Sunday 04/27/2003 Sydney, Australia Day 2822

What Happened Today? Sunday 04/27/2003 Sydney, Australia

Up at 7:00 AM. Rained all night… sometimes the rain was heavy. Kay made instant coffee. The rain let up and we decided to walk to the Opera House. We stopped at Delifrances for breakfast… 2 sausage croissants and 2 short black’s. We explored Hyde Park on our way to the Opera House. Hyde park was named after London Hyde. This huge and beautiful green lawn is in the middle of the city. And at some point, was used as a military training ground, cricket pitch, and a race course. Landmarks include Archibald Fountain (1932), statue of Captain Cook, Busby’s Bore, and an ANZAC War Memorial. We walked by the Hyde Park Barrack’s Museum, the Mint, Sydney Hospital, the Parliament House, and the State Library. Then we walked through the Botanic Gardens which was founded by governor McQuarrie in 1816 as part of the governor’s Domain. The fig trees dominate the landscape. We saw and touched one tree that was over 1000 years old. the Gardens contain the Rose Garden, the Fernery, the Oriental Gardens and the Threatened Species Garden.

Then we walked to the Opera House and took a 2 hour fascinating tour. We could see groups of people walking up the Sydney Harbour Bridge while we waited for the Opera House tour to begin. In our group were people from Germany, Brazil, Holland, Switzerland, Australia and the US.

The Opera House was constructed between 1959 and 1973.

In 1957 John Utzon, from Copenhagen, Denmark, won the competition for the design of the Sydney Opera House.

Stage 1 (1959-1963): building of the foundations and base to podium level. Utzon arrived at the “spherical solution” for the construction of the roof shells in 1961.

Stage 2 (1963-1967): Construction of the roof vaults.

Stage 3 (1967-1973): Architects Hall, Todd and Littlemore design the interiors of the Opera House. Officially opened by Queen Elizabeth on 10/20/1973.

The Sydney Opera House presented as its first performance, The Australian Opera’s production of War and Peace by Prokofiev. It cost 102,00,000 $AU to build (financed by a lottery!); conducts 3000 events each year; provides guided tours to 200,000 people each year; has an annual audience of 2 million for its performances; includes 1000 rooms; is 185 meters long and 120 meters wide; has roof sections weighing up to 15 tons; has roof sections held together by 350 Km’s of tensioned cable; has over 1 million tiles on the roof; uses 6225 square miles of glass and 6445 Km’s of electric cables and all seats are made from white birch.

Then we decided once again, to walk to Darling Harbour. We stopped at a pub for a few Toohey’s New and played (fed) some “pokies”. We stopped at a seafood stand and bought 6 deep-fried Tassie scallops (delicious!). We had a late lunch at the Pontoon Bar (More Jimmy Buffet music). We didn’t like going to the back to the same place but this restaurant had the best view of the harbour. We also stopped and bought tickets for a tour to the Blue Mountains for tomorrow.

We walked over to Star city, in the rain, to buy tickets for Momma Mia! presented at the Lyric Theatre. ($68.20 each.) We learned the next show was 90 minutes away at 5:00 PM. So we played more “pokies”. I think I lost more than the price of the tickets.

Momma Mia! was a musical comedy based on 22 ABBA songs. It lasted 2 and 1/2 hours with a 20 minute intermission. Three of the songs were new to me. My favorite ABBA song is “I Have a Dream.” which was the opening song plus the closing song. Separately Kay and I bought a CD and program for each other. We laughed when we handed the same thing to each other. We returned one copy. We walked back to the hotel in a driving rain. It was raining too hard to go anywhere else so we watched a movie… The X-Men at the hotel.

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