Sydney

Andrea, Silvia, and Gauss at Circular Quay, Opera House in the background

Gauss's cousin, Silvia, and her husband, Andrea, met us in Sydney. They were really kind, making the drive from their home in Newcastle, two hours north, to spend the day with us. We parked in The Rocks, a neighborhood of narrow streets and small, older buildings. As we made our way to the opera house, we ventured into a couple of galleries featuring aboriginal art and watercolors by local artists.

Jellyfish!

Arriving at Circular Quay, Gauss pointed out that there were jellyfish in the water right below us. Like cockatoos in the city park, I found it fascinating to see unusual fauna in familiar settings, and I snapped several photos. 

The opera house was impressive, but I was a little disappointed to learn that we could not enter unless we paid for a guided tour. Still, it was fun to walk among the soaring shells of the building, see the white tile roof up close, and watch the Chinese tourists take hero shots of each other.

Everyone needs a hero shot in front of the Opera House. It really is amazing!

The four of us walked through the adjacent botanical garden, where we watched waterfowl and the occasional parrot. The meandering path brought us to the Conservatory of Music, where Gauss had taken violin lessons during the brief period when his family lived in Sydney.

Mommy coot feeding baby in the botanical garden

These critters had duck bodies but not duck bills. Go figure.

Sylvia was hot to do some shopping in the posh stores downtown, so Gauss and Andrea walked back to fetch the car from the two-hour spot and we girls headed to David Jones. Sylvia browsed the makeup counter looking for just the right product, and we tested sniffs of Parisian perfumes. I was still wearing the yoga pants and tennis shoes I'd worn for the flight, and I felt like a country bumpkin among the smartly dressed clientele and chic, black-clad (and perfectly made up) sales clerks. Once she had found her product, we went upstairs to browse the designer fashions. Silvia is as much into fashion as I am not. Perhaps it is because she is something like a size 2, and these fashions are made for people like her, not for me at a 14-16.

Silvia and an enormous shoe in a department store in downtown Sydney

The guys caught up with us after a long search for a parking spot. Sydney is a lot like my friend Sue says about Istanbul, you can drive there but you can't park there. Gauss said that they circled the streets for quite a long time before finally giving up and parking in a ramp. As it turned out, when it was time to leave, the three hours there cost $36.

We walked from the store to Chinatown, where we stopped at a sidewalk cafe for lunch. Silvia and Andrea are vegetarians, making Chinatown is a tricky place to eat. While the Chinese don't eat huge quantities of meat, they do tend to put little bits of it into many dishes to add flavor, so much of the menu was off limits. We settled on squid (Andrea eats fish and seafood), chive dumplings, shao mai (contains pork, Gauss and I ate it) and some noodles with tofu. Silvia usually skips lunch, so she ordered herself a glass of champagne instead.

No visit to Sydney is complete without a visit to Bondi Beach, so Andrea drove us there. Because of its international reputation, I expected to see something huge that went on for miles, and was surprised at how small it was. Silvia said that she had the exact same reaction when she first saw it.

Gauss and I were tired, and Silvia wanted to do more shopping, so Andrea (a masterful chauffeur despite driving on the left) dropped her off at some shops and took us to the hostel to get settled. Along the way, I spied a checkered police car. This has become a major fascination for me. In the States, taxis are checkered. I had to take a picture.

Red police car with checkered trim!

We were booked at another YHA Hostel, and these accommodations were perfect. This time, for about $110 a night, we had a private room with a queen bed and our own bathroom—real luxury after the group accommodations in Canberra. The hostel was clean, quiet, and centrally located. If I ever visit Sydney again, I would definitely stay there. The hostel staff are friendly, casual, and helpful, responding to our thanks with a lilting, “No worries!”

After a short nap, we again met Silvia and Andrea and walked through the neighborhood searching for a restaurant where we could all find something to our liking. After seeing a handful of Thai and Chinese places (including one that really intrigued Gauss) we settled on a Malaysian cafe whose menu posted outside featured vegetarian, fish, and meat options. The place was hopping, and we worried that we might not be seated, but the host told us it would be only a few minutes.

