Goodbye Sydney

My last few days in Sydney started to wind down slightly, though still busy long days. Sunday the 9th was spent exploring the city with Olle. We started out with a swim at Coogee Beach, and then drove into central Sydney to the university campus where Olle had seen a really cool staircase for taking photos. Unfortunately the campus was closed as it was the weekend and we spent an hour there trying to have someone let us in. In the end we were let in to talk to security, who then very boringly just told us no, even though we where right by the stairs and it would have been nothing to him. Then we left the car in north Sydney and headed back into the centre of town, just wandering round and chatting. Slowly we made our way out to the Sydney Opera house walking around it before ending up in the Botanic garden were we saw some glimpses of the second day of SailGP. Oh and we popped into China Town on the way back home

Monday was the first and only really rainy day while I was in Sydney, and as such I made the most of it visiting museums. First up was the Australian Museum which was quite comparable to Naturhistoriska, having history, geology and natural history. Most interesting was probably their 100 artefacts exhibit showing a hundred treasures connecting to Australian history. Everything from a dinosaur fossil made of opal, to pacific island artefacts to WW2 spoils of war. Their exhibit on pacific history was also super interesting as this was an area where I have significant gaps in my knowledge, for example I did not know about the pacific “pseudo” slave trade where pacific islanders where kidnapped, coerced etc into coming for indentured work in Australia and the south American west coast.

Then I went on to the Art Gallery of New South Wales which was an unusual experience for me, especially as I started of in the contemporary art building which usually isn’t my thing. I’d say that maybe a third of the things there were to my liking, while there also was some truly strange pieces like a giant fabric of something like nylon hung from the ceiling with maybe a hundred pouches filled with turmeric and paprika powder. And then I also found the classical art building which was more to my liking, with some truly impressive artworks like Rorke’s Drift.

My final day in Sydney was spent at Taronga Zoo, which was a really nice experience. My first pleasant surprise was that I got a student discount from my Swedish Mecenat card in my phone which was a real surprise. The zoo itself was really good, though I did end up doing it a bit backwards only getting to the Australian animals at the end as I entered through the ferry entrance at the back. But I did get to see kangaroos, wallabies, platypuses, koalas, a lot of snakes that will kill you, and Tasmanian devils. The highlight how ever was probably the penguins which you could watch under water and it truly looks like they are flying around.

And that was my Sydney trip, eleven amazing days which felt like the perfect length of time to experience the city.