Allie in Australia: Symphony, Rugby and Row Boating

So if you've been keeping up with my blog you know that I went to the Opera House for a play a couple months ago. This time TEAN provided us with tickets to see a symphony at the Sydney Opera House. The tickets that MK and I received were for Tchaikovsky at the Ballet and the symphony took place in the main concert hall of the opera house. I couldn't believe where I was and what I was doing. It's been a dream of mine to see a symphony at the opera house since I think I knew the opera house existed. This group of musicians were SO TALENTED. Watching them truly made me miss playing my clarinet and pushing it away with the start of college. Oh well. I would never be as great as these people anyways. They're INCREDIBLE. The symphony was about two hours long but I probably could have sat there for longer just listening and listening. It really annoyed me that other kids from our program left during intermission, didn't go at all, or were just behaving immaturely throughout the entire performance. I hope they look back on this experience one day and regret their options. Maybe it's just me but I think having the opportunity to see a symphony performed at the Opera House is a great one.

TEAN also provided us with tickets for a rugby game on ANZAC day. ANZAC day stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps and is a national day of remembrance in Australia and New Zealand. It occurs on April 25 every year. Work and school is cancelled for everyone and the morning is full of remembrance services while the afternoon is rugby and drinking. It was so neat going to a rugby game! The match was between the Sydney Swans and the Illawarra Dragons. One team was red and white and the other was red, white and blue so we decided that we would keep switching sides throughout the game, ahahaha. One thing I noticed that I totally hadn't thought about was that OBVIOUSLY they don't play the American national anthem before the game; they play their anthem. It was neat hearing it and watching all the Aussies. It was also pretty exciting to drink a beer during the game (well, I had cider because I still think beer is disgusting) and fit in with the rest of the crowd. We had such a fantastic day!

A while back we bought a groupon for a boat hire at this place called Audley Boat Shed... I think. A couple weeks ago we decided to use it since we weren't sure how much longer the nice weather would last! What an adventure this day was. Oh man. So we took the train to an area called Sutherland. It was about an hour away. When we arrived we easily found a taxi who then drove us to the actual boat shed. The boat shed was located in the Royal National Park and wasn't a far cab ride from the train. We rented two row boats: one for Jenna and Chelsea and one for Morgan and I. Me being me I fall right into the water while climbing in the boat. Starting out the day soaking wet, I took my dress off and let it air dry while I soaked up the sun. It was actually a really great weather day. We rowed around for hours, obviously singing 'just around the river bend....' the entire time. This area was sooo beautiful and once we got the hang of rowing it was a really relaxing afternoon. We "parked" our boats and ate our lunches while listening to music and dancing in the boat. Note to self: dancing in a row boat could end badly. Luckily, the camera survived the afternoon without falling into the water. Our other hilarious adventure of the afternoon, which I will spare the details on, was the urge to pee while out in the middle of nowhere. Yeah, that was interesting. The end of that story. Hahahaha. After about 5 hours out on the water we decided to call it a day. We asked the man working on the boat shed if he could call us a cab and he told us that cabs don't like coming down here and that it was only about a half hour walk to the train station so off we went. Half hour walk... yeah right. An hour later and we're still walking on this narrow hilly road with NO SIDEWALK. Seriously was scared for us. A man pulled over and asked if we wanted a ride. While tempting, my familiarity with Criminal Minds convinced me to turn him down so we continued on our trek. Eventually this narrow road ended and OH, look where we are... a HIGHWAY. So we pretty much had to stop traffic while we crossed this major highway. People were looking at us like we were crazy and rolling down their windows to see if we needed help. One lady even asked us if we wanted her to call the police. FINALLY we reached Loftus... the train station and I had never been happier to see public transportation. Eventually we arrived home safe and sound and capped off the day with a visit to the hot tub.