UGGz UGGz Everywhere

As they say in Australia, G’day Mate! – which in fact sounds more like “go die…mite”. I was wondering why everyone called this place “OZ”, thinking that I should be searching for a mythical yellow brick road, but here folks like to shorten all their words, and when you say “Aus” it sounds more like “OZ”, thus coining the term. Spending a couple of days exploring Sydney, you would have never thought that this was once a place for the British Empire to dump convicts. This culturally diverse city is a cross between NYC, Miami, and Chicago; NYC for the heavily concentrated skyscrapers in CBD (Central Business District), Miami for the countless palm trees lining the streets, extensive waterfront and gorgeous beach villas, and Chicago for the beautiful greenery and cleanliness. One definite “to do” in Sydney is the Harbor Cruise on a warm, sunny day. With the fresh cool smell of the ocean, you can taste the salt on your lips as the water lightly splashes. One of the stops on the boat ride was Watson’s Bay; by walking up a big cliff, there is a stunning view of the ocean and all you hear is the water rushing on the base of the cliff. I could watch this for hours….the water is deep blue/green and it turns light green/blue to milky white as it crashes into every crevice of the underlying rock formations (pics to come soon).

By the way, the Sydney Opera house is even more spectacular when you see it in person. Jorn Utzon won a design competition to create the Opera House and was the master architect. It was supposed to take 3 years and $7 million to complete- however it ended up taking 14 years and $100+ million to complete. The structure was designed as it was being built; when the construction workers were almost done with the base of the Opera House, Utzon was still figuring out how to take the roof design from paper to reality. At one point, due to political pressures they forced Utzon to step down from the project and he never came back to see the completed architectural wonder – how crazy is that?!

The QVB (Queen Victoria Building) is most probably the coolest shopping center I have ever seen. Built in 1898 it has 4 levels and is an architectural jewel in Sydney. It’s made of sandstone, with a dome and is lined with stained glass. One thing to note is that you can buy UGGz almost anywhere – a mall, a corner shop, a convenience store, a souvenir shop..though I decided not to invest in a pair.

Featherdale Wildlife Park afforded us the opportunity to meet the native Australian animals. Unlike any other zoo I have been too, when you walk in, you are greeted by numerous wallabys, kangaroos, emus, and birds walking around (I went back to the front desk just to ask if the animals were supposed to be roaming around). Wallabys are essentially small versions of kangaroos and they are super cute – just like Rocco from Rocco’s Modern Life…if any of you have seen the show. We even had a chance to feed them – you just take an ice cream cone, fill it up with some pellets and walk over to the kangaroo and hand it over! I was hoping to catch a glimpse of the Tasmanian Devil, but since they are nocturnal I had no such luck. Finally, I also got to see a Dingo – it pretty much just looks like a dog, however it doesn’t bark. All I kept thinking about was the Seinfeld episode where Elaine says “maybe the dingo ate your baby” (Any Seinfeld junkies out there?).

The Friday night festivities were with an interesting bunch (5 Aussies, 1 Kiwi, and 2 Yanks – as they like to call us). Our friend Lyndon that we had met in NZ was also in Sydney and invited us to dinner with some Aussies he had met in Niagara Falls. Similar to Kiwi’s, the Aussies are fun loving, laid back, and they work hard. Dinner was at the Hurricane Grill – a trendy restaurant known for its steaks and ribs in the Darling Harbor (swankier and much nicer than NYC’s South St Seaport). Here I learned that Aussie’s don’t drink Fosters beer, most people tend to stay at home for college and a few years after before they move out, middle school teachers teach ALL subjects, again like NZ they are into American culture and people here get TONS of vacation. Our new Aussie friends were then nice enough to show us around the city – Darling Harbor has some pretty chic clubs and lounges – I even spotted a “Bungalow 8” just like in Sex & the City. We also walked around the Harbor Bridge and “the Rocks” – the place where the first settlers in Australia built a colony. The revels ended at Pancake on the Rocks – a hip late night joint that serves delectable pancakes for hungry late night partiers. It’s funkier than IHOP and is probably the closest thing to a “diner” that OZ has – with hi tech juke boxes that play music videos on flat screen TV’s.

We are now off to the Great Barrier Reef for some scuba diving and snorkeling and I am without a doubt looking forward to the consistent 80 degree weather.