Sweet Sydney!

The girls and I have been in Sydney for 5 days and will be here through this coming weekend.  We have a great studio apartment right in the city, making it easy to walk to hot spots.  Also, my sister lived here a number of years ago, so she's been emailing me about places to go.  Here's what we've done so far:

Sydney Opera House, of course

Walked around Darling Harbour where we found this great playground

Hey Innocademy--I think we need one of these for our playground.  With enough woodchips, it would be just fine.

Friday was looking like it might be our last sunny day for a while, so we decided to visit the beach.

The most famous of them all--Bondi Beach.  Just a 20 minute bus ride from downtown Sydney.

A coastal walk connects Bondi Beach with a number of other beaches.  Gorgeous views like this all along the way.

I told Celia (my walking partner) to have me buried here someday.  Such a beautiful, peaceful spot.

Almost every beach has one of these pools built into the cliff, using the ocean water.

This one was even more natural

And even had a waterfall where the overflow ran back into the ocean

We stopped to watch lawn bowls at the Clovelly Bowling Club

All the colors of the water were breathtaking

And some of us even saw a parrot!

On the bus ride home, we came across these schoolgirls.  The hats add an interesting twist to the school uniform.

Saturday was cool and rainy, so we shopped a little and stayed inside.  We had seen signs that the roads near us would be closed on Saturday morning and found out it was because of a parade and commemoration ceremony.  Australia ended Operation Pillow (their name for the fighting in Afghanistan and the Middle East) as of yearend 2014, so this was the day they were honoring those who fought.  Since the park right by us contains their most well known war memorial, this is where the ceremony took place.  Faith, Trina, and I walked down to see some of it.

Hard to capture in pictures, but the soldiers were all lined up around the memorial.  Names of those who died were read, taps was played, and dignitaries and families placed wreathes.  It was sobering and a good reminder to my U.S.-centric mind that other countries are fighting alongside us and losing lives as well.

On Sunday we ended up having two church experiences.  We've been visiting different churches each week and have had lots of variety.  I'm saving this up for another post.  But, for those of you familiar with them, I had really wanted to attend Hillsong Church while we were in Sydney.  They have multiple campuses and one is just a 10 minute bus ride from us.  I'll write more about it in my upcoming "church" post :)

That afternoon it was our intent to visit Watson's Bay, another coastal cliff spot.  Our trip was delayed when suddenly this parade appeared and the road was closed.  Apparently it was the Greek Independence Day and what looked like the entire Greek population of all Australia came out to march in it.  Reminded me of Tulip Time--costumes, schoolkids with banners, bands, random people walking along.  The girls were so grumpy about having to sit and watch it all, but I reminded them they would most likely be the only girls in West Michigan who could say they watched a Greek parade in Australia!

Contrary to what the girls thought, the parade DID eventually end and we made our way to Watson's Bay.  It was a beautiful bus ride through very upscale neighborhoods, all overlooking the harbour.

This view of Sydney in one direction and the ocean in the other.

If you haven't noticed, beaches are a highlight for our family, so today we visited another one.  This time it was Manly Beach on the north end of the harbour.  To get here we took a ferry which gave us great views of the Opera House and the bridge on the way.

You can't even imagine how excited we were to see an Aldi on the Manly Wharf!  Those little tuna kits were the cheapest lunch we've had in a long time.

And not a bad spot to eat them either!

Yet another pretty spot

  And just to keep things exciting:

The surf patrol announced through a beachwide loudspeaker system that a shark had been spotted at the far end of the beach and "strongly suggested" that everyone leave the water.

And finally, just to make you a little jealous, this is where I'm sitting right now. A view of the skyline out my window and a perk for renting this place was a free bottle of Australian wine.  Well, don't mind if I do...  (the apartment's a pretty cramped studio and a little rundown, but no one needs to know that)