First Full Day In Sydney

After we arrived yesterday, a Goway representative was at the airport waiting to transport us to our hotel. So far, so good! We were able to check into our hotel as soon as we got here. I thought we might have to leave our bags with the concierge and come back later to check in, so that was a nice surprise. We showered and headed out to Sydney Olympic Park to get accredited. With our accreditation we get free transportation on the ferries, buses, trains and a discount on the monorail. We ran into a lot of people from Edmonton and other parts of Canada. We were quite rushed because we had the bridge climb scheduled for last night, but – pinch me because I think we are in Australia, right? - it was very windy, cold and raining kangaroos and koalas – yikes – so we postponed our climb until Saturday. We walked around in an area called “The Rocks” and went for dinner. Australian people are very friendly and I am amazed because they never have anger or “damn those tourists” frustration in their voices and they always want to help if you need it. I had an amazing sleep, finally after 45 hours of being awake and just having the odd kangaroo nap.

Today we started the day off with a run, but I didn’t get very far before I decided to turn back. I still have remnants of my cold and it was difficult to breathe. I hope it is gone before my first race in three days. Along the run I saw numerous waterfalls; they are big on their water here. There was a 50 meter swimming pool on the ocean side and that was pretty cool. I stopped at a Starbucks and they don’t have the same menu as in Canada. The coffee here is called “flat white”. They only have café lattes instead of the various flavours we have.

Time to go back to Sydney Olympic Park to check out the fitness and lifestyle exhibits. The ANZ Stadium is the stadium where the opening ceremonies take place and where a lot of events took place in the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games. WOW! This building is massive and a Sydneysider (that’s what they call themselves here) told us they brought the stadium in a bit and made it smaller because it was too difficult to watch football. I can’t imagine it any bigger. Just outside the stadium is a walkway of all the Gold, Silver and Bronze winners of each sport, and their names are engraved in the appropriate colour. I took a picture of Simon Whitfield’s name on the Gold ribbon for triathlon. Our feet were beginning to get a bit sore so we boarded the train to go back to the hotel. A funny thing happened. I ran into a local St. Albertan on the same train as us and somebody from Prince George. It’s so funny to meet people who are from the same country, let alone the same city as me, even though we are all here for the same reason. After getting off the train, we got lost on our way to the hotel. We finally found our way and got to the hotel room to drop off our loot (actually, my loot) and then decided to go to Chinatown, which is huge and apparently a lot like Hong Kong according to Janis, and another funny thing happened. I was sitting at a table and who goes walking by but Sally MacSephney and her husband. I ran over and pulled her over. After chatting for awhile her and her husband took off to do some exploring. We were getting cold – it is not very warm here! Did I mention that it has not been nice weather? We got lost again even though we thought we traced our steps. We’re going to have to start carrying bread crumbs with us! Damn, maybe I should have invested in that GPS after all.