We arrived in Sydney just in time to enjoy a Friday night with Catherine's great friends Brooke and Caine. We met them downtown at a Chinese restaurant called Golden Century. One entire wall was devoted to fish tanks containing everything from Barramundi to crabs. I had never seen this sort of setup before - it was really something. Catherine, Brooke, and Caine took care of the ordering, and our waiter brought the selected creatures by the table for our approval before they were taken off to be made into dinner. It was quite a sight to see a still-live fish flopping in a plastic bag - really makes you think about where your food is coming from.
Dinner was delicious. Everything was fresh, of course. And the company was great. Brooke and Caine are old friends of Catherine's, and they're as much fun to hang out with as she is. Well, almost as fun. I can't be dissing the tour guide.
After dinner we headed for the Opera Bar,
a large outdoor bar (you guessed it!) situated on the patio of the Opera House. Holy shit, was it a surreal sight to behold. Our first night in Sydney, and there we were, having drinks directly beneath the most iconic image that exists of Australia,
aside from, perhaps, crocodiles and kangaroos.
Across the harbor, bats circled the towers of the Harbor Bridge, adding to the mystique of the evening.
I felt like I had stepped directly into a vampire movie. We went back to Brooke and Caine's and carried on into the wee hours of the morning. What a great way to get your bearings. I have a lasting image of being out on their patio, looking off into the distance at a downtown hotel that had been modeled on a cruise ship. After spending the last three weeks in the Bush and by the sea, to be in a major city was just mind-blowing.
