Sydney was a whirlwind of surf, sun and hardcore tourism.
Day 1: Arrival — (Too Much) Fun In The Sun
I arrived at 8:30 on Saturday—meaning I had to wake up in Christchurch at 4:00am!!!—and met Alissa just past immigration at the baggage claim, where she had been waiting for almost two hours. We made it to our hostel, Bondi Backpackers, by 11:00am, despite being dropped off at the wrong hostel because we both thought we had booked at the Bondi Beach House YHA. We only lost a few minutes (thank you, iPhone) but it was not fun walking those few extra blocks with two packs weighing in at over 70 pounds. Fortunately, those extra blocks took us to 110 Campbell Parade, possibly the best location in Bondi, right on the waterfront.
Unfortunately, our room was, as Lonely Planet put it “a bit down on the heel”, or as Alissa put it “really dirty.” Not smelly, thankfully, but generally worn down with an overall feeling of dankness and carpeting that appeared to not have been washed in ages. The throw rug beneath the mattress (no need for frivolous items like bed frames at the Bondi Backpackers) had so much hair on it, it seemed to be shedding. Also, no AC, which we thought we had for our room in Bondi, and which certainly would have been nice for the 70+ degree nights. Bummer. But we did have a private room with a large locker we could padlock for extra security while we were out for the day, so we didn’t spend much time in the room except to sleep; we even both agreed that our accommodations grew on us during our time in Bondi.
After checking in and starting my laundry we went for a quick swim at Bondi Beach, which highlighted the best feature of our digs: location. We could walk out the front door of our hostel in bare feet and swim trunks and be in the water within 3 minutes. Unfortunately, I let Alissa tell me it would be ok to head to the water without putting on sunscreen because we were “only going down for a minute” before coming back to get my laundry from the dryer. Bad mistake. The conditions were perfect for some of the best bodysurfing I’ve done in years and an hour or so later I was on my way back to the hostel, done extra crispy. I could feel the heat radiating off my back and shoulders while we were still walking up the beach from the water and when we were back inside it became quickly apparent that most of my upper body had a nice Irish tan. We finished up that first night with burgers (ok), fries (good), and a milkshake (phenomenal) from Moo, the gourmet burger joint down the street. Overall it was a decent meal, although worth closer to $20 than the $50 we paid; I’d take a double-double, fries and a chocolate shake ($8.57) from In-n-out over Moo any time.
Day 2: Hardcore Tourism
Both mornings started with an early morning walk down to the beach to watch the sun rise, although on Sunday it only started so early for Alissa. After a hearty breakfast of eggs, bacon (not streaky American bacon, but very good bacon), tomato, hash browns and toast for $9.00 AUD at Gabby’s, we spent Sunday morning taking the 333 bus to Circular Quay, enjoying the view of the bridge (we skipped the 3.5 hour, $190/pp bridge climb… that’s right, it’s almost $200 to climb to the top of the bridge!), circling the Sydney Opera House and walking the length of the Royal Botanic Gardens. The Opera House was absolutely stunning in person as expected, though we both agreed we were surprised to find it covered with smallish white ceramic tiles, rather than larger strips of white material. The Gardens were HUGE, had some gorgeous centenarian trees that reminded me of the Banyan trees in Boca Grande, a very cool garden of cacti and succulents, some pretty, very tame birds, and a CRAZY amount of huge bats; certainly one of the coolest things you can do for $0 in Sydney.
We spent the early afternoon at the Australian Museum (in honor of my forthcoming time volunteering at their Lizard Island research station), where we were extremely happy to have paid an extra $10 total (before a 20% off coupon from the free guide to Sydney Alissa picked up at the airport) to check out the “Best of Wildlife Photography” exhibit. The exhibit showcased an incredible variety of beautiful wildlife prints, many of which can be found on the museum’s Flickr page. Some of the coolest shots were from the children’s competition; I now feel extremely inadequate as a 25-year old hobby photographer when I compare my best work to, e.g. the best of the under-10 category. We also checked out an exhibit on aquatic life indigenous to Australia, most of which it seems can kill you within minutes if the proper antivenin isn’t administered, or CPR isn’t performed for 24 consecutive hours. The poison of at least one deadly critter, the blue-ringed octopus, has no known antidote. It was a cool exhibit, but we both became somewhat afraid of swimming while camping on the Whitsundays and agreed that we must avoid touching anything at all costs. We spent practically 90 minutes in the museum and felt as if we barely scratched the surface.
After a brief, unsuccessful detour to print & fax my food order form for Lizard Island (the copy shops in the business district were closed on Sunday) we spent some time at the MCA (down in The Rocks, the historic district adjacent to Circular Quay) walking through the 3 free floor. It was alright (some interesting aboriginal art, including an awesome painting entitled “We Call Them Pirates Around Here”) but was pretty hit-or-miss and certainly paled in comparison to other museums of modern and contemporary art I’ve seen (the MCAs of Chicago and Nice come to mind, as well at the Moma, the new Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago and even the contemporary installations at the Johnson Museum at Cornell). Given that it was free, however, it was certainly worth checking out.
