Sydney: Day 2

In case you're to lazy to scroll down to Day 1, here's the link. Sydney: Day 1

Today was day 2, or day 3 of Sydney depending on when you started counting. Since its my second full day (and sadly, last) I'm calling it Day 2. Remember, the retroactive post is coming later this week.

Today started as most days start down in Australia: the application of SPF 50 Sunscreen. (I WILL NOT GET BURNT!) I figure I've pulled another one over the Sun and am ready for another fun exciting day in Sydney.

Then I step outside, and its raining. Fantastic! And I'm in shorts and a t-shirt, even better. I soldier on though, figuring I can find a place selling tacky Australia sweatshirts and that will be cool.

There are none at Central Station, so I figure there has to be something like that at my destination today: Olympic Park.

Those of you who know me, my love of sports is nothing unknown, and the Olympics are pretty much my heaven. So, to tour the Olympic Park in Sydney was very cool. Also, my now beloved Eels were taking on the Rabbitohs at Telstra Stadium today, convineiently located in Olympic Park. You have to plan these things.

To be honest, Olympic Park is kind of eerie, or at least it was today. You can tell that the place is designed to accomodate a lot of people. When I arrived, there were not many people there. A few tourists, a few people working out, and some security. It was basically empty.

I walked around most of the morning looking at the outsides of some of the buildings. You can't really get into any of them, so I resided myself to outside pics of the Aquatic and Tennis Centres, basketball arena, and other places.

One place I did get into was an energy officient bathroom (lingo note: Australians don't understand why Americans refer to it as the bathroom if there is no bath in the room. They just refer to them simply as 'Toilets') The inside of the restroom was lighted naturally, a large semi transperant canopy let light in, and it did a nice job. When it gets dark, there are lights inside that would shine light onto the canopy, which in turn distributes light throughout the room. Its much neater than I'm explaining right now, trust me.

Continuing to walk, I came across Telstra Stadium, which is actually quite hard to miss. Beside it there is a monument to the volunteers of the Olympics. This monument consists of a bunch of poles, many of which have the names of volunteers on them. Every volunteer is listed, and even though there are probably 100 names per pole, the number of poles is quite amazing. I want to say 78 poles had names on them (I think thats what I read) while others paid tribute to Aboriginal culture, the Aussie Olympic team, and the Games in general.

After lunch, I bought a ticket to the match, and got decent seats as well. 29 rows from the action. I have some pretty neat pics of the game from this vantage.

Whats really cool about the NRL (National Rugby League...link on the right) is that each team has a junior team. Think of it as minor league rugby. Anyway, before the main game, the teams' junior squads square off for a match. No one really pays attention to it, but its fun to watch. Here, the Eels dominated 42-12. It was awesome, even if no one actually cared.

Unfortunatly, the main match was the opposite. 31-6, Rabbitohs. If I have to hear "Gloy, Glory to South Sydney" one more time...I honestly don't know what I'll do. Song gets annoying after 5 tries...

For those of you scoring at home, the Eels are 0-2 in the comp this season. I'll discuss the game more in a later post, something along the lines of an introduction to rugby.

Back to Canberra tomorrow morning. Until then, cheers!

Alan