High Tea @ the Opera House!

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The big event for our final day in Sydney was "High Tea" at the Sydney Opera House! I'm not sure if it's because the event was a little pricey or because it was "high tea", but Brian and I were easily the youngest people in attendance by at least 20 years! Anyway, the event occurs once a month in the famous Bennelong Restaurant at the Opera House and runs from 2-4 PM. We got mildly dressed up for the occasion (me in a sundress - Brian in khakis and a button down) and we're pleasantly surprised when we were escorted to one of the best tables in the place! We were essentially right in the middle of the restaurant at our own table for two.

The restaurant offers fantastic views of Sydney Harbour, Circular Quay and the City in general - which you'll notice in the first photo posted here. To give you an idea of what the restaurant is like - their website describes it best: "Guillaume at Bennelong is situated in the southern most shell of the Sydney Opera House, where diners sit beneath Jorn Utzons vaulted concrete "ribs". " There you have it.

Upon being seated we were given the choice of 5 different types of fancy tea from around the world, and served Champagne. We also had a menu with about 6 different choices of Amuse Bouche (those are bite size hors d'oeurves that make your mouth happy for those of you who aren't Top Chef fans!) and 6 different desserts. We spent about 15 minutes debating which appetizer and which dessert we were each going to choose when we were each brought our own plate full of all the appetizers on the list! Turns out we were getting all of them to try, which was a pleasant surprise! Honestly, at this point I don't remember much about the hors d'oeurves....I know there were quite a few seafood selections that Brian refused to try and I know there was a lemony chicken salad appetizer that was hands down the best chicken salad I've ever had in my life!

Once our appetizers were gone, they brought each of us the plate full of 6 little bites of deliciousness...aka dessert. Again, I can't recall much except the 3 layer chocolate mouse cake that was heaven in my mouth! Brian finished his and then tried to go for mine but I told him "what's mine is yours didn't apply in this particular scenario!"

After our desserts were cleared it was time for the main attraction - a private Opera performance by one of the best Opera singers in the world! It was awesome. I honestly didn't know what to expect because I've never seen or listened to much Opera, but I thought the whole thing was very cool. The singer sang a total of 6 songs - all of which took about 20 minutes, which I thought was the perfect amount of time. He would tell us the song he was about to sing, what Opera it was from, and the story behind it. THEN, the piano player would start playing and the singer would go into character - it was really amazing. He had a beautiful voice and he was standing just 20-30 feet in front of us belting Opera in the Sydney Opera House! How cool is that?!

Now I'm sure many of you are wondering how Brian felt about all this and honestly he had a pretty good time! He obviously didn't enjoy the afternoon as much as I did, but he did say he could appreciate how talented the singer was - even if Opera isn't his thing. To tell you the truth, I'm not even sure if I'm an Opera fan either. I thought 20 minutes was the perfect amount of time for the performance and I really appreciated that he explained what the songs were about prior to him singing them. But overall, I think the vote is still out on Opera for me because I've never sat through a 2 hour show! From what I hear you're either an Opera Lover or you're not - and it's pretty clear Brian's the latter, so who knows when I'll get to find out for sure!

Overall, this was a wonderful way to spend our last day in Sydney before heading to Cairns. Overall, we loved Sydney - a beautiful city with so much to see and do and the people were wonderful. We hope to return one day!

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