A Rainy Welcome to Sydney

After an extremely long journey from Chicago to Los Angeles to Sydney, I finally arrived in Australia. Since the time difference is 17 hours I was expecting to be extremely jet lagged. However, this was not the case. The reason for that was that since I crossed the international date line I skipped February 14th, I went to sleep on the plane on February 13th and woke up on the plane on February 15th. For me this was really cool, it felt like I was time traveling into the future (though not really). Time is just one of the constructs I found changes when you cross the pacific. For us time is really a reference to how far along we are in the Earth's daily rotation, and when you change where you are on the Earth your reference to that rotation changes, preeetttyyy neat. Another construct shift when you travel to Australia, and this one has to do with crossing the equator. Seasons are reversed Down Under! This is due to the Earth's tilt which creates the seasons, when the Earth is tilted towards the sun, it's summer and when it's away then it's winter. So, when the Northern Hemisphere is tilted away from the sun the Southern Hemisphere is tilted away. For me that meant I was expecting to fly from snowy below freezing temperatures into sunny 80 F (27 C) weather. That's not exactly what happened.

Sydney was hot. When I landed it was actually oppressively humid. But, the sunny skies were nowhere to be found. Fortunately, that did not deter me from exploring the city. I walked from the hostel where I was staying with the other students in my group up George Street to Darlin Harbor. We took in the views (though overcast) and the feel of the city. The city had an incredibly distinct feel. It felt safer than most large cities that I've been in, but also very laid back. And even though we were in an area of the city that catered to travelers and tourists there were still many Aussie families out enjoying the cool day.   This is a city where both the locals and the visitors are free to mingle and enjoy.

This was reaffirmed for me my second day in Sydney. We did a walking tour of the city center and it was raining even harder than the previous day. Once, again we didn't let that bother us. We walked out on the Harbor Bridge and got some incredible views of Circular Quay and the iconic Sydney Opera House (above), not even the rain could ruin seeing the site of the ships passing the Opera House into the bay. Later we walked along Circular Quay to get some close up views of the Opera House (below right). Not only is it huge but it is actually three separate buildings! The architecture has an almost optical illusion quality to it that makes it seem like one structure farther away, but standing below its steps it is easy to see the true design. After the Opera House we took a stroll through the Botanical Gardens. Not only was it free (!) it was also really cool to see examples of some common (and less common) Australian flora. Fig trees (below) stretched up and out along the path as we made our way back to the city center via Sydney's own forest. The rain did not spoil the city and, thankfully, this was the last day that we had to deal with it!