Hi y'all !
We got a full nights sleep and got nice and turned around, which makes for a good start to the trip. We had a walking tour of the Opera house this morning. Wow! The place is enormous. It was cool to duck in and sit and watch different productions warming up.
After that we had lunch nearby and watched the ships come and go. While we were at lunch we were joined by these guys.
They just went from table to table asking for sugar packets. 😆. So cute and it appeared they nest in a nearby tree.
The main event of the afternoon was a pianist concert in the main concert hall. Years ago I decided that we should not just tour a theater or an opera house when traveling, we should see a performance . ( same with sports venues.... see a game). It doesn't matter who is performing or playing, the point is to see the place in action.
So we did. And I slept through it. I swear it's the guy who makes all of the music that you hear in a spa! He has 9.7 million hits a month on Spotify and I just know its because spas have it tuned in. It was relaxing though.
There was a mix up on our room vs expectations at the Four Seasons this time. In 2020 we had a fantastic room with a full harbor view and it blew our socks off. We wanted that same view to wake up to this time on our redo trip. Instead we got a view of some harbor but not THAT one. We talked with them this morning and they said oh no we will change your room. They did. To another partial view room. Again, not what we paid for. Now, if you know us, you know, that if it's in your capability to fix it, then we were not letting up. So again we asked to move and got into this "discussion" of the difference between what our reservation said vs what the order was on their end. As my voice got louder a manager stepped in and decided to make us happy. And wound up telling us that with what we paid we should have had the other better room but that our travel agent screwed us over. We booked it through Capital One Venture Card travel. So "somebody" is getting an ear full when we get home because "somebody" charged us a lot and booked a lesser category room. We are waiting now to move rooms before dinner. We just want that view tonight and when we wake up!
Tomorrow we leave on the cruise! We will be nervous until it really clears the bay. I got a text from Celibrity this morning and my stomach was in knots. A little Covid PTSD.
Be back to report on the room change.
Dinner was a bowl of pumpkin soup, seafood crepes and fish and chips. It was fantastic. We had a show too. A group of Hare Krishna 's broke out into a street party with orange robes swirling.
It was a good time !
Our new room is just what we ordered. We have full view of the opera house and the bridge. It was pretty late today .
Ok. Going to bed. Can't wait for tomorrow . Love y'all.
Chris: The room situation was frustrating but it worked out and our new room is fantastic. Rhonda didn't really raise her voice that much and neither did I. We were just armed with the facts and records of what we booked and how much we paid. Rhonda is very good in these type of situations, she stays calm but determined and at times forceful. Maybe something to do with her education and profession !!
Our new room has the same view we had four years ago and it is spectacular. We can see Sydney Harbour with the Harbour Bridge on one side of the harbour and the Sydney Opera House on the other. In between are tons of sidewalk restaurants and ice cream stands and shops, it's so vibrant and bustling. It's one of our favorite places ever.
The opera house tour was really interesting and our guide was very good. The concept of a major performance facility for Sydney was first conceived in 1957. The next two years saw the concept mature into a firm plan as a building site was agreed on, a design competition was conducted and financing was secured. There were over two hundred and fifty designs developed and submitted. The winning bid was number 216 if I remember correctly.
I'm not going to try to go into all the details about the design and engineering and construction that the guide told us about, mostly because I didn't understand a lot of it and in the unlikely event you might be interested in learning more Professor Google knows a lot more than I do. But I will share a few high points that I found particularly interesting.
The winning bid was conceived by a Danish architect named Jorn Utzon. When Utzon submitted his design and it was selected as the winner much of the technology and engineering concepts did not exist to actually build the design. There is no interior support for the roof, or sails as they are called. Gravity and pressure from the interlocking arches hold them in place. After hearing that you tend to look up a lot and hope the concept holds up in the long term. The computer that was used to work out a lot of the engineering calculations was about the size of a modern bus and had less computing power than the first Apple consumer desk top computer. Construction began in 1959 and was completed in 1973. Because of schedule and cost overruns many in the New South Wales political class soured on the project and campaigned on cutting funding. Jorn Utzon took this as a slap in the face and resigned. He left Sydney and never returned. He died having never seen his completed masterpiece in person. It was dedicated in 1973 by Queen Elezibeth.
The Sydney Opera House is truly a masterpiece, It is art and architecture and engineering and creativity, it is beautiful and complex and striking and on and on. It is a work of art that host works of art and I think that's pretty cool.
The night view from our room is spectacular, the lights on the opera house and the harbour bridge and the lights on the boats and restaurants and bars are just beautiful. I just poured a glass of wine and I'm sitting on our lovely window seat, sipping my wine and thinking, what a perfect night this would be if Rhonda hadn't fallen asleep watching TV and wasn't snoring louder than a Mcculloch chainsaw cutting thru a petrified redwood.
Comentários