Week #4 (Weekend!)
This weekend deserves a post all to its self. It was spent entirely in the city doing the remainder of activities that is a must during your first trip to Sydney. My mind was sprung in every direction. There was music, rollercoaster’s, and soaring through the sky. My last weekend has turned out to be everything I could possibly ask for, I think the best way to spend it and I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. Like I said, this is a continuation from last week; the moment we have been waiting for has arrived, it was the weekend that Kate was singing at the Opera House as her end of the year performance at the Australian Girls Choir. This year was their 25th anniversary so I knew that this was going to be a great show. However there was preparation to be done; we had a whole weekend to get through, 14 hours of rehearsals and of course, we had to take lots of pictures to document the experience.
Friday at school was pretty fun, not much had happened. During all of the classes, we watched movies- I finally saw Johnny English, good movie, very funny. That is all.
Friday night, we drove into the city to check into the hotel. Excitement was in the air all of us were excited for the weekend away. The drive was the usual hour or so into the city, Kate was doing her math homework and I was helping her. We were nibbling on Mrs. Fields cookies and talking about what was in store. When we arrived at the hotel, it wasn’t where they originally showed me, we were in front of the Four Seasons hotel. The hotel was beautiful. It was nicer than the one in Toronto. The lobby was large; everything was wooden paneled, framed in mirror. There was a grand piano in the middle surrounded by a wedding party and photographers. There was a grand stair case right night to the piano where I think the bride would have walked down. Once we checked in, we went to the elevators to get to our rooms. The elevators looked like any ordinary elevator from the outside but in the inside there was something different; there was the classic spots for the buttons as well as one on the west wall. Three button pads- umm okay….? The Chalker’s booked two rooms, one for them and one for Kate and I. The room that Kate and I were in overlooked the highway and the Canadian Embassy where the Chalker’s room over looked George Street, (their younge street). After about an hour of settling in and watching Harry Potter, we went out for dinner. The hotel was in a great spot; near the harbor and yet near the city as well but most importantly, near the only Starbucks in the city. As we left the hotel, we walked down toward the Port and sat down at this Diner type restaurant. The first thing I saw were waiters dressed in polo shirts that looked like news papers; and that is exactly what the menus were. The menus were printed on that thin paper that will rip with no problem, and the ink ran onto your hands. It was very well themed and the food was quite acceptable and, there was an exceptional view. After dinner we walked over the Warf 3 and the father bought tickets to go to Luna Park.
The ferry left every half an hour until 10 o’clock when it was on the hour. We planned to be back on the 10 o’clock ferry. What is Luna Park you may ask? Luna Park was built in the late 1930’s right after the Harbor Bridge was built. Originally, that sight was a construction centre and the city didn’t want to leave as a pit, so they changed it into a theme park. All of the rides except for a few have been there since the beginning and the park has only closed down once in its very long past. In the 1980’s, there was a fire on the Ghost something… this was a wooden ride I imagine to be like the ghoster coaster at Wonderland. According to the stories, someone light it and 40 people unfortunately died. They shut down the park for a few months and then re- opened it without that ride. When I was talking to my friend about the weekend, I told her that Luna Park reminded me of the “Ex” 50 year old rides that are just there and you pray they don’t break. She said something which is so true, the thrill one gets from these rides are not ones that are from the intensity of the ride, it’s from the hope and fear that the rides don’t break while you are on them. Kate and I are both ride people so we did them all. My favourite and hers as well was this ride like that space ship ride at wonderland. You are in a banana shaped seating area and it swings back and forth and eventually goes upside down. It was so much fun that we did it twice in a row and every ride after that was boring, we called it the upside-downy curse. When you don’t save the best for last and everything sucks in comparison. I am sorry I didn’t type this before, but I should have spoken about the ride over to the park. The ferry rice was scenic and fun. The ferry took us that famous spot between the Harbor Bridge and Opera House. We sailed under the bridge and suddenly we saw the famous Luna Park opening. It is this giant clown face with really bad teeth. You walk through the open mouth into the front area where people dressed as Ziedico band members and people on stilts welcome you. All around you can hear music that just put you into happy moods as you walk down. The song that was playing when I walked through was Footloose. It was magical. I am sorry that this is so out of order, but you can follow along, I think… After our fun time we finally caught the ferry at 10 and made it back to the hotel in time for the next Harry Potter installment.
