About to leave Sydney, Australia
That first day in the Tasman Sea was very difficult. As I said before, Carter was called down to do the clinic and truly had to struggle to hold it together. He had many patients, having to go throw up between them. He limped into the room at dinner time, shed all of his clothes and collapsed into bed. I went to hang up his coat and realized that it must have been several pounds heavier than normal – just in perspiration. Poor guy! As the evening and night wore on, the sea became more calm and he was able to feel more normal. Of course, it was the night of multiple phone calls and one return to the clinic. What a night!
We had another day at sea to recover and have had the last 2 in Sydney. Our stay here has been wonderful. We spent yesterday, while it was pouring down rain, visiting the Opera House and taking a backstage tour. As one of the perks of the tour, they give you a discount on a cup of tea at their outside café. That for me was so much fun because we were able to sit and people watch to the fullest. The two things I found the most interesting were that the roof is covered by millions of tiles and not all of them are white. When you see the Opera House from afar you think that the roof is just coverage with concrete slabs. The other things was that the architect used some Mayan ideas, hence the numerous steps in and around the place.
Then after the tour, since it was now drying out, we walked the town and finally the Botanical Gardens. Carter went nuts with all of the birds and bats in the place. There was one lower garden that was just covered with bats hanging from every branch. It gave me the creeps and I just wanted to rush out of there. Carter took tons of photos!! I am sure that we have many of the same photos from 30 years ago – it would be fun to compare.
Today we got off early, right after clinic, and met with a couple who had been on the world cruise 2 years ago. They are now chaperoning a group on another ship, which happens to be here, as well. These were the people we met each morning for breakfast, and another avid reader. We were just going to share coffee, but both couples wanted to go on the hop-on-hop-off bus, so off we went. We decided to eat in China Town, but found that there was a huge New Year Celebration and that tram stop was canceled, so we eat at the fishermen’s’ wharf instead.
The wharf was a confusion of people, cars, buses and we couldn’t figure out where the restaurants were. So Carter went up to 2 younger men (late 20’s) and asked them where they would eat. They looked at him funny, but asked, “Why did you ask us?” He said, “Well, you look well-fed and I want to eat where you would.” They just laughed and told us to come along with them. They led us into a huge warehouse-like building which was teeming with people and fish stands, some tables and chairs. The way this place worked was that you chose your fish (oysters, shrimp, scallops, white fish, salmon, octopus, calamari, etc.), bought it first, then took it to a cooking stand and they would fry it, steam it, sauté it, whatever you wanted. Kathy and I were sent to find a table and within 10-15 minutes, the men came back with a Styrofoam plank holding two huge platters of fish. One platter was fried and the other steamed. Under all the fish were fries. I couldn’t even look at those little octopi, but all else was devoured in no time….What an experience!
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posted by Hills @ 1:11 AM
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