Sydney Harbor

 G’day, from Sydney, Australia. We will be “down under” for the next couple of days. I wonder, do people in Australia call the rest of the world the “up over”? A resident of Sydney is known as a Sydneysider.  Sydney probably has one of the most recognizable harbors in the world with the Opera house and Sydney Harbor Bridge.  Jim and the choir were topside at 6:45 A.M. this morning singing “Waltzing Matilda” as we sailed into the harbor and past the opera house. Sydney is the oldest city is Australia, and the site of the first British penal colony - named after Lord Sydney.  A penal colony named after you, my, my – I suppose the only thing better would be to have your name associated with the local landfill. Anyway, if we think the King Ranch is big, Australia has a cattle ranch that is about the size of Belgium. Can you imagine that round up! I was here when Tom lived here, but about all I saw was the Opera house and the gardens so I am anxious to see the rest of the sights.  I think most people know the history and geography of Australia - but you may not know that they have 1500 species of Australian spiders or that the average person here swallows three spiders a year. I believe I will be checking my sandwich before taking that first bite at lunch. I have to say, I do like their Australian dollars which are made of Polymer. I don’t know why we don’t do that – it’s almost impossible to tear and is colorful. We set out to tour on our own today. As it is Sunday, Jim attended Mass on shore then we met and headed out for the Opera House. There was a performance scheduled for this evening and we really wanted to attend a concert at the Sydney Opera House. We were told that they were sold out but when we got to the box office, we got tickets! We spent a couple of hours in the botanical gardens followed by a $112 hamburger lunch on Circular Quay – ridiculous, but the view of the harbor was almost worth it. We spent the rest of the day reconnoitering to formulate the ultimate sightseeing plan for tomorrow. We are back on the ship long enough to get cleaned up for “Opera’s Greatest Hits”. A much needed event after hiking the gardens.  I will report on the performance tomorrow.  I just hope I can sleep tonight without any motion on the ship.  It will be the first night in six week that I won’t be “rocked in the cradle of the deep” as Jim likes to say. Oh well, there is always Tylenol PM.