Andrea's vegetarian rice—spicy and filling

Patti's "Malaysian salad" under peanut sauce and topped with crispy shrimp/coconut fritters

Silvia's Roti

Gauss's fish curry, garnished with a fancy cut pepper

I ordered a Malaysian “salad” of shredded cucumber and “water yam” (it tasted like jicama to me) topped with crispy shrimp and coconut chips and peanut sauce. Gauss got a fish curry, Andrea ordered a spicy vegetarian rice, and Silvia got a roti with two sauces. Andrea's dish was the best, spicy, tasty and filling. Gauss's dish contained two types of fish, and he said that one tasted a little “fishy.” The four of us shared a coconut and pandang dessert roti with ice cream—also a hit with all of us—and then we walked back to the hostel. It was beginning to get dark, and Silvia and Andrea had a two hour drive, so we hugged goodbye and they were off.

After our 4:00 am start for our flight to Sydney, Gauss and I were in bed by 9:30. But early to bed meant early to rise, and I awoke at 5:00. While Gauss snoozed, I went out for a walk in the neighborhood to look for some breakfast pastries. I covered about a mile, taking my time to soak up the feel of the city. By 6:00 am bakeries and coffee shops were opening, so I ducked into one and bought a couple of croissants. Gauss had some Nutella back at the hostel, so I picked up a small loaf of French bread as well. We prepared some tea and washed strawberries in the hostel kitchen, enjoyed our breakfast, and cleaned up after ourselves. All told, our breakfast probably cost about $12, which sounds like a lot for grocery-store food, but prices here are high. A croissant and coffee for both of us at a restaurant would have run $20.

We weren't entirely sure what our plan for the day would be. A co-worker from Beezwax, David, lives some distance northwest of the CBD (Central Business District, Aussie-speak for “downtown”) so we decided to take a ferry in that direction and see if he might meet us. We walked a little over a mile to Circular Quay to get ferry info, and once on the boat, we texted David. He wasn't able to connect, but “no worries.” The Ferry was a wonderful and inexpensive way to see the city. It wound its way up Sydney Harbour, ending at Rydalmere, one station short of Parramatta, because of low tide. 

Sydney Harbor Bridge

Sailboats and houses along the ferry route

We passed inlet after inlet, and in many the waterfront was lined with greenery, blooming jacarandas, and beautiful homes that spilled down the slopes. Sailboats were moored in the quiet spots away from the main channel.

Harbor side homes and jacaranda trees

We had considered getting off at the end and exploring, but weren't encouraged when the landscape flattened out and its most prominent feature was an oil refinery. I asked a crew member if there was anything to do around the last stop and he chuckled, nodding towards the bleak industrial area.

“But turn around with us and get off at the first stop on the way back,” he said. “It's the Olympic Village and there are lots of restaurants there.”

“I saw it on the map but wondered if there was much still going on,” I replied. “Thanks for the tip.”

“No worries,” he answered.

We got off at the appointed stop and checked out a map of the area on the wall of a bus shelter. We'd spotted a waterside cafe (I later learned that it's called the Armory Wharf Restaurant) and the map indicated a path to it through a natural area, so we set off on foot for the one-mile walk. Australia's direct sun is a little much for this high-latitude gal, and October is spring down under, so despite the cool breeze, I was feeling pretty well cooked by the time we arrived. 

We were seated inside the restaurant—Gauss had had enough of the direct sun, too—and ordered an appetizer plate to share and a salad. We munched on pistachio-crusted polenta sticks, a spinach frittata, and little prosciutto-wrapped mozzarella balls, alternating bites of an arugula salad with beets, pumpkin, feta and walnuts. Gauss marveled at how Australian cuisine has changed in the 40 years since he left, when most restaurants smelled like cooking mutton and served canned peas with their entrees.

The entire nation, in fact, has come into its own—emphatically Australian, no longer an English colony pining for the Home Country as it did when Gauss lived here before. Australia, like America, is a recently-settled land of immigrants. The “White Australia” policy is long gone, and the streets are filled with a cross section of ethnicities.

