Australia: Sydney Part 1

No apologies... just shameless procrastination on updating with our Sydney trip! Better late than never, so here goes.

Standing in the harbor with a view of the bridge

We left Melbourne early in the day on Friday. After getting to Sydney, checking our bags at the hotel (it was too early to check in) and having some lunch, we made our way out to the famous Harbor Bridge. Apparently you can walk over the top of the bridge with ropes and such (which was a road block on the Amazing Race a few seasons ago) but we opted to skip the fees and terrifying height in favor of a leisurely stroll on the very pedestrian friendly walkway.

Walkway over the bridge (lovely views, despite the fence)

View from the bridge

Bridges are cool. 

At the harbor, shortly before our bridge walk 

After returning to the hotel to check in and get changed, we headed back to the harbor for dinner and to catch the Sydney Symphony performing in the Opera House.

Our view of the symphony inside the opera house

 Seeing a show in the opera house has to be on any musician's/artist's/visual/performing arts fan's bucket list. So basically everyone's bucket list! We knew we wanted to catch the symphony but we also didn't want to spend all of our travel money on it, so we bought the cheapest tickets. They were dead center in the very back row. It turns out this was a great thing because not only could we fully appreciate the perfect acoustics, but we were able to see the entire concert hall. It was an amazing concert, though we were both so exhausted we had trouble staying awake.

Literally the BACK row. 

After sleeping in a bit on Saturday, we headed out towards Padington to explore an open air market and a really cute neighborhood.

On the other side of the street from the market

The market was full of locals and though it had a lot of cool stuff, none of it really peaked our interest enough for us to buy anything. The neighborhood really was cool though so we took a nice walk (we love foot tourism!) and Mark enjoyed snapping some pictures. This was the first neighborhood we visited that didn't feel like a generic American city. Even so, the row houses could have easily been plucked out of San Francisco or New England.

San Francisco? Not quite... notice the side of the street the cars are parked on!

After the market, we made our way towards Manly Beach. A lot of our trip was spent just cruising around on ferries, enjoying the views, and relaxing. At Manly Beach, we took the time to walk on the beach and put our feet in the water too!

One of our many ferry rides. Always special to us since we got engaged on a ferry boat!

The ferry view at night

I love the ocean.

And that was the first half of our Sydney visit!