Sydney and Football

I finally made it! It`s hard to believe I`m finally here, looking out my window at the Sydney skyline! Everything went surprisingly well with Air Canada, my total travel time was about 24hrs exactly. The 16hr long haul flight over the Pacific was great, as the plane was only about half full, allowing me to have a row of 3 seats to myself, and getting some decent sleep to get over the jetlag when landing in Sydney.

Yesterday, I spent the day mainly taking it easy, touring around Potts Point (where I`m staying), catching an afternoon nap to get over the jetlag, then having an evening dinner at one of the nearby pubs. I found out that I would get my first taste of Australian football the following day, when Patrick informed me that he and I were invited out a game tomorrow afternoon!

The football game was the Sydney Swans against the Westcoast Eagles at the Sydney Cricket Stadium. I ended up wearing a good choice of colours, a red and white shirt, as the Swans colours are the exact same, and it wasn`t soon hard to find out that we were walking the right way to stadium after spotting the sea of fans coloured in same duo. It wasn`t too hard to pick up on the AFL rules either, kinda like the `cleaner`version of rugby (NFL), with a fewer tackles into the dirt, and more fast-action passing back and forth. It was cool seeing the game on a round-field, it was actually a pretty large pitch! After getting the scoop of the rules from our aussie guide, Jane, we started to really get into it. Turns out we weren`t the only Canadians there either! When the Swans kept scoring, I noticed a red-white flag being waved at the far side of the stadium, and turns out it wasn`t a Swan`s flag but a Canada Flag lol. The Swans ended up sweeping the game with the total score at 115 versus 57 at the last quarter!

After the game, Jane heard that I hadn`t been out to see one of the nearby beaches yet, so invited us out to dinner in her suburb, Bronte, for dinner and a view of the bay. Unfortuantely it was past sundown by the time we got to Bronte, but it wasn`t hard to make out the nice cliffs and sandy beach, I`m definitely going to go back there during the day sometime for some swimming! Apparently the waters here are still nice and warm at about 22C or so, I`ll definitely love that!

We had dinner at a little French-cuisine restaurant along a street filled with little patios (I`ll have to find out the name of the place later), and it was definitely a treat, as I don`t think I will eat this fine too often while I`m here lol, but it was fun to indulge! I had the cajun grilled salmon with yummy potatoes and veggies, followed by Tiramisu for dessert, mmmmm. I also had coffee with my dessert, and forgot how their coffee`s different here. If you asked for what you`d normally order at home, a regular black coffee (which is called a short-black), you`d end up with a very strrroong small cup of what seems like a double-espresso, and no milk. I guess what we drink back home would seem more like diluted coffee-flavoured water ;). I`m finding out that it`s best to just go with a flat-white, a mix of half coffee and half hot-frothy milk. The strength is about the same, and I think after awhile, the stronger milk flavour will grow on me. There`s definitely no shortage of coffee cafes around Sydney, but the coffee is generally fancier, and the cafe`s aren`t open late.. no Tim Hortons around here!

So that pretty much sums up what turned out to be a great day around the city on day number two on my trip! I also had my first day of a few local rain showers, but I definitely wouldn`t complain about it, I could really get used to these daily humid temperature highs of 27C, and having a nice cool breeze at night.

Hope all`s well back home!