Arriving into downtown Sydney via the train crossing over the famous harbour bridge, the first glimpses prove that it is simply stunning. The opera house sits majestically on the sparkling water, and there is an exciting air of activity of ferries, sailboats, and cruise ships. We squealed a bit (well, one of us did), and jumped off the train on the north side of the harbour to take a leisurely walk back over the bridge. The opera house is beautiful and unique from every angle, so many a photos were snapped. Sydney has a fantastic central transportation system which incorporates their ferries, trains, and buses, so we hopped on a long ferry to an unknown stop and enjoyed the late afternoon glow looking out over the gajillion dollar (actual technical term) real estate along the little harbour beaches. We basically cruised and walked around for 4 days and loved every second of seeing where the journeys would take us. We joined two free walking tours, and especially enjoyed our evening one touring "The Rocks" - the historic downtown district of Sydney. Cobblestone streets, old pubs; at some points, you briefly thought you might be back in London. (Then you realized you were squinting because the sun was in your eyes - oh right, not England.)

It was here in Sydney, at the world famous Bondi Beach, that we finally dived in (ha) and took a surfing lesson. And now we come to the explanation behind the title of this post: Sydney, a big, functional city, gets to have a beautiful beach IN THE CITY. Yes, you take a bus for a little while to get there, but…it's part of Sydney! How can one city have so many wonderful things? Bondi is a little crescent shaped beach with perfect surfing waves to learn on, so we zinc-ed up our noses, put on our wet suits, and proceeded to have a ridiculously fun time for the next two hours. We tediously stood up for a few seconds (a few times!) until our arms were too tired to push our bodies to standing position anymore, whereby we just continued to ride into the shore looking like seals (shouldn't have skipped those tricep dips). Later strolling the coastal walk between Bondi Beach and Coogee, we would discover that tricep dips, chin ups, push ups, etc., are an integral part of being a Sydneysider, as everyone enjoying this area seemed to be both exercising intensively, and in crazy good shape (but did they get to enjoy fish and chips by the sea after their surf??) Troy is excited because he thinks that because Clare really enjoyed surfing, she will join him snowboarding back in a freezing Ontario winter. That's cute. :)

After not becoming a statistic on the "Bondi Rescue" TV show, our second greatest accomplishment in Sydney was finding and splitting an $80 per night hotel room between 3 people. Poor Vanessa was in a bunk bed above our double bed, and the bathroom/shower was approximately the size of an airplane bathroom, but….score!