July 15th, 2007

Today we managed to both sleep in until 7:00! Hurrah! And sadly, still too early for breakfast at “our” breakfast place. Since it’s Sunday, the place opens a bit later. Instead, we walked to a café that was along the market that was being set up again, and had breakfast there. After breakfast we went back to try to get things we had forgotten at the hotel. Rob got his sunglasses; I failed at retrieving the Sydney guide book that I had used as a camera stand last night and then left on the roof of our hotel. Hope the picture comes out at least. Then we attempted to walk through the market while it was less crowded. However, it was very very cold, and Rob suggested we do something inside for a bit while the sun warmed thing up. So we finally walked through the Rocks Discovery Museum, which was very interesting. It traced the history of the founding area of Sydney from the Aboriginal population that had occupied the area, through the British settlement and the various immigrants that came in until now. It had some interesting artifacts and some video footage of the tumultuous times that the area went through in the 20th century. At some point, it became a rallying point for the working class, as an area that had long housed working class people, there was a huge civil protest make sure it stayed that way rather than being replaced by skyscrapers for the wealthy.
After the museum visit, the sun was out and it was much warmer, so we went back to the market again and wandered through the stalls. There was some neat stuff there! Beautiful photographs, interesting original crafts, and plenty of jewelry. Still, we only bought a silly Australian Christmas ornament. Then we headed to the Rocks Square and had oriental food from a noodle bar. It was fully decent, though I doubt we’ll go back for the two more meals that will get us a fourth free meal.
After lunch we walked along the water and then wandered through a couple of galleries. We both especially liked a gallery with work by Nelson Mandela. It is part of a collection that has pieces all over the world of drawings he did in memory of his time in jail. One of the features is his handprint, which he did by accident in his studio. Someone else noticed that the center of the handprint looked like the continent of Africa, and printed a number of lithographs of the print.
Next stop: The Observatory. A neat building with some fun tools of the trade from the 1800s, but the highlight came later. We signed up for a 3-D show and tour. The show was a cute “teach kids about science and space” video that also included a talk though the planets of our solar system. The tour took us up to one of the observatory towers, where the guide rotated and opened the roof, then pointed the telescope at Venus and let everyone have a look. Even in the daylight we were able to see the crescent shape that was in the sky! Very cool!
For the late afternoon we headed back to the hotel for some lounging about, and then went out to dinner. We finally decided to eat at a German restaurant we kept passing that advertised nightly “oom-pa-pa” music. When we asked for a table inside they told us they could only seat us next to the band at a big table we’d have to share. Darn. We were seated right next to a group of four already drunk young Aussies who were clearly enjoying themselves. Then we ordered German beer and German food – Rob got sausages and mashed potatoes and sauerkraut and I got spanzle with cheese, which turned out to be much like macaroni and cheese. It was all quite good and heavy. Shortly after we sat down, the promised oom-pa-pa band came on. They were fun. They also did “traditional Bavarian” knee slapping dances, played cowbells, and a giant Swiss horn. Then after we had finished our dinner, they started pulling people up on stage. Between Rob and the four Aussies, I was clearly going on stage to play the cowbells – and then for a surprise Chicken Dance! (And of course, Rob videotaped it.) This meant revenge: and Rob got up to do the “traditional Bavarian” hat dance, which was followed by a surprise knee slapping dance. (And I videotaped that.) By the time neither of us could stop laughing, why not also enter the drinking contest – which I dramatically lost, and am going to blame on the fowl tasting non-alcoholic beer they were using. It was, all in all, a lot of fun.