My family liked to do jigsaw puzzles growing up, and I would say most of us are still avid puzzlers. Our favorite puzzle was an outline of the continent of Australia filled with different sections of individual pictures. There was a picture of a kangaroo, a kangaroo crossing sign, a bunch of sheep, some flowers, a few birds, a koala, a dingo, and naturally, the Sydney Opera House.
One of the reasons we loved this puzzle is that there were different sections with very unique pictures in each of them so my parents and four siblings could all choose our own part to work on, and there was less argument that someone else was “doing our section.”
I think this puzzle helped the Sydney Opera House to feel like an integral part of my Australian dream. It seemed so unique and iconic.
When I finally arrived in Australia after dreaming about it for my whole life, seeing the Sydney Opera House felt like being in a dream. I guess that’s what happens when you dream about something for so long. Or maybe that’s because the first time I saw it was after a 15-hour flight when I was trying to drive on the left side of the road for the first time in nine years.
The second time we saw the opera house was much more relaxed. My brother, Josh, and I were walking along with a family that I knew when I lived in China. I was amazed to see such an iconic and beautiful building in person, and I proved to everyone around me that I was a tourist by taking out my phone and snapping half a dozen pictures (all the pictures look about the same, so I won’t bore you by sharing all of them).
On our second day in Sydney, Josh and I drove to the Blue Mountains and took a hike down into the canyon. It was beautiful and I loved spending time in nature after being cooped up inside because of snow and cold for the past three and a half weeks in Kansas. However, my legs were out of shape after all of that down time, and my knees started aching almost unbearably. But I didn’t want to miss anything, so we finished our hike, stopped off at another sight-seeing spot, and then went back to our friend’s house to rest a bit before going to the opera house in the evening.
We ate a quick dinner with our friends and then drove to the subway and headed to the opera house. Unfortunately, the walk from the subway to the opera house was longer than I was expecting, and my knees were having such a hard time that I couldn’t walk fast.
By this time, we were running late, and Josh and I were both afraid that we were going to be late for the opera. That wouldn’t matter too much, right? I thought.
There was no line when we arrived. Apparently everyone else had arrived early enough to not be rushed.
“You better hurry if you want to make it,” the ticket attendant urged. Then he directed us up a long flight of stairs. I almost cried. How would I make it up that flight of stairs with my struggling knees in time for the performance?
I kept thinking of that seen from the Toby McGuire Spiderman movies where he was late for MJ’s performance and the usher refused to let him in, motioning for him instead to be quiet. I glanced at my watch and saw that we had about two minutes. That should be enough time, right?
These ushers were much friendlier than the Spiderman usher, and they kept urging us forward. “Come on, you can make it!”
We reached the top of that staircase, and they directed us into a side door with another staircase. And then another door with more stairs. Finally, we sank into our seats moments before the lights dimmed. Thankfully, we were on the end of the row. I was breathing heavily, and I tried to massage my aching knees. At least we could sit down for a good long time.
I’d never seen The Barber of Seville, and I was looking forward to it even though I don’t watch a lot of operas. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to peruse the program and get an idea of the story. I liked the set, and the actors were very expressive (even from our elevated position), but I was having a hard time figuring out what was happening in the story.
We also had my favorite kind of jet lag, which is the kind where you wake up early and fall asleep early, but don’t really feel tired during the day. However, this type of jet lag is not conducive to watching operas in the later evening. The beginning was going pretty well, but after about an hour, I was starting to lose track of the story, and I might have even closed my eyes once or twice.
Josh actually fell asleep and told me later that he woke up when everyone was laughing, and wondered what they were possibly laughing about. At intermission, Josh breathed a sigh of relief, “Well, that’s over.”
“Umm, I don’t think it’s over.” I answered.
Everyone around us started to get up and we followed them out to a little landing where we could look out over the harbor. The view was beautiful, but standing up and going up and down more stairs was not making my knees and therefore myself very happy.
We wandered around the opera house, trying to enjoy the views.
“I think I need to leave now,” Josh said. “I keep falling asleep, and it’s not worth it to stay.”
This was one of the few times on our trip that we had very different ideas about what to do. I really wanted to stay, but I was also pretty miserable. I was sleepy too, and my knees were sore. Also, I didn’t know how I would get home if he took the car from the metro station. So we decided to leave together.
At the entrance, an attendant stopped us, “Aren’t you gonna stay for the second half?”
“I wish we could, but…jet lag….” I tried to explain.
“Ahh, yeah, a lot of tourists make that mistake.”
Ugh. Here I was getting lumped into the silly tourist pile again. Unfortunately, tonight was the only night we were able to come to the opera, and I really had wanted to do it. “How much time is left in the opera?”
“Oh, about an hour more.”
I looked at Josh, but then I looked back at the giant staircase we had just come down. Even if I could convince Josh to stay, there was no way that I was gonna make it all the way back up all of those stairs to our seats.
“Too bad.” I finally said, and we left.
Fortunately, we didn’t leave Sydney with a bad feeling about the opera house because the next day, we walked over the bridge, enjoying another view of the building and then after lunch, we took a ferry over to Manly beach.
As we loaded onto the ferry, my knees were still aching from another day of walking, and they hadn’t quite recovered from our hike, so we headed to the closest seats we could find. These happened to be perfect for sight-seeing. We were on a bench on the outside of the ferry, and the ferry passed the opera house with our side facing it.
This ferry ride was one of my highlights of our time in Sydney (our friends had assured us we would like it, and I definitely agreed). We got to go quite close to the opera house, and my favorite pictures are from those spots. We didn’t even have to stand up to take nice pictures, and I thoroughly enjoyed being able to sit down and rest my knees for a while.
We started chatting with the couple next to us and found out that they were from a town outside of Sydney. Josh had planned our upcoming drive to Melbourne a little bit and knew that we would be heading to the Sea Bridge that they recommended us to visit. They were a delightful couple, and I enjoyed chatting with them.
I was also a bit sad to leave behind the beautiful opera house when we left Sydney, but I was excited about our upcoming adventures. And there were many adventures to be had!