Allan & David: A few noteworthy things about Sydney

Some random notes on Sydney...

• You can put a sticker on your mailbox that says "No Junk Mail" (Love that!)
• Filtered/brewed coffee is not really available, so if you want coffee, the closest would be an Americano. They have all the normal coffee drinks like lattes, which run about $2.25, but they also have a drink called a Flat White--which is awfully similar to lattes--and another called Long Black.
• Paper towels in public toilets (they are not called restrooms) are virtually non-existent. But they only have one hand dryer for 3 or 4 sinks...so you often leave a toilet with wet hands....
• Nearly all the men here have huge chests and arms. And yes, they do all look like Hugh Jackman.
• Their crosswalks take forever to turn 'green', and most everyone obeys them--unlike Portland, where pedestrians cross in traffic whenever they feel like it!
• They drive on the left hand side of the road (so the steering wheel is on the right), and they paint on the street which way to look before crossing. (Wonder how many Americans got hit by cars before they did that?)
• Grocery store queues (they don't say lines) are like at the bank--one long queue, and you go to the next available cashier.
• Their paper money is machine washable (called "plasticized notes"), and has a clear plastic window on part of it, and each bill is a different size. They have no pennies, and $1 and $2 amounts are in coin, not bill. Their 50 cent piece is just as large and cumbersome as ours--only they use it.
• Their TV is a mix of American and Australian shows. Some movies that opened in the US months ago are just opening here. A movie costs $12. Ice cream is a popular treat to eat while in the theater, not popcorn. (We had a Flat White!)
• Trash/garbage is called Rubbish. (I laugh every time I see this.)
• The Sydney Opera house is not white.
• Australian hats are only worn by tourists like David.
• Organic products are not as common here. Large "Health Food Stores" like Whole Foods are non-existent, but they do have a few small stores. (We did find delicious organic soy yogurt at the local grocery store!)
• It's rather tropical here, so each morning a slew of birds are screeching and squawking. They are very loud, and quite unsettling, some sounding like a lost child wailing for hours, others sounding like a huge science-fiction monster that just killed a human and is celebrating the hunt. It's not at all like the pretty songbirds we hear at home. (But the evening crickets are nice.)
• Sirens run throughout the night. It's not like we're in a bad area...so what's up? Or does the sound just travel all over the city?
• What we call Streetcars, they call Trams. What we call Trams, they call Gondolas. What we call Fries, they call Chips. What we call Chips, they call Crisps.
• 400,000 people attended Marti Gras (LOTS of young people--it's the huge annual outdoor party for all of Sydney--they even televise it!), and we almost got trampled at a bottle neck in the crowd. The parade lasted a few hours, and the street looked like a war zone afterward. But it was fun, and people were (overall) well behaved. Sydney's gay rights are similar to that of the US--marriage is not legal, and civil unions are being debated.






• The Sky Tower is a great way to see Sydney. Here's a shot from where we had lunch before going up. (The bird near Allan claimed us as 'his', and wouldn't let any other birds near us!)

And here's a shot from the Tower of where we had lunch.

And here's a little movie of some bats in the Botanical Gardens!