Sydney Opera House

When a friend sent me an e-mail about the Porsche 918, an awesome sports car featured at the Geneva Motor Show, it reminded me of the bubble-domed GM Firebird III, a futuristic car I saw at the 1962 World's Fair. My Dad took our family to that Century 21 Expo, where we were exposed to lots of futuristic concepts.

My dad, who grew up very poor in freezing rural North Dakota and had to start working when he was 7 to help his family make ends meet, never romanticized the past and saw his own life path as indicative of the bright future available to any Americans with the courage to embrace their freedom, which I'm happy to say he imparted to my sister and me. The World's Fair featured a functioning downtown monorail, a full-scale model of future of mass transit that still operates today, but the most impressive construction in Seattle was the Space Needle, which still identifies the city despite many imitators around the world, including similar Jetsons-like buildings we observed in both Sydney and Auckland.

In the modern world, there are a handful of modern structures that similarly identify cities: the Empire State Building or Stature of Liberty we saw in New York this summer, the Eiffel Tower which we all love in Paris, and, of course, the Sydney Opera House. When Julie stood beaming next to that Australian icon, she said, “This is what I've been dreaming of for years, standing right in this spot.”

We had started the morning in Sydney on a hop-on/hop-off tour, which gave us a quick overview of the city. In contrast to Europe's big cities steeped in history, Sydney is a relatively new city, and, in fact, one of the significant monuments was a huge red and white Coca Cola illuminated billboard built in the 1970s. Coca Cola is another great American brand like McDonald's that I appreciate even more when I encounter it overseas.

Our seats were on the open-air second deck, and we laughed as overhanging branches on tree-lined streets occasionally brushed our heads on the pleasant sunny day, but it was a gust of wind that took my cap off my head and blew it down the steps, where I was able to recover it before sticking it in my backpack. I was tempted to stop at Darling Harbor (which we visited later in the evening) and at a meat pie stand with wafting aromas that reached our bus, but our first stop was never in doubt for Julie: the Sydney Opera House.

We spent a lot of time just soaking in the views, walking around the grounds and circling around the bay to get a panoramic view back at the Opera House and the famous Sydney Harbour Bridge, affectionately known as “the Clothes Hangar.” We also came back to spend more time on our second day in Sydney, and because our cruise ship was docked right there, we also observed her upon boarding and during sail-away.

We ate lunch with a great view of the area at Portobello Caffe, which is one of the little umbrellaed sidewalk restaurants right by Sydney's great icon. The view and atmosphere made it a wonderful meal, despite the fact that Pepsi had the exclusive deal with Portobello instead of my personal favorite soda icon, Coke. If you go to Sydney, you can't miss their most famous icon, their Opera House.

However, we didn't see a show. Going out at night to see plays or music isn't Julie's thing, and I knew I would have lots of opportunities soon on the cruise ship for free, but if you want to see a show, I would recommend booking it in advance. I went into the box office to ask prices, and for whatever reason, I couldn't get a straight answer, although I suspect they were outside my comfort range. They also have tours available, and those should also be purchased in advance to save time and money. We were happy to our days in the sunshine instead.