Our two countries are peopled by the mutts of the world. Australia and the U.S. are havens for people looking for something better or different and willing to take a leap of faith to find it. Throughout the country we heard languages being spoken that we couldn't recognize, and the sidewalks are lined with restaurants serving cuisines from all over the world. Australians tend to have the same friendly openness and casual attitudes that Americans have, or at least used to have—socially mobile, not fixated on background or class.

The Sydney skyline approaching Darling Harbor

After our meal, we ambled back to the ferry dock and rode back to the CBD, this time disembarking at Darling Harbour, a little closer to the hostel. Andrea had warned us that Darling Harbour was the touristy part of town, and we thought of Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco as we passed Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum and other attractions. As we walked toward our hostel, the slick, modern office buildings and glitzy hotels gave way to a mix of old and new: Chinese travel agencies advertising cheap fares to Hong Kong; hole in the wall noodle restaurants and tailor shops; tiny storefronts crammed with koala souvenirs and T shirts.

We were parched after the long walk and stopped at Gelatissimo, a gelato franchise that seems to be unique to Australia. There were probably 30 varieties. Gauss ordered a cup of mango and I ordered hazelnut (in part to make up for the lackluster hazelnut gelato I'd eaten in California a couple of days before I left.) The flavors were stunning—mango that tasted like a just-picked fruit, but with the creaminess of gelato, and rich, complex, hazelnut that left no doubt as to what it was.

“It's too bad we're leaving tomorrow,” Gauss said, “I need to come back here so we can try some of the other flavors.”

“We'd have to come here every day for a month,” I replied.

We headed back to the hostel and napped for a couple of hours, recharging our batteries before the next big flights. Gauss would be returning to California and I would be heading on to Turkey.

We wanted one big meal that we could eat with abandon, not worrying about whether it had meat or not, so for dinner that night we returned to the Chilli Restaurant that had intrigued Gauss the day before—the Chinese one that didn't have enough vegetarian options. It was glitzier than the restaurants we usually patronize, but the prices were, by Sydney standards, manageable. The restaurant specialized in Hunan cuisine, which tends to be very spicy, rather salty, and cooked fairy dry, rather than with a lot of sauce. There was a big picture menu with full descriptions, and it took us a good ten minutes to get through it and ponder our choices.

We settled on spicy Hunan stewed chicken, a vegetable dish of eggplant and green beans, and lightly battered shrimp. The eggplant came first, and it was amazing: tender eggplant and beans cooked just right, enlivened with chili, chives and bits of pork belly for flavor. That and a bowl of rice would have made a fabulous meal, but the chicken that followed was just as good. We could smell the star anise and cassia as the waitress set the dish on the table in front of us. There was smokiness, too, and enough chili to make our lips tingle. A few bites into this dish, the shrimp arrived, a sweet and tender counterpoint to the other two chili-laden entrees. There was clearly more than we could finish, but we did our best. Filled nearly to capacity, we went out to stroll the streets and walk off as much of the dinner as we could.

But the spicy taste in our mouths needed a little cooling off. My Chinese friends there said that after you eat spicy food, you must eat something sweet. So we ducked into Gelatissimo one last time. Two bubbly girls were working the counter, and offered to give us tastes before we made our choice. Hearing our accents, they asked where we were from. We told them that we were Americans, and that we would be leaving the next day. We confessed to them that this was the second time we had been there that day; we loved it so much that we had to get one more cup before departing.

We tried the passionfruit, and I was dying of curiosity about the black sesame flavor. Both were outstanding, but we were hankering for something tart. Gauss asked to try lime—it was great, but one of the girls told us that if we liked a tart flavor, we should try the lemon. One little spoonful and we were sold.

Gauss and I savored the powerful little cup of gelato, sad when it was done (although we could not have crammed one more bite into ourselves) and stood up to leave. The girls wished us a safe trip, and we thanked them for their good cheer.

“No worries!” they said in unison.