“There are so many hormones here, I can smell ‘em in the air!” – Sarah

Yesterday, Sarah cooked us a delicious breakfast of veggie omelettes and toast!  We were ready to conquer the day, and we sure did!  It was a very full, busy, beautiful day here in Sydney.

We started off at Paddington Markets, and it was wonderful!  There were all sorts of things – beautiful handmade clothing, fragrant handmade Australian soaps, tons of jewelery, pottery, tea, handbound scrapbooks, chocolates, leather goods, glass artists, photography, amazing paintings, a lighting store (?), a dog adoption agency (I thought of Hershey!), food vendors (amazing smoothies and Turkish flatbread), EVERYTHING!  The market was also huge, and we spent a couple hours there, but I definitely could’ve browsed all day!  On top of that, it was a warm, sunny, completely clear day – the first we’ve had in a while!  I’m so glad that we got out to enjoy it, and we’re thinking about going back to all of the markets again next weekend if it’s nice out!

Following the markets, we headed across the bridge to Luna Park, a tiny amusement park that we’d passed multiple times.  On the way there, we went to Circular Quay and watched an Aborigine play a didgeridoo!  It was awesome!  He was just sitting in the streets with his body painted with white stripes, and the music was great!  I’d never really heard someone play a didgeridoo!  On the way to the park, we also stopped by the Olympic swimming pool!  We didn't go in, but it was quite impressive from the outside!  And it was roofless, which was surprising!

Luna Park was quite cute, but a bit creepier up close.  There was a drunk girl outside being watched by security, and once we went inside, it was all middle school and high school students.  And every last one of them dressed in rocker 80s attire.  It was weird.  Patterned tights, cropped band tees, and FAR too much makeup.  And if they passed up the patterned tights, they went with really, really short shorts.  One girl wore black leather ones.  Another girl wore black sparkly ones.  Some wore pumps (to an amusement park?!).  The boys wore colorful short shorts straight from the 80s.  Needless to say, we felt far too old for the crowd.  We sat by the harbor and enjoyed the new view of the bridge and opera house and sailboats before heading off to Darling Harbor for dinner and fireworks.  We walked across the bridge to get part of the way there, and the view was amazing!  Some people are going on the bridge climb later today, but walking across the bridge was good enough for me!

Let me just say that Darling Harbor is precious.  It’s beautiful!  There are shops and restaurants and clubs lining the entire harbor, which extends for a really long time!  We only saw half of it!  For dinner, we went to I Thai, and it was fantastic!  Lianne hadn’t had Thai food before, so we’ve been meaning to go for a while now, and this really hit the spot.  I got a green chicken curry and some jasmine tea, and I finished it all, even though it was enormous!  We sat and chatted for a while, since Australian waiters never rush you out, and laughed so hard!  I don’t even remember what it was about, except that Kate asked whether she could flare her nostrils, and then made a downright hilarious face.  We continued on like that for an hour or so.  Oh, Americans!

We still had an hour or so until the fireworks were set to start, so we wandered and saw more of the harbor shops, and stopped in Lindt for dessert.  I was full and didn’t get anything, not because I was full, but mainly because I can get Lindt products at home.  Everyone else sipped on coffee and hot chocolate, and Sarah bought a lava cake to share.  We headed just outside and ended up planting ourselves right in front of where the fireworks were set off.  The harbor wasn’t even very wide, so the fireworks were going off really close to us!  I’m sure their proximity made them that much more impressive!  While Disney spoiled me for life in regard to fireworks, these were pretty great.  At one point, it felt like they were directly above us, and as they exploded, we could see flames get closer and closer to us before fizzling out.  I’m so glad that we made the trip out there!

We headed back to the apartments and then put on “Swimming Upstream”, one of the Australian movies we rented.  It was really good!  It’s one of those underdog-comes-out-ahead movies, which I love, and all of the actors were Australian, which was also nice!  After the movie, we crashed.  It was 12:30am and we’d had a ridiculously long day!