Wandering Around the City

Today was a great day, as I wandered around Sydney by myself, without much of a plan. I decided to take the bus to a destination called Miller's Point, of which I was not sure where it was. The 15 minute bus ride ended up taking me to The Rocks, a place which I have been wanting to go anyways. The Rocks' tagline is "A Story Around Every Corner," a tagline which I found to be very true. As I walked around, going down various alleys and twisting and turning streets, I kept ending up at various interesting places, such as Pylon's Lookout (which is under the Harbour bridge), The Rocks Discovery Museum, Sydney Observatory tower, and The Rocks Marketplace. Since it was a Saturday, the market was full of people and various booths filled with everything from food, to clothing, to various potpourri dried leaves representing different parts of Australia with each scent. It had been a cloudy day and soon started to rain, so I decided I needed to find a place with shelter for a while, so I found the Museum of Sydney. The museum was relatively small, but I learned even more about the roots of Sydney, and a lot about the building of this fantastic city, including a video from 1932, made right after the Harbour bridge was built. Eventually it became sunny, so I continued on my journey, and made my way to the Royal Botanic Gardens. The Gardens were immense, and breathtaking. A sign in the entrance says to "Please feel free to walk on the grass and stop and smell the roses" so I did just that. I went through the rose garden, stopping to take in the scents I have not smelled since the summer. Here they seemed to be even stronger. I then began taking various footpaths, ending up in different locations, including the pyramid tropical flower dome, a rainforest path, and an area with at least 1000 bats all sleeping upside down from the trees. It was one of the coolest things I've seen. Some of them were flying around and the screeching was extremely loud. I then began the walk to Mrs. Macquirie's chair, which I had earlier learned (at the Sydney Museum) was made for the Governers wife in 1810. It looks out over the Harbour, Fort Denison, and the pacific ocean. I then made my way over to the edge of Woolloomooloo, which I have been SO excited to get to (purely for the name) but only went to the edge of the neighborhood (I will be exploring it more thoroughly later.) I went to Hyde Park via the Sydney Hospital. The hospital was much different than any hospital I have seen in America. It is in a very old building, and did not seem to have much going on. I am hoping to explore inside at some point so I can thoroughly compare, and learn more about the differences in the health care system here. In Hyde Park I met up with Mike, a friend from Northeastern who is studying in Melbourne this semester. We wandered the streets, ending up at Darling Harbour where I got my first Australian pizza. It was, as expected, nothing like the pizza at home. We took the monorail around a bit of the city, but it did not provide the spectacular views I had hoped for, and seemed to be much more an actual mode of transportation, not so much for tourists. Later, we were wandering around the Harbour when a street performer began his act. It was one of the more entertaining things I've evern seen. We then walked back to Circular Quay and found a little bar, and hung out for a while until I had to head back for girls movie night. We went to see He's Just Not That Into You and it was excellent. Very funny and very entertaining. The movie theater was right next to Unilodge, and it was nice to be able to crash as soon as we got back!

Until next time..