We finished up our crazy day of tourism by making the most of our $18 “daytripper” public transit passes to take the ferry all the way across the harbor (30 minutes moving at a pretty good speed) to go to Manly. We were told that Manly has some particularly nice pubs for a drink on Sunday afternoon, as well as a great surfing beach; however, we wouldn’t know since we were totally exhausted from the miles of walking around in the sun, so we just stayed on the ferry to return immediately to Circular Quay. The views of the harbor made the trip worthwhile—especially since we had already payed for our passes for the day—but I’d like to actually spend some time in Manly on my next trip to Sydney.
After a quick bit of late-afternoon bodysurfing back in Bondi, we had an Italian dinner at the restaurant next to Gabby’s unremarkable for anything but its portion size. To work off a bit of dinner—and make room for desert, naturally—we took a walk down to the far end of the beach and discovered an extremely well-named nice restaurant in the far end of the beach house, with an absolute beachside patio. The restaurant, Nick’s, looked pretty good (aside from their killer location), but perhaps a bit out of our current budget, with a whole lobster clocking in at $115 AUD. We ended our walk at Chocolateria San Churro, where we thoroughly enjoyed our churros and dark chocolate dipping sauce. We actually had exactly the same thing the night before but that bothered us both not one bit: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Day 3: Serendipity
Our second day started with a pre-dawn walk across the beach to the water’s edge to watch the sunrise. The beach was nearly empty and almost totally silent except for the gentle sounds of the surf and periodic clatter of the beach groomer as it drove past—in great contrast to the noisy sea of bodies packed onto it during the sunny weekend days. We returned to the hostel for their free breakfast—milk and cereal—and then walked to the Fresh Market for some fruit and fresh-squeezed OJ. At this point we were hoping to begin a 2-hour walk from Bondi to Coogee Beach, but persistent light rain made us change our plans.
Instead of starting our day of tourist activities on the path to Coogee, we decided to head for the “artsy” streets of Glebe. We hopped a bus to Bondi Junction, where we transferred to a train bound for Central station. At Central we planned to take the tram line, which would take us straight to Glebe, but were doubly thwarted in our attempt. Disappointingly, our “all-inclusive” daytripper public transit pass didn’t include the tram, so we would need an extra ticket to make the transfer. I considered paying for the tram fare in order to simplify things, but after walking all the way across Central station we found ourselves surrounded by ooooooold people, moving… at… a… snails… pace. It was Senior Week, and apparently a significant percentage of the seniors from the greater Sydney area were looking to board the tram ahead of us. Of course, by the time we realized this, we were already completely surrounded by senior citizens in all directions and had to make our way, slowly, through the crowd to find our way in the direction of the appropriate bus stop. The whole affair took far longer than it ought to have and highlighted the principle that old people, while generally nice and often interesting to talk to individually or in small groups, are to be avoided in large crowds if you want to get anything done at a reasonable pace.*
Once we finally made it to the correct bus and into Glebe, we hopped off the bus and walked down the main drag past all kinds of lovely little bars, restaurants and second-hand shops. It was lively (even at 10:00 on a Monday) without being crowded or hectic. We took a right on St John’s, which I knew from the map would take us vaguely in the direction of our next destination, but stopped almost immediately at cute little cafe where we could both try a “flat white”, which we had seen on the menu at all Australian establishments serving coffee. A flat white, as it turns out, is pretty much a latte with less milk; lattes are generally too milky for my taste, so I’ve adopted the flat white as my caffeinated drink of choice in Australia. This particular cafe served up a pretty wicked flat white and had a wonderful breezy outdoor feel with the storefront pretty much wide open and the roof a clear plexiglass that admitted an amazing amount of light, even on a cloudy morning. Also, they had free wifi, which is pretty much invaluable for an iPhone addicted traveller like myself with a serious data habit.
Eventually, I was ready to tear myself away from the pleasant confines (and free wifi) of the coffee shop and on to our next destination: The Powerhouse Museum and, Alissa hoped, its fabled oversized neon Rubik’s Cube. The walk wasn’t too long and took us past, for the most part, blocks of picturesque if slightly dilapidated rowhouses that gave the area almost a Cajun feel, rather unlike what I’d expect from a British penal colony. The Powerhouse Museum was definitely worth the $12 admission, for the wide variety of free 80s-style sit down arcade video games (Pac Man, Centipede, etc) if nothing else. Perhaps I shouldn’t have beaten Alissa quite so soundly, with such vocal gusto, because I had a great time playing her but she gave up after 3 games and refused to play me any more; it probably served me right. Other highlights included the aforementioned giant Rubik’s Cube (in exhibit The 80s Are Back, which was pretty much exactly what you’d expect, albeit with a distinctly Australian bent, e.g. a much more prominent position for INXS than most Americans would expect), a geektastic exhibit on the birth and development of the digital computer and a design exhibit featuring some amazing furniture (the Zaha Hadid-designed, glacial-inspired sofa was a particularly lust-worthy item, as was the Lockheed Lounger).
