Adventures in Sydney!

Thursday December 24th 2015
Alright, so last Sunday I went to see the movie, The Dressmaker. I went there at about 5:30pm, so I could have something to eat first. When I got there I thought it would be a good idea to get a ticket first, so I went inside and found out that the movie was going to start at 6pm, while the flyer I had found at the secondhand bookstore said it would start at 7pm! So as it was already almost 6pm, I didn’t have time to go and eat before the movie! It wasn’t very busy, which wasn’t a big surprise, since most people have dinner at this time of day!
The movie theater was an old one, with carpet on the floor from the hippie days, ragged curtains and leather seats with the leather torn. Anyway, the movie was funny, sad and a little strange. I liked Kate Winslet and the dresses she wore and made, it is set in the 1950’s, when women still wore dresses instead of pants. I thought it was pretty good.
Monday I got up around 9:30am, took a shower and got dressed. Took all of my sheets and garbage out. Then I put my suitcase in storage and gave them back the key to the room. I had breakfast and watched some tv for a while. Around 12noon I went out to find some lunch. Walked a bit down Hunter street and found a bakery where I had a tomato/ cheese sandwich. And I tried one of their vanilla slices, but the one I had in Brisbane tasted a lot better! The vanilla cream in this one looked transparent, like it wasn’t real. So I didn’t eat it all.
Around 3:30pm I went back to the hostel to get my suitcase, said goodbye to all of the people I had met there and I walked over to the bus station. I had booked a seat on the 3:15pm greyhound bus to Sydney. The bus ride from Newcastle to Sydney was only 3 hours, so it wasn’t all that bad.
The bus was late and we didn’t leave until 3:30pm, but that was alright. The bus was really full, I couldn’t see an empty seat anywhere when everyone was on. In Newcastle it had been very hot and humid, but while we were driving it started to rain… and it didn’t stop!
Which was a shame, because I saw a big lake and the rocks we passed were amazing, but taking a picture of that in a moving bus, while it is raining is not a good idea.
We came into Sydney on the famous Harbor Bridge, with a view of that other Sydney icon, the Opera House. Unfortunately I was sitting on the wrong side of the bus to see it properly and with the rain it was really foggy, so it wouldn’t have made a good picture anyway.
The bus stop is at Central Station and the hostel I was staying at was right beside the station, so I didn’t have far to walk, which was very nice, because it was still raining!
For my stay in Sydney I had booked a bed in a dormroom for 4 women. All during the ride I was keeping my fingers crossed that I would not have to climb up a bunkbed…until I figured I could also ask them if it was possible to give me a bed in a room which wasn’t full yet, so I would have more chance of getting a bottom bunk….which I did and it worked!!! I got a room on the 6th floor and there was only one other person in that room, who happened to be in a top bunk, so I could choose!! This was going to work out great!
When I was in New Zealand two years ago I could buy a card for internet at the YHA and also use that for the payphone. I thought I could do the same here in Sydney, but the card they sell is only for internet. So I went out to buy a Telstra phonecard and in the lobby of the hostel I tried to call my grandma.
I wanted to wish her a merry Christmas over the phone, we send text messages to each other and I can skype with my parents, but I can’t do that with her. I had sort of miscalculated what time it would be in the Netherlands, so when I called a nurse answered the phone and grandma was still in the shower!!! It was kind of funny, we didn’t talk very long, she was getting cold!
So then I went to the café that was in the hostel to have some spaghetti Bolognese…which had too much water in it and no flavor… I still had some minutes left on my phone card, so I tried calling my grandma again and this time she was all dressed and ready to talk! Which we did until I was out of money!
I went to bed pretty early today, it took only three hours to get here, but that still makes me tired!
On Tuesday I got up around 8:30am and went out to the supermarket. Someone had already told me how to get there the night before, but I didn’t feel like going, because it was raining…unfortunately it was still raining this morning and it lasted all day! But I still wanted to get some stuff, so I went anyway and it wasn’t all that far away. I got some milk, orange juice and yoghurt, it was pretty heavy stuff. Then when I was almost at the hostel, this guy comes up to me and asks me what I’m going to do today…well, bring all this heavy stuff to the hostel?! Then he asked me how long I was going to stay and I told him a week. He actually thought I was going to stay in Australia for a week!!! He was from France, so no wonder, but still…he could see I was carrying heavy stuff and still he had to talk to me, do I look like a local?!!?! Idiot!!!
