G’day Mates

So after a long travel day (is there any other kind?), we made it to Sydney yesterday. The travel day shouldn’t have been too long but the mini-bus from the Sydney airport to our hostel took longer than the plane ride. Strange. Anyway, they actually say G’day mate in Australia. I somewhat thought it was just a catch phrase, but I have heard it said to me numerous times.

Today in Sydney we had a relatively full day of sightseeing (didn’t spend a penny either until Dinner). We walked over to the Royal Botanical Gardens and looked at the harbor. Sydney is quite lovely and the weather while not perfect is much better than Melbourne. The Botanical Gardens were nice with lots of birds and plants. The birds were all quite strange looking. We thought we would see more strange birds on our trip, but outside the kingfisher we saw in Thailand, nothing too exotic. Until today that is. We saw some odd ducks (check flickr) along with a wild parrot and very large ravens.

From the botanical gardens, we headed around the bay to see the Sydney Opera House. It was just as cool as the pictures show. We wandered around the Circular Quay and watched some street performers. There were several aborigines playing the Dierado, which was pretty cool. After that, we checked out the Museum of Contemporary Art. It was a decent museum, with one excellent exhibit on some aussie modern artist. I can’t remember his name, but we both liked his stuff especially the Manta Ray and the neon rhinoceros.

Other tidbits….
– Ashley was slightly sick in Melbourne, and I have seem to have caught it. Nothing to serious, just a cold.
– We have figured out that Germany actually is deserted. They are all out traveling. Sydney is loaded with them.
– We are back to hostels for our accommodation, as my mom commented, its a steep drop from where we stayed in Thailand. But hostels are nice cause you can cook (we got sick of eating out in Thailand). Plus, the showers are relatively normal and the bathroom sinks actually have hot water.
– Australia is definitely expensive, mostly cause the dollar is weak. We are managing to stay on budget by cooking.