Sydney, Australia - beautiful city

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Geo: -33.8671, 151.207

Daily Journal - Cruise Feb 6 - 18, 2017

I woke up at 3:15 just as we were pulling into Sydney. It was dark. There were many folks up on the top deck. You couldn't really see anything, but it was a good experience. Glenn and I came on back to bed until 7:00am. I really didn't get to sleep again, but Glenn did.

We left our stateroom at 8:00am and went down to the Guest Services to get our new key card. We walked out onto Sydney. Beautiful day. Blue skies. You could tell it was going to be a HOT day. We decided to walk towards to Sydney Harbor Bridge. I saw the sign for "Bridge Climb". That is where you pay money to walk across the top of the bridge. That was on my "bucket list", but only if it was a reasonable price. I said "Glenn, if the price is 150.00 or less, lets do it". Sure enough there had been some cancelation and there was an opening. However the price was 288.00. That was just too much. Climbing the Bridge is a 3 hour experience. You are given some orientation, you have a speciality suit you need to wear. You cannot bring your own camera and they do provide a headset so you can hear the guide. You are "tether" into a cable, so you are NEVER loose of the construction of the bridge. It was fun to see the climbers go up to the top and down the other side. However, Josh gave us coupon to climb up the 200 steps of the Pylon and do that option. The Pylon observation part would not be open until 10am. I bought a souvenir spoon, a Snicker bar and a coke. We also connected to the internet and I did a quick Facetime with G'daddy. We also did a "triage" of our emails as there was free wifi in the visitor's center. It was also air-conditioned.

I took tons of pictures. Great views. We took selfies also. As we were waiting in line to go up to the Pylon Observation desk, we met a couple that had "carry-on" luggage, and there were joinging the cruise. Continuing our conversation, their names were Dana and Julie, from Idaho, but had a sister that was a MCC (Mennonite Central Committee) in Santa Cruz, Bolivia back in the 80's about the same time we were there. We told them that we'd look for them on our boat. Small world.

We walked down the steps and back towards to Sydney Opera House. We knew we wanted to see "some" of the Super Bowl. We stopped into Man of War Pub. Chris was the guy that waited on us. Nice friendly Aussie. We arrived in the middle of the 2nd Quarter. Atlanta was ahead and even scored again. I couldn't believe it. We also needed to get some food into us. We didn't eat breakfast, and with the climb up to the Pylon, we were hungry. Chris suggested the Cheese Burger. Glenn and I split that. It was pretty good. All the time as we were watching the football game, we were doing "triage" with our emails. I was also sending a photo or two to Ellen, Karen and G'daddy of the photos of us with the Sydney Opera house in the back ground. Or a photo of us on the Harbor Bridge.

We left at Half time - knowing that Atlanta would win the Super Bowl. We walked closer to the Sydney Opera House. As we were walking along the dock, we ran into Elizabeth and Jacqueline. That has happened many times that when we get off the cruise ship, we met friends in the city, such as the case in Santiago Chile, last year.

While up on the Pylon, I asked an employee if there was a Letterbox there. She didn't know what I was talking about, so I asked her if she could check a web site for me. Going to AtlasQuest.com, she pulled up listing for Letterboxes in Sydney. There was one in the Botanical Garden, just beyond the Opera House. Now, I had a mission. I took a photo with my camera of the "clue".

We took more photos of the Sydney Opera House, then headed to the Botanical Garden. We spotted a "train" Hop on Hop off type of deal. This train was like the ones we have in the Guatemala City shoping center that we would take David to. It was a 25 minute round trip. We took the round trip, took lots of pictures. The park reminded me of Central Park in New York City, or Grant Park in Chicago. Not lots of flowers. Since it was extremely hot, we found shade when ever we could. One of my purpose of going to the botanical garden, was to spot the Letterbox that is planted there.

We followed the clues to the letterbox, however there was construction going on right where the LB was planted. So, Glenn and I figured that we found it.

We continued through the park, and started heading towards the NCL Star. I stopped at a souvenir store and purchased another spoon, this one of the Sydney Opera House, and some post cards. As we were walking towards a place to get internet, we saw 3 young people all dressed up in different NFL team jerseys and we asked who won the game. New England! Unbelieveable. I told these young people that they were pulling my leg. That they were messing with me.

We walked towards the Discovery Museum and looked out this historical site. Then we got something to drink for the use of the internet. The time was very slow.

Around 5pm, we walked back to the ship. We didn't have to do the safety drill. We went to the Deck 8 restaurant and had Ribs. We were there for the "sail away". Beautiful view of the city and harbor. We pulled out around 7pm.

Glenn and I walked to the back of the ship. We happened to run into Karen, who is in charge of shore excursions - she is from Chile. I had left her our card - she was glad to see us. I told her that we wanted to do one excursion and that is was full. She said she'ld get us on. Its not what you know, it is who you know.

We went to the evening show and sat next to a couple from Lake Charles, LA Roger and Cindy. We had a great talk before the show started. Glenn and I enjoyed the opening show to see the preview of the acts that were to follow.

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