Opera House & Various Museums

Hello Opera House my dears,

I send you greetings from Thailand and am writing about Sydney. Well, it seems quite a bit of time has passed, but I must also say that I haven't had a single day until now to really finish some blogs for you, as we've been on tour or on the bus every day, and it feels like even more posts have piled up. Today, I'm trying to reduce the stack a bit and report to you about my day in Sydney at the Opera House and other museums and exhibitions.

Even though I had seen the Opera House from the outside, I definitely wanted to admire it from the inside, so I booked a tour of the Opera House in advance. After a nice breakfast, I headed to the most famous building in Sydney (Australia).

The Opera House is just as impressive from the inside as it is from the outside, and we got to view both the second largest and the largest hall, and we could also discover the sound reflectors and ladders on the walls and ceiling. A few days later, I was also able to see the English opera Cinderella in the smaller hall, as I had already secured tickets for that in advance.

The tour lasted about 1 hour in total, and the tour guide shared some nice anecdotes and many interesting facts about the building. For example, there is an extra net over the orchestra pit because one performance series had the fantastic idea of bringing live chickens onto the stage. The end of the story was a falling chicken, which was thrown back on stage by a very surprised cellist, and the musicians' guild filed a complaint to the Opera House, asking that no live animals be used on stage. After that, there was still no net - only when a dancer misjudged the edge and landed right in the middle of the musicians, did the Opera House think that a fall net might not be a bad idea.

What a wonderful building, even though quite a bit of drama occurred during its construction. I haven't studied architecture, but after visiting this building, I was definitely tempted to pursue it further. After the visit, I treated myself to a nice coffee with a view and did a bit of reading. But after a short time, the temperature increased so much that I fled from it and started my tour through the museums in Sydney. I began with the NSW State Library. This place gave me quite a bit of Harry Potter vibes, especially in the reading room.

The building has several exhibitions, and I enjoyed each one very much. However, I was particularly surprised by the exhibition about Pix - the first form of our current Instagram. A newspaper in Sydney that only printed pictures with short captions.

After that, it was off to the Australia Museum with a brief stop at St Marys Cathedral.

The Australia Museum is a good activity when it’s either too rainy or too hot outside. Otherwise, I didn't find it really recommendable or anything special, except for the bird exhibition. To be fair, I must say that the museum is free besides one special exhibition or relies on donations.

I had already spotted both of the last two birds, and I also saw a kingfisher here. After the museum, I then headed back to the hostel via the main shopping street, and with a stop at the Lego Store, I saw the Opera House once more.

The following days, I spent in Manly with Darya. I met Darya back in Bali, and since we got along so well, we exchanged numbers, and she invited me to her place in Sydney, as long as she had enough space. Thankfully, that was the case, and we spent the next days together.

More about that in the upcoming posts.

Your Britta