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Haber Travel Report – Sydney Australia

Posted By irene Posted on March 7, 2008
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Dear Loyal Readers:

The Habers are, once again, on the road and a long road it will be.  We are spending the month of March “down under” in Australia and New Zealand.  Considering how long it took us to get here (about a day and a half) and the number of places to visit, one certainly needs this amount of time.  My traveling companion and I have not been away this long since we first went to Europe in the summer of 1969 (our very first trip).
Sydney is a large vibrant city.  It’s a cross between New York and London.  Marty was here in the ’80’s (on business); at that time he felt Sydney was like NY in the ’50’s; this is no longer true.  Sydney is up to the minute.  One thing that does set Sydney apart is its beautiful harbor and the activities on and around it.  On the negative side, we have been quite surprised by how expensive everything is and it’s not just that the dollar is so low (but that is certainly adding to it).  (And you know that if WE think things are expensive…)

So what is there to see here?  Of course, there is the beautiful Sydney Opera House; photo attached. (Doug: thanks for teaching me how to name my photos).   We went on a very interesting tour of the building.  It’s not just an opera house; there are actually five auditoriums inside the building; they perform not only opera but dance, music and theatre as well.  One of the auditoriums is more beautiful than the next with great sight lines.  Strangely, the one that is used for opera was the least impressive one (and they are planning to renovate that one).
Sydney was originally founded by convicts (and those who guarded them).  The area where Sydney started is called The Rocks; it’s a fun place to walk around. There are still some of the original little alleyways and there’s the oldest building in Sydney called Cadman’s Cottage (photo attached).
Also rather old is a house form the 1830’s called Elizabeth Bay House (because it sits on Elizabeth Bay).  Very nice furnishings inside and a lovely staircase.
In order to take advantage of the harbor, we took a ferry ride that goes to various places in the harbor.  You can get off at each stop, spend time there and grab the next ferry that comes around.  We opted to get off at two of the stops.  One was the Taronga Zoo.  We got to see all those animals which are indigenous to Australia:  kangaroos (photo attached), wallabyes (which are small kangaroos), kaola bears (which were mostly sleeping) and emus.  The other stop we got off was Watson’s Bay which was touted as a lovely place to stop for lunch which we had overlooking the bay.

Other places we’ve been to:  the State Parliament where we listened to a debate for a while, a museum where we saw Aboriginal art (Doug and Fawn: similar looking to what Ben gave you) and we walked through several parks.  We tried to go to the Great Synagogue but it was closed; it had a sign out front that said “tours suspended until further notice”.  Today we tried to go to the Sydney Jewish Museum; we got there at 3 PM and they had closed for Shabbes at 2 PM; (it’s hard to keep track of what day it is!)
The food has been excellent so far (although, as noted earlier, very expensive).  The first night we ate at an Italian restaurant recommended by the sister-in-law of a court reporter Marty dealt with!  Last night we ate at a Mod Oz restaurant (that means, modern Australian cuisine) that I had reserved many months ago.  Tonight we’re going to a Chinese restaurant that the concierge recommended (and I had it in my tour book).
We also went into an art gallery where I found a lovely glass perfume bottle to add to my collection.
Tomorrow morning we fly to the south island of New Zealand.  We’ll be in New Zealand for about 8 days and then we return to Australia.  If you’re wondering why we’re going back and forth, it’s becaue we used frequent flyer mileage to get here and need to arrive and leave from Sydney, so it didn’t really matter at which point we went to New Zealand.
Looking forward to your comments and to hearing what’s going on in your world.
With love,
The Roving Reporter
Irene
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