Joe Blogs - Sydney 33°51′S 151°12′E

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Sydney - at last.

The drive up from Melbourne was fantastic. Really green all the way. Rich, lush forest all the way down to a beautiful blue sea. What a beautiful place Australia is.

Sydney itself seems a really nice city. Nice, big shiny skyscrapers. Clean. Vibrant. Lots of beautiful people. It's split up into districts with familiar names such as Paddington, Kings Cross, Haymarket and Woolloomooloo, the first three clearly named after areas in London, the latter clearly named after the noise of breaking wind in the bath.

We’re staying in a really nice apart-hotel (it’s a hotel, apart from the fact that you have your own kitchen), just 10 minutes walk from Sydney Opera House. We only had a couple of hours before we had to leave to go to the opera (yes, well, it’s something we always like to do during the season dearie) and we’d booked to see Puccini’s Turandot (the one with Nessun Dorma in it). Tickets were to be picked up at the door (it’s amazing to think that I booked these 3 months ago from my little room in Bilsborrow and there they were, waiting for us).

The walk down to the Opera House was lovely (the weather’s really nice, blue skies) and the first sight of the Opera House itself was breathtaking. I’ve seen photos of it so many times (I’ve even studied it in some depth to model in the iPalz animation), but nothing compares for seeing it in real life. As we approached the main buildings, the full vista of Sydney Harbour came into view. What a sight. The Harbour bridge. The ferries bustling back and forth. The Opera House. Our feet going back and forth, back and forth as we walk. All lit with the setting sun, just as the lights of the city were coming on. Fantastic.

We sat outside for a while, with a beer, and noticed a huge bat flying over the Opera House. Then another and another. The botanical gardens are right next door, and it is clear there is a colony of monkey bats there. Somewhere we will be investigating a little closer tonight I think.

As for the opera itself – I’ve never been a great opera fan myself, but we felt we really had to do this, and what an experience it was. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. A real extravaganza for the senses.

Or, to be more accurate, my eyes were 100% happy (so happy in fact, that by the end they were both looking in independent directions, though that could have been more related to the fact there were two bar breaks during the performance). The whole performance was a visual feast.

As for my ears, well, I think it’s fair to say they were about 50% happy. This was not so much the operatic singing, some of which was fantastic, it was more that Puccini’s music was not really to my taste (though Nessun Dorma itself was great). His operas are classed as impressionist, but the score was quite bitty for my liking, and sometimes I felt I was listening to incidental film music.

As for my nose, tongue and tactile senses, they felt rather left out. I shall have to treat them all to something special tonight so they don’t feel left out (although my tongue did get a treat as we called into Pie Face on the way home).

Drunk with the lavish beauty of it all (and the lavish beauty of the wine), we sat outside on the lower Opera House Courtyard after the performance looking at the stars and the wonderful nighttime skyline of Sydney Harbour. I couldn’t help but hearing the people next to me also talking about the stars and soon we had struck up a conversation with them. They couldn’t understand why anyone would want to live in England when there were places like Australia in the world, and I had to admit I’m starting to agree with them.

Another interesting insight into Australia culture was there seems to be a bit of a North/South divide. There is a view that the North Australians are considered bogans (or hicks). Consequently, the idea of visiting anywhere North of Brisbane is anathema to some Southern Australians!! It’s hot and tropical and full of bogans!! What a shame! They don’t know what they’re missing. I hadn’t really considered there was any real difference between the North and the South, they both seem nice.

Also, there still appears to be a residual “us and them” between the indigenous population and the westerners. All very interesting (and sadly typical of humans).

But you know, these attitudes are no different to Britain really, just on a bigger scale, especially when you consider the distance between North and South Australia is about the same as Britain to North Africa !!!

Anyway, after an amazing evening, we fell into bed around 2:00am, oblivious to the fact that we had to get up at 6:00am for an Opera House backstage tour !!!!

When will we learn?

Four hours later, the alarm goes off. After some serious debate about maybe not going, we get up an go, are we're really glad we did, especially as we had been front of house only 12 hours earlier). We went round both halls, front and backstage, saw all the props we had seen the night before, into the dressing rooms, the green room, and the conductors suite.

The current resident conductor at the Sydney Opera House is the famous Vladimir Ashkenazy, and in this room was his personal, £250,000 Steinway grand.

“Anyone play the piano?”, asked the guide.

Well, you can’t just not say anything can you.

So there I was, still somewhat blathered from the night before, 7:30am the morning, playing jazz and blues on Vladimir Ashkenazy’s personal quarter of a million quid piano in the Sydney Opera House !!!

It doesn’t get any better than this !!!

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