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| The immense Sydney Harbor Bridge is modeled after a rural New York State bridge |
| Erin's Journal for 1/31/03 New South Wales This was our day in town, and we enjoyed a quiet morning of relaxing to prepare for a late night. We took off for the bus stop around 11am, as we needed to get into town in time to accomplish a few chores. Our first stop was the Sydney Central YHA, where we'd booked ahead (now we're thinking!), and were pleasantly surprised by how new and modern the place was. We got a good room on the 8th floor, with a view of an older building and clocktower nearby. We left our stuff there and made our beds before heading back out to find our travel agent. We'd booked our trip to Fiji through Angie, thanks to the help of Glenn's mom and my buddy Stefanie back home, and today we were to meet with Angie to pick up our vouchers, tickets, and book our wedding package. The walk to her office didn't take long, but it was a bit hard to find with the combined addresses they use here! But we found the office and asked for her, but Angie had left for lunch after waiting over an hour past the time we'd thought we'd be there! Sorry! We were helped by a very nice gentleman in her office instead, who handed us all our ticket vouchers for the Fiji week and gave some recommendations on things to do and places to go. We talked with him so long, in fact, that Angie returned while we were there and we rehashed the whole thing again with her! We ended up deciding to arrange the wedding package with the hotel on our own, and thanked Angie and her coworker before taking off for the shopping centers. Glenn needed some nice pants & shoes, fast! Riverdance was just hours away! We started out at the Paddy Market, but didn't find much. Glenn did get some black shoes, but it seemed that black pants were unavailable anywhere in that 3 story mall! With 5pm closing time approaching, we headed a few blocks down the main road in town to the QVB, Queen Victoria Building, where there was more shopping to be had and later hours. We found Glenn some slacks right away, and while they were being altered we wandered down the mall to window shop. Surprises for both of us, as we stumbled upon the perfect wedding dress for me! I tried on 3 others just to be sure, but we both agreed the first one was perfect. We put it on hold to pick up tomorrow, as we didn't want to be leaving a wedding gown in our dorm room at the hostel! We rushed back to shower and change, stopping at Taco Bell for dinner along the way. We'd run out of time to have a sit-down meal, and it was the first Taco Bell we'd seen the whole trip, so it was perfect. We returned to the hostel and cleaned up; it was so nice to look like a girl again! We walked the few short blocks to the Sydney Entertainment Center, where I had a glass of wine as we waited for the curtain to go up. The show was as great as I remembered it, and Glenn enjoyed it for the first time. The coordination, music and the sound of the stomping feet is phenomenal! After the show, we slowly walked back toward the hostel, but detoured into Chinatown for a night market we saw going on. It was Chinese New Year this weekend, so the place was packed - so much so, in fact, that we couldn't even move most of the time, much less shop and enjoy! So we took off again at the first chance to escape the mob and headed back to the hostel. Lucky for us, there were still no roommates in there, so we went to bed in privacy and quiet. It was a good day. |