Sydney

This might be a long post...

I got up early to watch our arrival into Sydney harbor - I was outside by 5:45am and surprised by how warm the air was already. A couple dozen crew slowly assembled to watch the sail-in, and the sky gradually lightened and took on some beautiful colors as we passed the opera house, the sun finally rising as we docked. It was gorgeous, I am so glad I got up for it.

A nap and a shower later I was out and off the ship for my main Sydney adventure - doing the Harbor Bridge Climb. This is something I've always been interested in doing, but never had gotten around to it. So this time it was do or die! I might not have made it happen, but I found a friend of mine here who was also keen to go, so we were each other's motivation. Simon is one of the singers on board, one of my good friends. We had an awesome time doing the climb together, and it was so worth it. By far the best thing I did in Sydney. We were both so glad we did it, and grateful to have found a buddy to do it with. We were really lucky and had beautiful weather, which degenerated later after our cl imb into a rain that was unrelenting for the rest of our 2-day stay in Sydney. But we got sunshine for our views of the harbor, city, and opera house. Such an amazing experience! It is expensive, but I do recommend it. Worth it!

In the afternoon I met up with some friends of mine, a trombone-playing couple that I had met on the Rhapsody and even visited last year during my traveling in Australia last year. I gave them and their visiting cousins a tour of the ship and got to play hostess for the afternoon, which was fun. They stayed for the show. It was great to catch up with them.

Later that night I went out on the town for a little bit. I enjoyed the ambience at an expensive sushi bar with my friend Bryan (our tenor sax player), and then met up with Viktoria the dancer at a very busy and fun salsa nightclub. It was a great night, we hid from the rain and enjoyed ourselves.

On the second day Jane and I headed to the Powerhouse Museum, which highlights art, space, and transport exhibits. Before you become too impressed with how cultured we are, let me reveal that the real reason we went there was to see the special Harry Potter exhibition that is there temporarily. And the kicker? We both wore Hogwarts house shirts, me Griffindor and her Slytherin, that we had bought at a comic book store in Melbourne. We are so cool. It was actually a really neat exhibition though, very well done. We saw all the clothes, props, and actual wands from the films. The wands were actually my favorite part - in the films you don't notice how detailed and unique each one is, but close up they are really cool and different from each other.

We picked up some Uggs for Jane at Paddy's markets, the same place where I got mine last year. I knew they'd be better priced there than near the port. We stopped for the obligatory Pancakes on the Rocks before getting back on board. On my break between rehearsal and the shows I got out one more time to enjoy being in Sydney, having dinner and a coffee (and some internet) at the quayside cafe called the City Extra.

Later that night we bravely went out on deck for the sailaway, despite the wind and rain. We were all soaked by the time we passed the opera house. But even in the rain its a nice sight! I always enjoy Sydney. Hopefully it won't be too long before I'm back!
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