Mom/Anne’s Blogs from when she came over Christmas - Chapter 2

Chapter 2 (by Mom/Anne)
It's New Year's Eve here, so we are planning a barbie with prawns and burgers, a perfect melding of No hemisphere & So hemisphere! The champagne is about to be opened so L & I can do our cooking thing. We know it's better with bubbly!

We went to the Opera house on Sunday, and wandered a bit around Sydney and had a wonderful afternoon and evening. The Opera House is constructed on concrete, and each of the "sails" was pre fabricated and erected on site in one piece. It's impossible to imaging what it was like to put each of them in place (18 in all!) The outside is spectacular, as you know, but the inside was a bit disappointing. It's one of the biggest Sydney attractions, so they do tours all day long there. So, our concert was in the Concert Hall, but we weren't able to get into the other performance spaces, including the Opera Hall. A big disappointment. The seats we had in the balcony were accessed by a wall of windows looking out over Sydney Harbour and the bridge. That made up for the inaccessibility of the rest of the spaces!

The acoustics are amazing, as I've heard said, and the concert was wonderful. One thing about the Aussies is that they don't take themselves too seriously. So, the Gala Concert was a mix of Broadway, popular tunes and light classical. The performers were all Australian, and very good. They included a Sousa march for the Americans in the audience, and of course, Waltzing Matilda! They finished with a wonderful arrangement of Amazing Grace (but not ALL the verses!)

After we went for a drink in the bar atop the Shangri La Hotel, and then to L & D's favourite (see, I'm learning some Australian already!!!) wine store. Wine Odyssey. It's a smaller version of the enoteca the Lichtefelds, Dements and Jim & I went to in Greve, IT. They serve only Australian wines, and some small tapas-style dishes. We tried a bunch of their wines, and decided we are going to open an enoteca in Atlanta when L & D return home! The atmosphere was very inviting, comfortable and relaxed. My favorite wine was a Pinot Gris/Viognier blend! Who knew!!!

On Tues, L & I went on a search for the perfect spot to watch the fire works over the Harbour bridge. Apparently, it's impossible to get home after the fireworks, because of the traffic and the random breath test set ups, so we have opted to stay in Manly. There is a spot called North Head where we can see the top of the bridge, that is apparently very popular. Only problem, it's about a 45 minute hike, and all of Manly goes there. So, we'll see whether we have the wherewithal to go, or we just settle for the Manly fireworks, and a glass of bubbly at L & D's apartment! I'll let you know how 2010 is when we get there, so if it's not too good, you'll have time to make other plans!

We also went to the Featherdale Zoo which is about an hour out of town. This is a smaller version of a zoo than the Taronga Zoo in Sydney, but you can hold and touch the animals (well, some of them, anyway). We saw a lot of the animals and birds that are indigenous to AU, petted the roos and koalas. It reminded me a lot of the Catskill Game Farm, but without the poop all over the ground! It was very clean.

One strange thing about Sydney is that all the Motorways (aka limited access highways) are toll roads. But, there are no toll booths. Instead, all drivers have to have a reader attached to their windshield which has a chip that is read by an overhead sensor, and the toll is automatically taken from your account! The toll at one place was $2.76! What???? The oddest thing here is that there is no penny in the AU currency, so anytime there is an odd charge like this one, they just round up!!!  Is this strange or what?

Well, Champagne calls and Lindsey is waiting for me to get the prawns ready. I'll be in touch with more interesting and useless information from Down Under.

Love to you all, and may 2010 be filled with only good things for all of us.