So, Sunday was my last day in Australia, and I intended to make the most of it. I'm happy to say I was successful in this mission. I'll be trying something different with this entry: rather than write all about my day and finish with some pictures, I'll just illustrate my day as a photo essay (with captions). Enjoy!
My day came out to an inauspicious (and very early) start when I was woken from a deep sleep by my alarm clock at about 1AM. Wait, I didn't set an alarm clock - someone's ringing a bell. Now why is someone ringing a bell? What is going on!?! After several minutes of sleep-addled confusion (ok, it was probably 10 seconds, but felt much longer), I finally figured out that my "alarm clock" was actually a fire alarm (apparently there was a small fire in the kitchen or something). Once I realized it was a fire alarm, I rushed outside, and then got to wait in the cold for 45 minutes, barefoot, while the fire department came. While I may have forgotten shoes in my haste, at least I remembered to put on pants before heading downstairs - otherwise things would have been a lot colder / more awkward.
MUCH later in the day, after a lot more sleep, some time online, and breakfast, I decided to head out and explore Sydney for the final time. I left at noon, and my only constraint was that I needed to meet my college friend Zach, who's doing a post-doc in Sydney, at his yacht club at 4. So, I started the world's slowest and least efficient walk (a la Billy from Family Circus) to the aforementioned yacht club. On my way down to the waterfront I wandered through one of Sydney's many parks where I snapped this photo of some roses with the city-scape in the background.
Just before reaching the harbor, I stopped in and checked out this castle-like building with the highly original name "the government house."
Once I made it to the waterfront I just wandered along the shore, enjoying the view of the opera house and harbor bridge. And as you should be able to tell from the photo, it was an absolutely gorgeous day.
Closeup of the harbor bridge and opera house, as viewed from the path right along the waterfront.
Along the way I encountered this cool lunch stand offering various meat pies. I ordered the chicken and cheese, and it came topped with mashed potatoes, mashed peas, and gravy. I'm not sure the picture does it justice, but let me assure you it was delicious. And it was a nice British/Australian meal - a good final meal in Australia before I spend the next 4 months eating Asian food (not that I'm complaining - can't wait for all the noodles, curries, etc).
Having made it to the yacht club in record time (a mere 3 hours), I actually had an hour to kill. So I plopped down in the park next to the yacht club, took out my kindle and read. BTW, I'm a big fan of the kindle - it's especially useful for a traveler since it's so much lighter than carrying around a bunch of books. Life is good.
Once I met up with Zach we caught up over beers and enjoyed watching the Sydney cityscape light up as night fell.
Just to add a random element to the day, on the walk home I passed both a Lamborghini and a Ferrari dealership. Too bad they weren't open or I would have taken 'em for a test drive. . .
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