Christmas Eve in Sydney

This a.m., after breakfast at the hotel, we took a morning bus tour of Sydney. Our guide, Chris, was quite funny and great with the kids. He gave them a kangaroo to watch over during the trip, then later surprised them with a stuffed koala and wombat.

He named his bus Eileen (I-Lean – get it?) and proceeded to give us an overview of Sydney – which is huge (as in spread out). (Also large in population: 4th largest city in world w/ 4.28 million per Wikipedia; isn’t the internet great? Especially when crowne plaza hotel TV wacks out regularly – only happens in our room. Maybe I’m really never meant to watch TV?)

Anyway, it’s a lovely city with tons of green space, rolling hills, gorgeous waterway views, lovely foliage and trees. Seems like people are very attune to the environment and protecting local businesses in many areas (at least so we were told).

We stopped to check out the Sydney Harbor and its bridge and the Opera House (both lovely views). People climb the bridge (up and over—what a cool thing). Our bus made other stops at areas overlooking the city as we wove through various neighborhoods and areas of the city. Ava liked a teacup shaped house along the water’s edge. We took a break in Manley, an area along the beach with surfers galore. Manly also had a nice pedestrian area with cool shops and restaurants.

As we drove through other areas of Sydney we got a sense of the outdoor/athletic lifestyle people who live her seem to seek out.

After our drop off at Darling Harbor Joe and Ava headed off to do some shopping, Claire and I hunted down historic Capitol Theatre for a performance of High School Musical. We had great seats – 6th row center -- in a lovely historic venue. We both thoroughly enjoyed it, even left with the CD for Claire to enjoy. (Now I guess we’ll have to see the movies – yes, a little late on the trends.)

After hooking back up with our other half we headed for St. Mary’s Cathedral for Mass via cab. St. Mary’s is the largest Gothic cathedral in the Southern Hemisphere. And it’s gorgeous. We checked out the nativity and Christmas tree outside, then went in to snag seats behind the boys choir (a group of mostly 10 year old boys).

To say Mass was a bit chaotic is an incredibly large understatement. I’ve never seen so many kids running around. At Communion our section was sternly told (by an overzealous usher) to sit tight until he came to get us so we didn’t wind our way through the choir. The man never did return to usher us anywhere. Talk about being left hanging…

After a look at the chapels, statues and indoor nativity we wandered through Hyde Park (gorgeous public gardens since 1856; previous to that time it was used for a wide array of sporting events) and back to Darling Harbor for dinner at Nick’s (Cockle Bay). I tried kangaroo (why not?!?). No need to repeat that experience (it was fine, glad I had prawns to back it up). Otherwise a great meal, especially Joe’s J.D. Dury fish (I think I just contrived that name.)

Note on food: At this point in our trip any place that had pasta w/ a little olive oil or butter, Parmesan and salt was great by Ava. Can 3 year olds get rickets from a steady diet of just pasta?!? Gummy vitamins: don’t let me down.

Also on the subject of Ava…she’s fascinated w/ tattoos and we’ve seen an awful lot of them here in Australia. She’s decided she’s getting a permanent star. That will no doubt make her father’s day.