Comparing Sydney

Sydney is one of the most beautiful cities I have ever been too. It may be a little dirty and smelly in some places, but overall the air is fresh and the parks are green. Our day here was lounging in Sydney in the was sunny skies with only a little chill. Not only was the weather nice but so was the view! The bay is absolutely amazing even if we only got a little peek at it because of the downpour of rain that came down. We headed over to a popular mall that was actually owned by Westfield, a name recognizable by us Americans. It was about 5 stories high and had so many high fashion stores, mostly ones we would never have back home. There was really only one store we found in our short amount of time that was inexpensive and not so fancy looking. Next was the Sydney Tower that was something like the Chicago sky box in the Sears Tower. I was a tall needle like structure with huge windows all around with 360 views of the city. They even had a green screen back round for those who wanted an "authentic" city landscape, even though you could just go all the way to the top. Soon after that the weather started to get worse and rainier. This is when we took a trip to the Sydney bridge and harbor. Chicago also has it's large body of water with little canals and rivers running throughout the city so it wasn't a big surprise to have water running down the middle of the city. One big difference between cities was the Rocks and the market within. Thea market happens every weekend and it sells all sorts of clothing, jewelry, and food. It is sort of a farmers market but ten times larger and better. There is also a lot more expensive think at their stalls than I would usually expect. Our farmers markets aren't really in the city and they are much more low key. Although they are at a set and sell all those things I mentioned earlier, they just don't compare. Sydney's architecture is a lot more European looking with its old buildings and cobblestone walkways.

Today was spent entirely in Sydney exploring the city on tours and on our own. The markets were so great and fun to look around because of all the different stalls and vendors. Walking around the city was beautiful and just learning about different historical areas was cool to see in this modern place. We had a lot of time to go hangout at the Rocks and enjoy some real Australian culture, something I think we are lucky we didn't miss just because we hadn't been there on a weekend or something.