Sydney

So, today I got in the car and drove the appx. 90 mins into Sydney. I'd researched the route on Google Maps and thought it looked pretty straightforward. It wasn't. Sydney, like most big cities, is a hellhole to drive in, and as with most big cities the signposting of streets is atrocious. Additionally, as I found out to my great consternation upon trying to leave, some of the streets Google wanted me to take were not accessible from the prior street. Gaaaaah!

Anyway, after a good deal of hit and miss driving I finally found the parking house next to the famous Opera building. I parked, got up, walked around for a bit, had lunch, walked around some more and then left. I can not foresee an early return to that city, if at all. Sydney's nice enough for a day visit, nothing more.

The big cities in Australia are generally soulless, generic places with little of the old world charm that I like about many European cities, and they also lack much of the feeling of vibrant innovation that makes many US cities tolerable (in general, big cities in the US are way inferior to the smaller places and the sweet, sweet national parks). It's not that Australian cities are bad, they're just not terribly interesting. The Opera house, for example, is really the only thing worth going to Sydney for. And that can be done in five minutes.

The scenery around there was nice enough and there were lots of sweaty exhibitionists jogging, mothers pushing strollers and groups of uniformed twats from private schools waiting to get inside the building and how I'd like to take a baseball bat to them all. I have come to realize that I must severely limit my exposure to crowds in the future, or risk committing unspeakable crimes. The more I see of humanity in general, the more I hate it. Ugh.

The experience was not helped by the fact that lunch was served by a crazy, old Yugoslavian guy who took it upon himself to try and begin discussions with me on everything from Norse Mythology to the imminent deindustrialization of Europe. Honestly, do these people exist only to bother me? Double ugh.

All Sydney pics here.

Methinks you may have seen this building before?


From the other side.


From the third side...


And from the fourth.


Skyline of Sydney Harbour... well, one of them. The city hugs both sides of a loooong bay, so it has several "centers".


The view across the water.


The Harbour Bridge. I felt I got to know it intimately, having gone TWO times back and forth on it - both drives totally unnecessary.


People were actually walking on it. People way more fit and way more bored than I'll ever be.


During one of my many, many stops at red lights I spotted this statue, of Queen Victoria. Rule Britannia!