Sydney part 2 - we don't wanna leave

A slightly different view of the opera house
We woke up today and had a lazy morning at James's flat on our arses (is that better Norman :-)), we finally emerged and walked over Sydney Harbour Bridge in fantastic crisp winter sun to see the Opera House up close. The building has a strange but lovely design up close kind of a half honeycomb. We saw a half aborigine blowing on his didgery doo on the way, which was a bloody ripper mate!

We then caught a bus to Bondi Beach, the famous surfer beach of Sydney, there we saw some 50 odd surfers in the middle of winter, some joggers, and a few skaters in a skate park... these Australians really like the outdoor life. This, I think, was the biggest thing that I will take away from Oz, the smiles and easy going nature that comes I think from the family outdoor life that they seem to lead here, or maybe it is the fact that it is not so bloody cold here.

The view around the headland at Bondi beach

The walk around Bondi was not as impressive as Manly but more interesting was the bus ride over there as the route went through a more run down / older area of Sydney, and it was nice to get a contrast of the residental areas here.

We met James after his work day ended, in his local cafe "Stir crazy", a fantastic place, where I have a sneaky suspision that James spends as much time as possible (further evidenced by the fact his fridge is empty). El and I have named Sydney the City of Good Smells, as it has been the best smelling city so far on our trip, strange but true, after traveling around Asia for 8 months.

It has been fantastic to see one of my best mates after so long and to find out that he is happy in his new life and planing to stay here (maybe), all the better for free OZ holidays for us :-)

Bid of a shame though thad we caughd his illness - Teenaemia - because all Aussies oud here suffer the same illness where because they don't drink enough tea, they put "d" in words where "t" should be. Id is hard to notice ad firsd bud liddle by liddle you stard to pick id up yourself undil you need to make a brew to replace all the losd t's. We tried to make James drink lots of tea to cure him bud id remains to be seen whether id works or not.