was not what we know as the opera house today. The design for the opera house was tossed but fortunately, a member of the council who arrived late, dug it out of the archives and declared it, what is now the Sydney Opera House, the winner. Funding it was the next issue and construction wasn't started until 1959 and took 14 years to build (originally thought to take 4, guess every government gets screwed by contracts!). The feat of building the opera house, which is made up entirely of concrete, boggled my mind as I walked through it. Each of the three arches is its own theater and inside each of those are multiple stages situated behind the scenes for rehearsals. The main theater features a massive stage that has trap doors, hydraulic lifts to move flooring up and down, and a orchestra pit that hides beneath the stage and can be moved into view with an entire ensemble playing while being put into place.

If that didn't impress you enough, this might. The entire structure, as I previously stated, is made up entirely of concrete arches. When you are inside, you can see the concrete along the exterior walls as you walk around but once inside the concert hall, there is only wood. The designer ensured that the acoustics of the building were considered and how this was carried out was incredible. Walking into the theater there was wood, everywhere. The floors were made of wood, the walls were wood, the seats were made of wood. But this was no ordinary wood, the design called for two types of wood, brush box and white birch, both of which were harvested in New South Wales. Now, one might think that the wood would simply be hammered to the walls and all would be well. No such luck. Instead, the walls actually hang from the ceiling. Sounds odd and impossible but we were allowed to move along the walls and look up into the gap of about a foot between the concrete walls and the wood. To me that's a crazy move but later, I went to see the Sydney Symphony Orchestra perform and it sounded like I was right there listening to them....hahaha......

After the tour, I headed to the Oz Jetboating pier and took a beating jetting around the harbor. They gave us all rain jackets with the caution that we might get wet. MIGHT? Talk about an understatement. Over the next 30 minutes we were driven around the harbor at neck breaking speeds only to whipped around as the drive performed what car enthusiasts call "whipping shitties". Every time the boat spun around, a tidal wave of ocean water spued over boat and all over everyone. Simply put, we were swimming in the harbor with a boat under us.

The day ended, as I mentioned before, with a visit back to the Opera House to see the Sydney Symphony perform and it was amazing. $30 for seats 3 rows back from the pit! Can't beat that!!

Jenolan Caves

Day 11

On a recommendation from the same company that arranged for the Great Ocean Road Tour, I got on a bus to the Jenolan Caves where massive rock formations were boasted about. The bus took us along a very scenic 3 hr drive heading into the mountains and reaching a peak of 1030 meters. At one point, we stopped at a place called Scenic Skyway. It was a rail car ride that brings you down into the mountainside to a boardwalk. I should back up, this rail car was no ordinary rail car, it was a sheer straight down plunge, roughly an 80* drop for about 500 meters. Offered a pretty amazing view of the mountains though. After arriving at the caves, I ate some lunch at the chalet like building nestled into the mountainside before heading into the caves. The path wound around all sorts of incredible rock formations, stalagmites, stalactites and stories about the early explorers who came through the caves with evidence of their presence with left behind equipment like ladders, ropes and other mine gear. It's crazy to see everything in there with the help of electricity only to sit there and think about early explorers coming inside with a candle and not knowing how far the cave system went. At one point, there was a gradual slope that was used by the earlier explorers as a faster way to the bottom of the cave by sliding down on burlap sacks. I'm a curious person so had the guide not kept such tight reigns on us, I might have stayed behind in some places and done some exploring myself.