Bridge Climb, Manly Beach and Creepy Dudes
Trip Start
Jun 07, 2008
1
11
13
Trip End
Jun 28, 2008
Sydney,
Australia
Friday, June 20, 2008
Manly Ferry
. We learned about the construction of the bridge and really interesting facts like how many people died and how the bridge was built in 2 halves and then joined together in the center. When we were first ascending, there were parts where the stell underfoot was mesh and we were over the water, so if you walked really quickly and looked down, the mesh blurred and you had a strange feeling of walking on water. The leader took pictures every so often along the way and at the top as well. We weren't allowed to bring our own cameras, so we had to buy the pictures we wanted. There were only 6 people in our group (normal is 12), so we had lots of extra time to look around and enjoy the view before we had to head back down. The other 3 people were from Perth, in Sydney for a holiday like us. I think we climbed something like 1, 068 stairs in total, though half of those were downhill. One of the facts that really sticks with me is about the height of the bridge. In one of our pictures, you can see a small brick clocktower with a green copper dome in the middle of the city. Now, it's dwarfed by the buildings around it, but when the bridge was built, it was the 2nd tallest building in Sydney. When we were a third of the way up the bridge, we were already taller than that building. It really gives you an idea of how the bridge changed the city and people's perceptions of it. As you can see from the pictures, contemporary Sydney has plenty of high-rise buildings. On the way down, Amy bumped her head, which unfortunately was only one of many injuries that she received that day
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. When we got back to the office of Bridge Climb, we changed out of our suits, put on sandals and bought souvenirs, postcards and our pictures. We all received certificates of completion and group pictures.While we were climbing the bridge, Mom and Riss had been shopping and were supposed to meet us at the Circular Quay (kind of like the Inner Harbor in Baltimore) for lunch and then we were supposed to go to Manly Beach. We called them and they were both tired and Mom felt sick, so Tricia, Amy and I decided to have lunch on our own and then head out to Manly.
Right on the waterfront, there are lots of swanky restaurants and we thought we'd try one of those. We found one that looked yummy and sat down to peruse the menus. Then we relaized the downstairs area was the bar and they only served a limited menu, while upstairs was the full restaurant. We went upstairs and on the way, Amy tripped and smacked her leg on the stairs (injury numero dos). When we got upstairs we were greeted, and told it would be just a second, so we should have a seat. At the moment, the tremendously snotty bartender asked us if we had any other shoes. We told him not really, we have tennis shoes. He said, Are you sure? Because sandals are not allowed in here, like we were so annoying and incredulous to him
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. We said, well, we have sweaty tennis shoes, would you rather? And he said, Well, I guess it's fine for now, but next time... and gave us an evil look. Amy wanted to leave at that point, but I couldn't stand the thought of giving him the satisfaction. So we stayed, but after we were seated, Tricia didn't like the menu, so we ended up leaving after all, eliciting a snotty Ciao! from him as we left and a loud, "Cancel the bread!" We were all really angry after that and headed down the harbor to a different restaurant where everyone was very nice. We all got our food and then decided to share a huge tiramisu for dessert. It was so yummy and afterwards we got a 2nd dessert! We ordered panne cotta, because it looked lovely on paper, though in reality it was kind of like stiff pudding. Amy described it as the stuff that gathers on top of pudding you make at home, but the whole thing was made of it. It was made more tolerable by the berry sauce and chunk of choclate they put on top of it.After that, we took the ferry to Manly. The whole way, we made silly American jokes about Manly men and Manly beaches and Manly ferries. It was getting to be afternoon and the sun was hiding behind clouds, so we froze most of the ride there, but we still sat outside and enjoyed the air. Once we got there, we saw a little tiny ugly harbor beach and were disappointed. But then we discovered that once you step out of the station, there's a cute little walkstreet area called the Corso and at the end of that is the beach
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. So we strolled along the Corso, looking at the I <3 Manly shirts and shopping in the surf shops. While we were in Billabong, I heard someone say AMY! and I turned around and Amy was talking to Teryn Spragg, a girl who went to Costa with us. It was incredibly bizarre. Turns out that she came here on vacation a while ago and met a boy whom she fell in love with and so about 6 months ago, she moved here to be with him. It was very sweet and very strange to find her randomly in Australia. Tricia also knew her from church. After Billabong, we went to the Roxy store and while Amy was trying on sweatshirts, I was chatting with the girl who worked there, telling her how we were all related and that my sister was at the hotel not feeling very well. When Amy and Tricia came out to buy their things, the girl was so sweet and gave us free Roxy stickers worth about $5, even giving me extra to give to my sick sister. We got her Facebook info and plan to add her soon.
From there, we headed to the beach and were amazed by the sight of pine trees lining the esplande. Pine trees. At the beach? Even with those strange trees, it was beautiful. We all went about knee deep into the water and we spent the next hour or so taking silly pictures and enjoying the sunset. Right about this time, these 2 guys (super un-hot AND like 40) walked up to us and started the lamest conversation ever
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. It went something like this: Hi, girls, my cousin here is from overseas and wants to know if he can take a picture with you.
Amy: Um.....no, I don't think that's a good idea.
What? I can't hear you.
Amy: I don't think it's a good idea for us to take pictures with strangers.
Oh, so where are you from? Are you Philipino? (To Amy)
Me: (laughing) We're American.
You're ALL American? She (points to Tricia) looks American, but not you two.
Where are you from?
Us: Los Angeles
Oh, I have been to America, I've been to New York and Chicago and Springfield.
Me: We've never been to Chicago or Springfield.
Tricia: I've been to Chicago.
What do people in America think of Springfield? Is it like farm city? Or big city?
Tricia: We have a cartoon that makes fun of it.
Me: Most people probably don't think about Springfield.
Because there are lots of theatres there, lots of play and shows.
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Us: Ummm (thinking the conversation just got weirder).At this point, we kind of huddled together, not facing them and discussed our action plan.
Me: We should tell them it's getting late and we have to go. Does anyone have a watch?
Amy: I don't want to leave, they should leave, just ignore them and they'll go away.
We do this for a few minutes, they give up and say, Okay girls, it was nice talking to you, bye!
We laugh and talk about the creepy guys for a few minutes, then we continue our day.
As it started to get dark, we headed towards the bathrooms and picked up shells along the way. We started to see lightning at the horizon in 2 different spots and we watched them get closer together in timing. By the time we headed back to the Corso, it was raining and we stopped in a few stores on the way back. One store had a shirt with Tom from Myspace on it and it said, Don't trust him. He stole my wife. If it was black, I would have gotten it for Jon. But I did get a shirt for Rissa that said Thug Life and had a granny with 2 brokern arms and sneakers on
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. At this point, it was pouring and we were cold.Once we were safely in the ferry station, we got juice and postcards and settled down for our 20 minute wait for the ferry. The ferry ride back was unexciting, except it was raining outside and we were sitting in front of the door, so everytime someone left or came back in, we got a blast of icy cold air. Oh, and when Tricia and Amy went outside to take pictures, Amy hurt herself again.
Once back at the Circular Quay, we realized that our train tickets had been to a different station, but we weren't going to walk back there at night in the rain, so we asked if we could use the same tickets since the other stop was actually farther away. The evil man said no and we had to buy new tickets, thereby wasting the others. We eventually got back to the hotel and went in where I showed Mom all the pictures and told her about our day. Turns out Mom and Riss had a good day as well, punctuated with lots of sleeping, which they like to do anyways.
