Day 3

We started off the day yesterday by taking our test on the book, In a Sunburned Country.  Once that was out of the way we began our journey to Olympic park, where the 2000 Sydney Olympic games were held.  It was a little bit out of town, which was really cool to see.  After about an hour of navigating through various subways and buses we finally arrived at the park.  Everything there still looks almost brand new.  I decided to try my hand at some cool photography by taking pictures of the statues that they had there representing each person that helped make the park happen. 

Here is my attempt at being artistic

It was really awesome to get to see the site some of the world’s greatest athletes came to compete against each other.  One of the most interesting aspects about Olympic facilities to me is the use of the buildings and stadiums after the Olympics.  The huge ANZ Stadium (where all of the track and field events and ceremonies took place) is used today for cricket matches, parties, corporate events, and maybe even some rugby matches too.  Another one of the venues is used for concerts and perhaps the best use of  a former Olympic building in my opinion is the use of the aquatic center as basically a public pool.  Anyone is allowed to come pay to use the facility for recreational swimming.  They even put in an indoor water slide for all of the kids in one area of the building. 

After we left the park we journeyed to the opposite end of Sydney Harbor to an area called Manly.  Here, we went to the beach to see the sunset and have dinner.  Manly was very cool because all of the bars and restaurants along the beach were completely open air and extremely nice.  Most of them were too nice for a college student’s budget, but we did find a cool bar on the top floor of a nice restaurant. 

Manly Beach

Leaving Manly we decided to head back home.  Once we took the ferry back over we began walking towards what we thought was the right direction.  I was positive that my keen since of direction would lead us straight back to the university.  I was wrong.  I ended up leading us in the complete opposite direction for a few miles enabling us to see another side of Sydney that we had not yet experienced before.  After asking for directions numerous times and finally finding the correct bus to take us back to the university, we made it home safely.