1. As the Amsterdam docked, a band of bagpipes and drums in full regalia played to welcome the ship in. I really liked the steel drums in Barbados and the carved wooden drums in Tahiti, but nothing gets to my heart like bagpipes.
2. As I walked from the hotel where the shuttle bus dropped us off to the Opera House, I took a shortcut across a little park area. And there, grubbing for crumbs with the pigeons, were three ibises, acting as if it was the most natural thing in the world for them to be poking their long, curved black beaks into cracks in the sidewalk. Ibises!
3. As I walked back from the Opera House, someone started playing a digeridoo (sp?). It has a really eerie, deep sound, and playing one requires the player to practice a kind of circular breathing such that the tone is sustained pretty much indefinitely. I am sure there are people in Portland who can play one, but hearing one on a Sydney street en route from the Opera House is almost as cool as those ibises.
4. Although my cerebral cortex understands that citizens of the British Commonwealth drive on the left side of the street, some lower brain centers are pretty much freaked out about it. Even riding the shuttle bus over to Circular Quay, I kept wanting to duck behind the seat and yell at the driver, "Look out! That idiot is on the wrong side! HE'S GOING TO HIT US!" The curvy, non-rectilinear arrangement of the streets around here didn't help. And it's a good thing Australian drivers are kind, because I definitely looked the wrong way before crossing streets.
5. The Rocks, a trendy downtown area almost under the Harbour Bridge, has a weekend crafts market that includes jewelry in the thousands of dollars range (and that is in Australian dollars, which, at the moment, are worth more than ours), aboriginal art and art done in aboriginal styles, tourist crap and really nice tourist crap, and a glorious diversity of stuff that, had my sore feet not saved me, would surely have strained my credit limits.
6. As we sailed out today, dozens of Aussies came out in their own boats to wave goodbye to us and yell "Bon voyage!" I feel sadder leaving Sydney than any other port so far. Except maybe Papeete. Or Rio. Maybe Punta Arenas. Leaving Antarctica, knowing I'll never see it again. OK, so I'm a destination slut.
7. I have three or four more Sydney entries in progress, but I think I'll post this one so you can see the ibises.
Ibis! How beautiful! And re the didgeridoo (sp?), I love them! Several years back a man from Australia came through Portland giving lessons. I took lessons and bought the instrument, but never could do the circular breathing. Becky teases me still.... taking lessons on an instrument that plays only one note. Ah well, I now more clearly understand the artistry it takes to play one.
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