Saturday was great, though not much to talk about. We woke up at 9:30 in the morning and we got on the ferry again from Warf 7 to go to Manly Beach. The terminal at Manly was great. There was a Subway, Booster Juice, Max Brunner, and Gelato. Along the board walk, there were stores of every kind; from tourist places to bathing suit stores to fancy watch stores. Everything. At the end of the walk, there low and behold, the beach. We walked down to where the flags were because apparently that is where the safest place to swim in. Kate and I jumped into the water and began body surfing. We let the waved push us over and we floated along the waves. After a while of that, we realized how far out we were and stood up. Instead of the waved pushing us over; we jumped over them. This was much more fun because we had control over what we were doing and where we were in the water, on top of that, the sand was smoother. When we decided that it was time to get out, we began to swim towards the shore like any other person who was ready to get out. As we began to stand up, a mammoth wave snuck up behind us and took us down. We stood up, laughed at our stunned expression and continued walking. A few seconds later, another mammoth wave hit and this time three others continued directly after. For those of you who get caught in this situation in the future, stay under the waves, that way you have control over your body and won’t drown, also keep hold of your sunglasses. This was a lesson Kate was forced to learn, her sunglasses are now making a fish look sly and cool. After the beach ate dinner by the water caught the ferry and went back to the room to unwind and to let Kate get to bed early for her big day.
Lastly, Sunday; Kate left to head over to the Opera House at six in the morning. It was finally the day for her performance. It was her time to shine, and my time with the Chalker’s to kill a day and find things to do. The first item on the agenda was to walk to the QVB and went onto the monorail! I know- this city amongst everything else has a monorail! To make it even better, they are all different colours so if you are standing in the street, you can sit there and call the colours as you see them. The train in the sky was very small, only about eight people could fit in each car comfortably; and if my memory served correctly there are about ten to twelve cars on each train. We went on the blue one. J Our first stop on the trip was to Darling Harbor, a place that I would go to with the Year Nines a few days later. It was very nice there; clean not one of the best places on my trip so I won’t spend time talking about it. All you have to do is picture a tourist trap with a food court and that’s what it was like. We spent about an hour or so there and then moved onto walking around the QVB, where we originally took off from. This time, on the way back we were on the red monorail. The sights and perspective from the monorail was one I think a bird would get from flying over the city. The train went past windows of office building, over George Street, past stores, and past the harbor. It was in my opinion the scenic route everyone should see at least once if they are here. When we got back to the hotel, it was about three o’clock and that meant we had to change for the concert and check out. Once we were out, Warren went to go and park the car by the Opera House while Catherine and I walked around the Farmers Market. At about 5 o’clock, we were met by Kates grandparents and a few of the Chalkers friends for dinner. The restaurant we went to was right on the water. The restaurant was decorated in different shades of blue with silver streaks. It blended in with the scene outside its windows. From the restaurant, you could see both the Harbor Bridge and the Opera house, which was both beautiful and I think was the point of the restaurant placement. This restaurant was a seafood restaurant however did also have other alternatives if you are like me and don’t eat fish. We sat at the table with the Chalker’s, their friends and Catherine’s parents who just got back from a round Australia cruise. Everything was wonderful, Kate’s grandparents are very nice, and welcoming; and the Chalker’s friends I have met once before when we went out for dinner. Their daughters were singing with the Australians Girl Choir as well, and were going to see the concert with us. After dinner we walked over to the Opera House, about a ten minute walk and arrived there just in time for the final warning bell. When we got inside the Opera House, all of the many seats were filled; the room was tinted with gold light. It complimented the wood seats and made everything look just- elegant. Then the music began. All of the girls filed in, wearing their costumes, each level/ age group had a different colour costume. The music was beautiful, they sounded- words just can’t describe it. It didn’t sound like these girls were in-between the ages of nine to eighteen, they sounded and looked professional. When half time came, I couldn’t actually believe that an hour had gone by, me and I think everyone around me was so into it, that when the gold lights came back on, we had a sudden shock. Everyone was so absorbed, unlike at normal kid performances, where the parents are always oh you were so good even though it was a school performance and 9/10 times, its really bad. The last song of the concert was an ABBA medley. All four hundred girls were standing on the stage doing the same hand movements, and it looked so cool! All the hands were moving in sync, it was like a sea of skin making waves across the sand. (yes, that makes no sense I suppose you had to be there…)
That concluded the weekend, my last weekend in Australia for a long time. I don’t think it could have gone better and I don’t think I would have wanted to spend it another way.
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