3 lovely days in Sydney

---

Since this is my second time in Sydney, I am taking it in a very relaxed manner. I am not running from one place to the other, and I enjoy seeing corners that I missed the first time, which was a more “tourist classic” week.
I started Thursday morning in a bit unconventional way: I went to visit the Victoria Barracks. It’s an active military base and every Thursday they raise the flag with a military orchestra marching in and playing. It’s open to the public and they didn’t even check my bag at the gate, weird (and of course photography IS allowed). Afterwards you can join a tour guided by one of the army veterans. Our guide was very passionate and full with funny stories about the history of the place and historical military stories - did you know that officers that served in India were allowed to bring their Indian cook with them to Australia? Or would you think that the biggest wine cellar in Sydney was here? (Well, yes, I believe that…) Unfortunately the guide just didn’t want to finish and the tour that was supposed to last 1 hour didn’t even seem to end after 2 hours. And now, oops, it is a military base, I can’t just walk myself to the gate! Luckily a nice soldier escorted me out and I was free to go to my next destination: back to Circular Quay on the harbour, and then by ferry to Darling Harbour. It’s always beautiful to cross Sydney Harbour with the ferry, the views around are fantastic. And then Darling Harbour - how did I not visit here in April? It’s so pretty. I went to the National Maritime museum that features exhibition on the marine history of Australia - from navy to surfing and more. I enjoyed a real fun game at the navy exhibition: identify the sources of records from sonar. I did pretty well, good on me…
In the evening I went out again with my roommates, this has become a real nice habit. The hostel where I stay (with the bizarre name “Wake Up!”) has a real nice bar (the Side Bar) with a good happy hour, you can get the lovely Tooheys new or old for only 2.50, and we enjoyed that indeed.
On Friday I did quiet a long walk from the city centre through the botanical gardens to the art gallery, which I didn’t find too interesting (maybe some parts) and then to Wooloomooloo. The quarter with this odd name is a real pretty area with small buildings, and a posh marina with expensive restaurants (and yacht of course). They built a real stylish apartment building plus hotel in what used to be the port storage building or something like that, and saved parts of the original building or at least its design, which makes it a real interesting place.
And guess what I did in the evening? Yes, another fun night with the girls.
Saturday started nice as I went with Liz, another one of my roommates to the Paddington market. It’s a pretty smart market with expensive merchandise and I decided to go back there next week when I’m closer to my flight home and do my shopping then. Looking back, it was a mistake of course, but I couldn’t foresee the future. After an Internet break and I went to the Rocks and the MCA (Museum of Contemporary Art). They had a very contemporary exhibition, mainly odd video footages, I totally didn’t relate to that and I left. I was sitting outside in the beautiful weather when I got this phone call that I told you about in a different post. It threw me quiet a bit, so there wasn’t much more sightseeing the rest of the day. In the evening, as usual and especially due to my lousy mood, the girls took me out and had me drink lots of alcohol…

---

Photos

The beer can regata
Every year there's a race in Darwin, of boats made of beer cans. Here's one example from the Maritime museum in Sydney