The next day we woke up a little later (well the rest of the family did). Then we watched church online. It was nice to feel a little normal there. Well not too normal since we have been in person at church, but it was nice tot see what the church was going over back home. After that we got ready for the day and again drove into downtown Sydney. We parked at the same place as the day before since it was relatively cheap compared to other parking garages. Then we walked over to the Queen Victoria Building area. We got lunch in that area and went to a dessert place called Black Star Pastry. We got a variety of pastries and then went to eat lunch. We got a variety of things and ate on some benches along the road outside the building. I had some dumplings and stir-fried pork. The pork was very spicy.
Then we walked up to the dock area because we had booked a harbor cruise, but not any harbor cruise. We booked a cruise on a tall ship. Yes, we went out on a sailing vessel. It was from the early 1900’s and we used as a shipping vessel for a while, and then was brought to Australia during a reenactment of a trip from Europe to Australia in the 1980’s (I think, but I don’t remember that exact time it came to Australia). It was fun. The book didn’t disagree with me or any of us. But that may be that we never left the harbor and so the waters were very calm. It was cold and windy and that allowed them to get a speed from the sails. As we were heading out the captain informed everyone that we had all just missed Tom Cruise about 100ft away doing a promotional thing for the premier of the Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part 1 movie. Oh well… (I am not a huge Tom Cruise fan so no loss there). The time was fun, and we enjoyed the cruise. I put on my hat from the observatory and “B” said I looked like a sailor, hence the picture you have here of it. After that we headed back to our place. We stopped at a grocery store for just a couple things, but that turned into a bunch of stuff (my wife really shouldn’t be allowed to grocery shop). We ended up with more treats and snacks on top of what we needed for dinners and breakfasts. We then made a good plan for the next day. It was a good day. I wasn’t sure how the harbor cruise was going to go over with the girls, but they really enjoyed it. They both got to pull on ropes to help put of the sails, and they liked seeing the sights from the water.
Another day was upon us and we had a couple things planned. We again headed downtown. We wandered back to the Queen Victoria Building so “B” could get her Jurlique beauty stuff. She learned of this stuff when we first came to Australia and she enjoys it. It is made in Australia, and so while we were here she wanted to get to a Jurlique store and stock up. And there was a store in the Queen Victoria Building. “B” spent over an hour trying to determine what she wanted to get. The girls spent the first half of that time with her in the store while I wandered around some. I thought they looked bored at one point and I asked if they wanted to wander with me some, and they did. So we wandered around and looked into other stores on the floor we were on. There wasn’t anything that we wanted to look at more closely so we didn’t go into any stores. “B” finally finished up and we all wandered some through all 4 floors of the building. It is a place with lots of very expensive store and as a result we didn’t see anything we needed nor wanted. So, that was the first thing we wanted to get done.
Then it was time to wander up to the Sydney Opera House for a show. On the way we stopped at a food court area and found some good pasta for “G” and myself, and “A” and “B” had fish and salads. We all agreed it was a pretty good lunch. The show we went to was a kids circus. It is performed only by kids that are all enrolled in a school where they are teaching kids how to be performers. It was only an hour but it was a fun time.
Afterwards we headed out and had to determine what we were doing next. The Opera House is right next to the botanical garden and so we talked about heading through there back to the car, but then there was discussion about wandering elsewhere. We all ended up arguing about what to do and as a result we lost track of time and missed getting into the garden before it closed. That meant we had to walk along streets to get back to our car. It was a bit tense between some of us because of placing blame on each other for not making decisions, but that happens. We eventually worked things out. We did wander through the New South Wales library on the way back to the car, and that was interesting. You can’t access any of the books without reservations. They had a couple displays setup that you could wander through, and we did that. There was one about kids books and how they were written by the authors. Finally headed back to our place, I found the last free all day parking spot available a few blocks from our place and parked there. That was good since we weren’t sure what we were doing the next day so having a parking spot that I didn’t have to get out of right away was a relief.