From the Powerhouse, we walked several blocks over to the Sydney Fish Market where something incredible happened. Of the 4+ million residents of Sydney, I knew two: Brett Farago and his mother; on arriving in Sydney, I messaged Brett on Facebook but still hadn’t heard back on our last full day, so I assumed we wouldn’t see each other. Imagine my surprise when, as I was standing slackjawed, completely overwhelmed, attempting to wade through the vast quantity and array of seafood options available for lunch, I heard “Nick” and looked up to see the one person in 4 million whom I had hoped to see. The timing was truly serendipitous, considering our unplanned pit stop at the coffee shop and the fact that Brett and his friends Mark and Carl had already finished their lunch but were feeling particularly “peckish” and so had come back around for round 2. We caught up as Alissa and I wolfed down 8 oysters and a sampler plate of prawns, calamari, fish and chips. We decided to head for Mark’s apartment… but not before picking up another dozen oysters and some (incredibly delicious) salt-and-pepper calamari with chips for the road.
An afternoon in the life of a Sydney 20-something turned out to be incredibly similar to that of an American: beers, xbox and American reality TV (in this case a Smash Lab marathon). It was a wonderfully relaxing contrast to the rest of my hectic trip so far. Brett and I reminisced about his time in the states and we all discussed the merits of various American fast food establishments (In-n-out the unanimous favorite) and the implications of a Phish t-shirt.
Once Brett’s girlfriend, Nicole, arrived we watched a bit more of Smash Lab—something to do with bomb-proofing a 747 passenger plane against a pound of TNT… i.e. an excuse to blow up an old plane repeatedly—and then all drove over to Bondi so that Alissa and I could change for dinner with Brett’s mom, brother Miles and his wife, also Nicole. We went to a great steakhouse just around the corner from Miles’ house, Mumu. Pretty much everything was delicious, but particularly the 1-kg tagliata that Alissa and I split as well as the Moo Brew Heffeweisen that I drank. After sampling a bit of almost everyone’s meat, I think I had almost every kind of met on the menu, from the fillet to the ribs, and none of it was disappointing—not quite as great as the very cream of the dry-aged crop in Chicago steakhouse meats, but damn close. Alissa and I thanked Mrs. Farago profusely after the meal; after several days of paying the ludicrous prices for food in Sydney/Bondi—except for the fishmarket, which was damn cheap for great seafood—a free meal was a welcome treat indeed. Miles finished off the night by showing us a disgusting/hilarious youtube video of a man drinking Ipecac for $1000. You can watch it here.
Day 4: Great News, Great Brunch
The next morning, I was awoken by a phone call at 4:30am. Normally, this would be infuriating; however, the phone call was from the assistant dean of admissions at the Johnson School, congratulating me on my admission. What a wake-up call! I apologized for the bad connection, explaining that I was in Australia, and he fell over himself apologizing for waking me up, but if there was any other important information transmitted during the conversation, it was lost in the sleepy haze.
When we finally woke up for the day, Alissa and I had breakfast at Trio, a beachside breakfast spot in Bondi, recommended to us by Brett’s girlfriend Nicole. Anyone who knows me well will know that I am, if anything, a parishioner of the church of the holy brunch; bacon, eggs, peppers, tomatoes and potatoes in their various permutations and combinations are the body of my lord, coffee and juice his blood. Lately, Alissa has joined me in my little form of worship; together we’ve sampled a lot of breakfasts in a lot of locations.
We both agreed, Trio was exceptional. From the moment I saw the menu, I had a good feeling. Almost everything looked delicious, sand many of the items were interesting and unique, things I’d never seen on a breakfast menu before. We settled on the Boss Eggs (scrambled eggs, prosciutto, sliced avocado and toast) and the breakfast bruschetta (poached eggs, tomato, basil and ricotta on toast). Fantastic. Their flat white was also so good, I had to order a second. The dining space itself certainly didn’t hurt the experience: high-ceilinged and cheerful, with copious sunlight and breeze streaming through the open storefront, on the closest thing to an absolute beachfront location this side of Nick’s Restaurant. In the end, despite the fact that it was a top-two or -three breakfast spot for both of us, we agreed that it was a VERY good thing that we hadn’t discovered Trio until our last morning,or we would have spent waaaaaaay too much money on breakfast in Bondi. Despite the expense, it was the perfect way to finish off our whirlwind 3-day tour of Sydney.
*N.B. This isn’t meant to disparage old folks generally, or any of those close to me specifically. Some, such as my grandmother, Grams, are remarkably spry and could put most jazzercizing soccer moms to shame with their quick pace. Others, such as her husband John, aren’t any less wonderful for being less quick on their feet… but that doesn’t mean I’d relish the thought of navigating a bus terminal crowded with several hundred of either.