So I got to the hostel, put all of my stuff away and I went up to the room. My roommate was still sleeping, so I had to creep around quietly. Which of course doesn’t work, because the more you are trying to be quiet, the more noise you make!
But she didn’t wake up, so I guess I was okay! Since it was still raining outside and I didn’t really have any plans for today, I went back to where the supermarket was, which was in a mall. But that wasn’t as big as I thought it would be. Afterwards I went to Starbucks, to have some tea and write a little. Then I discovered another mall, in Chinatown, which was a lot bigger!
So I spend some time in there. Then around 4pm I was done and went back to the hostel. I read some and planned some things for the next day. Then I went to the kitchen to eat my salad.
There was going to be a trivia night at 6:30pm that day and I asked my roommate if she wanted to come. There was going to be free wine with cheese and crackers, since I don’t drink wine, I had asked the guys at the desk if there was going to be anything else to drink. The guys told me that he thought there wasn’t going to be anything else, but you could win a voucher for the bar and get whatever you wanted. I didn’t have to sign up for it, I could just go to the bar.
So around 6pm we went down to the bar, which was in the basement of the hostel sort of. Which was where the loud music came from last night! The guy at the bar told me that the trivia was in the cinema of the hostel and that people would come to the bar afterwards….really?! I would be soo much better at that job behind hostel desk!
So we went to the cinema and were the first ones there. We didn’t think it was going to be very busy, but in the end the place was packed. We wanted to form a team with other people, but they pretty much had their own team, so it was just the two of us. This trivia was going to be 2 rounds of 10 questions each and the theme was Christmas of course. We called ourselves Team Rudolph.
It wasn’t all that hard, but for some questions we didn’t know if we had the right answers at all. At the end of round 2 we had to hand in our answers and we got the answer sheet from another team, so we could check theirs. Then when we were done with that, they counted all the points and there were two teams with the same amount of points….our team and another team!!! So we got two bonus questions, which also gave us the same amount of points, so then the guy who was asking all the questions had to come up with something else…so we had to guess how many tattoos he had…and we guessed right, so we won!!! Hahah We were soo surprised!!! Second trivia I’m going to this vacation and I win again!! Haha
The guy that was doing this trivia was going to take some people down to the bar for a free drink, but I didn’t really feel like going, after the trivia I was done. But the prize was a $30,- voucher for the bar, so now we had to go! We went downstairs straight after the trivia and thought we would never got through the $30, -, but in the end all we had was 2 beers, 2 orange juices and a kangaroo pizza and then we had $2,- left. So I guess we did pretty good! The pizza was pretty good, nothing special just heated in the oven. When people eat some meat they haven’t had yet or eat some kind of insect, they always say it tastes like chicken. But kangaroo tastes like beef, not sure what it is supposed to taste like, but beef is what comes close to it.
We didn’t stay that long, it wasn’t all that busy and the music was very loud. I think we left around 9pm. I talked to my dad on skype for a while and went to bed around 10pm.
Wednesday morning my roommate left already, she was going to spend Christmas with her friends. When she left I went down for breakfast. My plan was to go to the Art Gallery.
You can get pretty much anywhere by train and bus, but it isn’t all that far away, so I just walked. I went up to Hyde Park, where I saw a huge cathedral so I went to take a look. It was really huge, it was St. Mary’s Cathedral. The weather wasn’t all that good outside, so no sunlight coming through the glass-stained windows, but inside they had Christmas trees at every aisle with only lights in it, which gave it all a nice glow.
The Hyde Park Barracks were close by and since I was there I decided to take a look. These barracks were built by the convicts that came from the UK to Sydney. Before these barracks were build, the convicts had to find their own place to sleep, there were only tents. The governor at that time was Mr. Macquenzie, who had a convict architect, Mr. Francis Greenway, design these barracks. Afterwards he was so impressed by this design that he gave Greenway a full pardon.
