May 10-15

The arrival in Sydney, even though it marked our trip’s ending, was a welcomed relief to the camping and small towns to which we had grown so accustomed. We passed towering skyscrapers and watched the monorail pass over head wondering, "Are we ready for this?" It turned out that we were ready.

We checked into the central YHA (youth hostel association) that, as the name states, is located right in the middle of the heart of the city. This hostel was more like a 5- star hotel than hostel with over 700 rooms, a swimming pool, a sauna, and a restaurant, it was much better then most of the accommodations we had seen in months. We used the YHA as a scale to judge that we were way out of touch with the city life.

Even though it was hard to muster up the will to go see the sights, there were a few things that if missed would be criminal. After our standard day of 13 hours of computing at the local email shop, we spent the next day visiting some of the splendid harbors of Sydney. The next day we walked a few kilometers to see the icon of Australia, the Sydney Opera House. We got to see, up close, the billowing sail-like domes of the opera house. We visited and sat in all of the theaters. After our tour, feeling rather inspired, we inquired about the possibilities of purchasing tickets to the modern dance performance, Salame. When they told us they had two tickets, five rows back in the center, we decided it was fate. Heralded as "Brilliant" and "Exciting and Erotic," we thought we were in for a pretty sweet show. To be fair we will say that the dancers were very talented and at times their movements were excellent, but (and this is a BIG but) the story, although we are probably just too uncultured or unhip to get it, was nonexistent to say the least and after the opening scene, which we now refer to as "water" or "water then jail," the plot took a turn into an unknown sector of the galaxy. After two snail-paced hours, there was a forum of Q and A with the director. We didn’t stay. However, we were tempted to ask, "Uh…..like…….we don’t get it?" Luckily, after seeing the expressions on some of the other patrons’ faces we didn’t feel so alone.

On our final day in Sydney we went to visit the Sydney 2000 Olympic grounds. It was especially fun because we were allowed to walk freely into construction sites, empty stadiums, and all around the grounds. It will add a new twist to watching the games on TV.

On our last evening we met up with some friends from Sydney who we had met in Thailand on one of many wild nights spent on Bangkok’s Kao San Road. Meegan, Paula, and Adrian showed us some of the Sydney nightlife and treated us to a delicious meal. They introduced us to some of Australia’s famous wine selection. We hit the pubs but were not allowed access to some of the upscale joints (bad shoes and jeans). We got our "freak on" at a late night disco and toped it off with an early morning McDonald’s run. We got back to the YHA just in time to get a few hours sleep before going to the Sydney Airport to go to LA, USA!!!!

Things were winding down, the trip was nearly over, but not quite. There still was some fun to be had with our old school homeys in LA.