If we had to sum up Sydney in one word it would be, quite simply, 'WOW'; we love it here! I expected to prefer Melbourne as it's meant to be the more European of the two, but Sydney is more immediately in-your-face-amazing and, like the fickle creatures we are, we have been seduced by its instant delights ;-)

On our first day here we woke up itching to get out and see the city. We're staying by Central Station so it's only a fifteen minute walk to the Opera House and the harbour. The walk itself was great: we strolled through Hyde Park; popped into the Parliament House of New South Wales, which just happened to be having an open day with activities etc; picnicked in the beautiful Botanic Gardens (visitors are urged to 'walk on the grass...smell the flowers, hug the trees...') and eventually made our way round to Mrs Macquarie's point, where there is a stunning view of the Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge behind it. It was a definite 'wow' moment, helped by the fact that the sun had come out and was dancing on the water in front of us and beating down on our shoulders. After standing there for some minutes, just taking it in, we moved in for a closer look. The Opera House is even huger and weirder, in a good way, up close. Inside there are little spotlights round the toilet paper - that's how posh it is!

It took us a while to find the pedestrian entrance to the Sydney Harbour Bridge but we eventually got there. Once on it, we walked along to the southeastern pylon (which was thankfully the closest one to us), as you can climb up inside it for a good view of the harbour - another 'wow' moment. There was also lots of information about the building of the bridge. For example, we found out that it was designed by an English company, took 8 years to build and 16 people died (!!) during the building of it.

That night we went out with people from our hostel. I remember lots of running around from bar to bar, countless free drinks, dancing like a maniac and arguing passionately with a bouncer about the unfairness of refusing entry to women just because they were wearing skimpy underwear - before being advised that the sign saying 'no thongs' referred to footwear :-s

The next morning was painful. I found lying very still in a darkened room helped slightly, but not much. Luckily by lunchtime I had sufficiently recovered to risk venturing out, so we headed down to 'The Rocks' where the first European colonies settled. There's a cool market there every weekend with lots of craft, clothing and food stalls. We ate delicious corn on the cob dipped in chilli from one stall then spent the next ten minutes passing a water bottle back and forth so that we could splash it on our lips. Wimps.

Yesterday we caught a bus to Bondi Beach to watch the surfers and sunbathe. There were lots of people having barbecues above the beach and, for some reason, hundreds of dogs everywhere. I can imagine Bondi is the best place to be in Sydney when it's hot; it's strange to think it's so close to the city centre. We only got around 45 minutes of sunshine before thick grey clouds rolled in but it was a good 45 minutes!

Today we are chilling out in Darling Harbour :-)