During the Industrial Revolution a lot of things changed, but not for everyone. A lot of people became poor and of course crime grew rapidly. The smallest of offences, got the biggest punishments. When they thought that the death penalty got a little out of hand, they decided to transport convicts to Australia among other places. Which may not have been a lot better, the trip alone would take months, but they were still alive.
Between 1819 and 1848 the UK send about 50.000 convicts to Sydney alone. As soon as they arrived the convicts were divided into groups with different tasks. Most of them worked on roads and made bricks to build houses.
The barracks were built for 600 people, but at times there were at least 1400 who live there.
In 1840 the UK stopped transporting convicts to Sydney and in 1848 the last of the convicts were transported to Cockatoo Island. Then in 1848 the barracks became Sydney’s Immigration Depot. This is where at least 40.000 women and orphaned children came before they went off into Australia. Some found a job in a hiring office which was on the first floor of the building and others were collected by friends and family that had gone to Australia before them.
In 1862 the 3rd level of the barracks were used as a government asylum for the aged, infirm or destitute women. It was there until 1886.
From 1887 until 1979 the barracks turned into courts and government departments. With various additions to the forecourt, to house all of these offices.
Most courts closed in 1979, but the Parole Court was there until 2001. They did start with the conservation of the barracks in 1979 to turn it into a museum , which didn’t happen until 1984. While they were digging for the story of this place, they have found a lot of object, mostly due to the rats that lived there!! They had stolen various things to build their nests with! So they do have some good in them!!
In one of the rooms on the ground level, they showed us the original walls and doorways, you could see the ventilation system (nice hole in the wall) and how they made the airconditioning for the law courts. Also there were great murals of how people came here and so on, of some of the faces on these murals they knew the names and lives. All of the tools they used for the work the convicts did were there, as of course the tools to punish…which were not very nice to see.
Most convicts were kept prisoner for a time as sentenced, once they were done or when they were pardoned for good behavior, they were free to go. And that’s basically how Australia, became Australia as we know it today.
On the 2nd floor they had some of the beds that were used in that period, some clothes and some wooden chests with stories of the women and orphans that came through here. They were only allowed to bring one chest of things each and some of the ones on display also contained items that were found when they rebuild the place.
And on the 3rd level were the convicts quarters as they were in 1819…the space allotted to them was no more than a hammock, in one room there were 30 in another there were 70 of them…now it wasn’t very hot when I was there, but I can’t imagine what it must have been like sleeping there on a hot day!
The best part of all is maybe the clock that was build, probably also by a convict clockmaker. You can see it from the outside under the gable of the barrack, which of course was a reminder for all convicts that they were serving their time. Inside you can see the innards of the clock so to speak and down to the second floor is a wooden box, which hides the pendulum, that is still swinging away the seconds! The clock is one of the oldest clocks still in use. The people that work at the museum now, have to wind it up every now and then. Doesn’t seem to be an easy job!
Also when you look out of the window on the second floor, you will see St. James’s church, and behind that were the courtrooms, so in those days you had the law, incarceration and redemption in one line, for the convicts another reminder. Nowadays you only see the church across the road.
I was caught up here for quite a while, it was really interesting and I didn’t even really see all of it! You can get an audio tour here, free of charge, which tells you all about what you’re looking at, by pressing numbers. Which is really nice, because you can listen when it suits you and you don’t have to listen to the whole thing! It gives you these extra little things, like that the guy who had put up the wallpaper for the law courts etc, had written his name and the date on the wall. Which they had found again while looking for stories about this building! I like that very much.
When I was done here, I finally really went to the Art Gallery. Which wasn’t that much further. It was in a place they call The Domain, which is basically a huge field where they give concerts and so on. There are also enormous trees there, I took some pictures, but you would have to see it to believe it! If only they could talk, the things they must have seen!!!
The entrance to this museum is free of charge, I had to hand in my backpack, but that also didn’t cost me anything. But to be honest, the exhibitions that were free didn’t really appeal to me. So I went down to the café to have a scone with jam and clotted cream and some tea. When I was done, I went to the more interesting exhibition, The Greats, where they had Rembrandt, Vermeer, Boticelli, among others.
And I’m glad I did!! Here I also got a free audio tour, where you could listen to explanations about various paintings and painters. But also every room had a number with which you could listen to a certain piece of classical music!! That I thought was a great idea! Of course this music was on a cd they sold, but still!! It was great to just sit and watch, while listening to this music!
