New Year in Sydney

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Trip Start Oct 21, 2006 Previous
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  Sydney, Australia
Monday, January 8, 2007

NEW YEAR IN SYDNEY - 2 WEEKS IN
I must be dumb, i later reflected.  I had just got off a 3 to 4 hour flight from Perth to Sydney and failed at any point to introduce myself to the good looking young and single Aussie girl sitting next to me.  Well, not quite - i managed half a stumbled conversation in the last 20 minutes of the flight.  She had been trying to engage me in conversation for the previous three hours.  I clearly still have a head block on this stuff.
Sydney is a real contrast to Perth.  Whereas Perth is quirky, laid back and interesting, Sydney is a brash, in your face, attitude riven, international tart.  I think i like the place !  I arrived late into the afternoon of New Year's eve and just had time to dump my bags at my Aunt's before heading out to the city.  I managed to jump a couple of barriers and get a prime spot at the rocks right by the Harbour Bridge and with perfect views of the Opera House.  I was busy congratulating myself when i realised nowhere in this cordoned off area sold alcohol and i was stone cold sober - Pants.  I managed to find a very drunk and very generous American kid who had bought a few crates and had no-one to drink it with.  After a couple of beers i could understand why he was alone and buggered off further into the crowd.  Sydney has two firework shows at New Year; one at 9.00pm for the kids and another at midnight.  Both were fantastic and shattered the darkness with crescendo's of light and sound.  You could feel the crack and bang of the fireworks resonate in your chest and could smell the burning gunpowder from where i stood, as fireworks exploded from the upper arch of the bridge, some of the high rises in the CBD and from the North Shore.  It must have lasted half an hour and got progressively more ostentatious toward the end.  A fabulous show which i would love to show you some photo's of but i ran out of battery 5 minutes in - Doh !.  I felt sure that at the strike of midnight everyone would collapse into a series of amorous clenches with total strangers (ala Hogmanay in Edinburgh) and so had strategically positioned myself next to an attractive huddle of women.  As it happens midnight struck and, following a big cheer, everyone looked around in embarrassment and sort of shuffled around a bit.  I was shell shocked.  i was reminded of the line 'you couldn't score in a brothel'.  Made me feel very alone all of a sudden.  
Shortly before midnight some super rich tycoon on a massive yacht moored beneath the bridge started to rev up the crowd by honking his horn repeatedly.  He was met with a series of cheers and the deafening buzz of a million pissed revelers blowing Kazoo's.  It was a very strange experience.  I dare say the tycoon struggled with a massive ego for weeks after, being saluted as he was by tens of thousands of people.  One of the more memorable moments of the evening (after the fireworks) was the sight of one poor girl, so pissed she could barely stand, who was walking against the crowd as they poured out of the city centre.  She lost her flip flop and spent at least two minutes trying in vain to hook it back on her foot as she was bounced between people - she was so confused by the end of it she flopped flat on her arse in the middle of the street and started to chastise herself as she put her shoe flip flop back on (they call them thongs here but if i said she was struggling to put her thong back on you would conjure up entirely the wrong image).
Toni and i struggled out of the house the next morning for a drive round Paddington and along the coast to the south of Sydney as we headed for breakfast at Bondi Beach.  Bondi, even this early in the morning and on New Year's day, was half full of beautiful scantily clad men and women being all sporty - it was enough o make you feel ill, well self conscious anyway.  Toni told me a lovely story of my Grandmother who came out to visit and, suffering from the heat, saw that everyone walked around practically naked and decided to strip off to her Bra.  Brilliant !  good on her i thought.  I suspect Toni didn't revel in the prospect of walking down the street with her elderly mother half naked though.  In fairness, i am not sure i would feel too comfortable about it either (no offense mum).  Other than half naked bodies, Bondi was a fairly unremarkable beach.
I headed out to Manly beach to the north in the afternoon and got great views back over Sydney on the Ferry across.  Manly is, in my humble opinion, a hell of a lot more interesting than Bondi.  The beach was packed with people of all shapes and sizes and i happily spent tow or three hours eating fish and chips and watching the surfers and beach volleyball before venturing in for a swim.  The virtue of packed beaches is that there is always someone there who makes you feel good about yourself and Manly was no exception.  I deliberately sat on the beach next to a pale obese family to make the contrast appear more flattering.  This was working fine until it came time to re-apply the sun tan lotion and i had to bear witness to Waynetta lathering Wayne's hairy back and love handles with lotion.  I could happily go to my grave without having to watch the way she rubbed it into his fleshy folds again.  Next it was her turn to be rubbed down and at this point i decided to beat a hasty retreat before i re-visited lunch.  I took Toni out for dinner and drinks at the Opera House Bar in the evening and got so pissed i knocked a couple of glasses of wine over her and fell up the stairs - you cannot accuse me of not being a class act !
Day two was spent wandering around the city centre again, before i went on a tour of the Sydney Opera House.  But not before i tried to keep some food down over breakfast in Bill's, which i am told is famous for it's good food.  As i sat there fighting back the waves of nausea i pondered what the reaction of the terribly posh, starched and loudly self conscious knowitallerati would be when i hurled all over the table's centre piece.  I decided to go for a quick walk instead though i was half tempted to stay and spray, just to puncture the pretentiousness of it all.  Food was lovely though, as was the decor.  It was while i was waiting for the tour and trying to recover from my hangover that i unwittingly became the star of some Koreans home video.  I had bought a new pair of shoes that morning because the old ones stunk so badly they made me feel ill.  Paranoid about stinking up the new shoes i took em off to give them a good sniff and it was while i had my face in one of my shoes, while slumped on the steps, that i realise the Korean was filming the whole thing.  I hate to think what he thought but i can guess.  Expect to see me on one of those international home movie programmes soon !
I was not wholly impressed with the Opera House until i learnt more of the sheer scale of the engineering feat involved in building it.  A few facts for those who might be interested:  The thing weighs 169000 tonnes.  It has over 1 million tiles on the outer shell.  The design was the consequence of an international design competition and was won by an entry that was little more than a sketch (all other entries had detailed engineering schematics with them).  They sacked the original architect after the outer shell was built because it was taking too long and costing too much.  It is a complicated weave of interlocking concrete beams and steel reinforcing cable on the inside, which i found far more interesting than the outer shell.  I was sure i had heard that the acoustics in the building were terrible but apparently they are amongst the best in the world and the opera requires no artificial amplification whatsoever !
After my rather sedate afternoon i climbed up Sydney Harbour Bridge.  What a fabulous structure.  Much like the Opera House, i found it initially disappointing but getting out on to it made me realise a) what a feat of engineering it was and b) how bloody high up it is on the upper arch.  We climbed through the centre of the bridge before climbing up onto the top span which gave us a great view of the structure itself.  Only 16 people died during it's construction which is quite something given that they worked without harnesses for the majority of the build.  They say a 17th person died when he fell into the concrete while it was being poured - not so sure about that tale though.  I cannot adequately describe what it is like to climb through a metal structure of this size and complexity - it is like climbing through a 3 dimensional spider's web, punctured repeatedly by huge rivets.  I lost my legs at a couple of points, not least when, immediately under the train tracks on the way back, walking over another see through steel mesh walkway, a train went overhead. The whole structure shuddered and shaked and i was convinced it was either going to fall through or we were going to be pitched off. 
I was buzzed after the climb and wandered the rocks area for a good hour in a haze.  When i eventually came round i headed to Darling Harbour to scoff some takeaway fish and Calamari while looking out over the water.  The place was buzzing with people and lit up like a Christmas Tree.
Next day and i was out to Melbourne for a couple of days...............

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