We safely arrived in Sydney today, where we were greeted with nice warm temperatures in the mid 70s. The trip from the airport to our hotel was interesting as our taxi driver told us about how Sydney has recovered from the pandemic. The tourist trade Is booming and there is construction everywhere you look. Towards the end of the ride, he started talking about health and cooking and told us that he uses coconut oil instead of corn or olive oil due to its ability to cook in high temperatures. I guess you learn something new every day.
We are staying at the Hotel Coronation in the downtown area. It is an inexpensive budget hotel, but it is clean and convenient. Trevor, who works the front desk, ensured we had an early book in and was extremely helpful. During the afternoon we did manage to catch up on our sleep.
While we were waiting for our hotel room to be readied, we went across the street to an historical shopping arcade called the Queen Victoria Building. Locally known as the QVB, it is a late-nineteenth century building in the Sydney central business district. The architecture is called Romanesque Revival and the building is a long narrow domed hallway. It is occupied by many high-end retail outlets and small cafes. We spent about an hour window shopping.
Outside of the building they were shooting a movie. It seems to me that filming a movie is mostly just long periods of inactivity followed by a view seconds of action. When we entered the building, the crew was just milling around the corner of the street and we left, it seemed that they hadn’t moved.
For supper we strolled around the hotel area and found a
nice Italian restaurant called Macchiato Wood Fire Pizza. During our travels we went along Pitt street
and George street. This is a very busy
area and seems to be an area filled with Koren, Japanese and South Asian restaurants. Along Pitt street there were several buskers
playing and they were attracting large crowds. Outside of City Hall there was
an evangelic revival meeting going on. I swear that every sentence uttered by
the minister had at least two Jesuses embedded
in it.
We are only staying the one night in this hotel before we meet up with the Kelly’s in the Hyde Park Hotel. The reason we didn’t book the additional night in Hyde Park was that it was fully booked as are all of the nicer hotels in Sydney. It turns out that we are staying in Sydney on the opening weekend of World Pride. This is a huge event with visitors coming from all across the world. Sydney has gone all out to welcome the Alphabet people.
On our plane trip into Sydney, we got to talk with the organizing committee for the next World Pride event, which is being held in Washington. They were coming to Sydney to see how it was done.
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