O yeah, the Vermeer they had was one I had never seen before, it was a religious piece and I only know him from the Milkmaid and the Girl with the pearl earring, never knew he also painted this. Learned something new!
We were allowed to take pictures, as long as you didn’t flash. Of course the paintings don’t get any better, but I tried to take some pictures anyway.
When I was done, there was an announcement that the museum was closing in 15 minutes, I had really taken my time here!!! It was already a quarter to 5, I had no idea about the time!
When I got outside the sun was shining, which was nice to warm up a little! Yesterday I had read about an arcade that was built in 1891, I had forgotten the name of it, but I thought I remembered what street it should be in. On my way up here I had tried to find it, but I didn’t see it and now on my way back to the hostel, I walked right into it!!
It was really cool! Not very big, but still three floors of small, expensive boutiques! The large windows had portions of stained glass at the tops, the staircases were still of wood and the windows there were also stained glass. And they still had the original elevator! It was called The Strand and it is still here, I liked it! I didn’t buy anything, but window shopping was nice too!
It was set in what they call the Pitt Street Mall, where no cars came through, only lots and lots of shoppers!!! Then at another mall I found a huge bookstore!! It really was amazing!! Later I learned that they had over 30.000 books in English, Chinese and Japanese!! It was also very busy here, so I left quickly!
I went back to George Street, where I saw another interesting building, but I was tired and didn’t want to go back to explore. Instead I went to Market City where I had discovered a food court the day before. I had a big plate of Asian food for only $9,-!!! It was really good!
When I came back to the room, I had another roommate, she was from Washington DC. She went out for a drink with some people and asked me to come too, but I had walked soo much today, that my legs simply didn’t want to go anymore!
And then today I got up and I was in no hurry to get ready. After breakfast I took my stuff back to the room and we had another roommate. It was kind of weird though, I came in when she was on her way out, so I said hi and introduced myself, but all she kept saying was sorry and then she left! I thought she was French, but turned out she was from Argentina!
Anyway, around 10 am I went to check out that interesting building I saw the other day. Turned out the be the Queen Victoria Building, an arcade like the Strand, only way, way bigger!!!
It really was a huge building, if you go in on one side and go all the way through, you end up in another street! The building is one big block, so from North to South and from East to West, you go from one street to another really!!! Just huge!!
I didn’t do anything more than window shopping here also, lots of boutiques again, too expensive for my taste! There was level 1, 2 and 3 and on level 2 I found a tearoom, the Palace, where I had a Devonshire tea. Jasmine tea with 2 scones and jam and clotted cream, very good! After this I went on my round again.
The building itself it is a huge rectangle, but inside the stores are divided into two big ovals. In the center under the main dome was, I swear, a huge Christmas tree, covered in Swarovski stars!! The star was inside the dome, that’s how high it was!!
When I went to the bathroom later I found out that the real tearoom was above level 3. So I went up there and only took a look at it. I had already eaten, plus the prices were a little over my budget anyway. But I liked it, it had a typical British atmosphere, there were people singing carols, it was really nice.
Ok, so I told you this place was huge, I went to levels 1, 2 and 3, then I did a tour of the Ground floor and guess what?! They also had a basement full of small stores!! I went down there to take a look, and it went all the way up to the Town Hall train station…where I was earlier that morning in search of a toilet….but it was the last day before Christmas, so it was really, really busy…I just fled!! I didn’t know how fast I had to get back to the Ground floor, unbelievable!!!
Finally I went outside and I got some fresh air! Across the street I found another bookstore, this one wasn’t really that big, but it was good. And of course I had to take another look at that big bookstore I found the other day. But again it was just way too busy there, so I didn’t stay that long. I had found a place to get something to drink, to read a little and after that I went back to the hostel.
I passed a supermarket and I thought that everything would be closed the next day, since it was Christmas. So just in case I bought a salad for the next day. But today I went back to the Market City and tried some food from a different venue, very good also!
I went to bed around 10/ 10:30 pm, which was when our Argentinian roommate left…and the rest, as they say, is another story!!

Love
Linda