Thursday December 23rd

The day started off as usual, at 515 a.m. with nephew Lucas doing his Olympic running trials above us. After checking emails and doing a bit of blogging, we were up by 730 and making plans for our day. We contemplated driving 2 hours to the Blue Mountains to do the gondola, train ride and cave spelunking but the boys weren’t up to another long car ride today.

We decided to go into Sydney and leave the boys with Granny and Melissa. We were on the train by 9 and in the city by 10. We stopped for ‘someone’ to get a latte first and then into the marketplace to pick up some last minute Christmas gifts and souvenirs for Canadians in Paddy’s market.  We spent an hour there and caught the train to Circular Quay. We toured the Customs House with its 3D models of the city under glass in the floor.  We went to the deli for a quick chicken Panini sandwich and then off to the train for a quick trip over to St. Mary’s cathedral for mass.  We toured the park in front and enjoyed the giant fountain as well as the buskers – particularly the giant bubble making fella.

 St. Mary’s cathedral was breathtaking. At almost 200 years old, it was absolutely majestic. We toured around a bit inside and weren’t allowed to take pictures obviously.  We were ‘moved’ by the Holy Spirit to actually attend confession – fearful of lightning bolts destroying such a beautiful church – alas, all was well and mass was over in 23 minutes – complete with communion.

We left the church and went back by train to the Quay and toured the Sydney Opera House.  An amazing facility with such unique architecture, the documents that show how it was designed/built was fantastic.   We bought a couple things at the shop and headed out to see the harbour.

We walked into the next community called The Rocks and found a local pub called Hart’s. They had a 2 for 1 deal on burgers and a couple of pints. We had a great visit with the cook and bartender and talked Canada/Aussie for a bit before striking out and walking 8 blocks over to the theatre district. We wanted to see the Broadway musical ‘Jersey Boys’ as it just started playing in Sydney. It had won quite a few awards and luckily enough there were tickets available in the 4^th row on the end for only $40 each! Sweet!

 After purchasing tickets, we wandered down Pitt St., the heart of the shopping district and enjoyed people watching. There were buskers every 50 feet for 10 blocks. Some absolutely amazing artists/singers as we headed to the Sydney Tower, towering far above the city and at least twice as high as the Calgary Tower. After viewing the city for half an hour, we did some more shopping and headed to the show. It was Fantastic! The story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons had tons of singing and a great storyline.  After leaving the show after 11, we had to wait 30 minutes for our train and another hour home. We crawled into bed at 1230 and called it a day…