Sydney Day 4

Woke up to some cold and miserable weather on Tuesday but after our great good luck the prior three days it was hard to complain (much). We were right in the thick of the real working world - important looking business men and women bustled in their uniformly black and gray business togs. My sister and I felt like peacocks in a crowd of crows in our perky orange and blue sweaters. We speculate that because clothes are so expensive people don't buy as many and so want to make sure everything mixes and matches. Trinny and Susannah would have had a field day with this lot. We decided to head to Darling Harbour and the Australian National Maritime Museum. The celebration of Charles Darwin's 200th birthday continues with a free exhibit about his voyages on the Beagle. There are a number of replica and original vessels docked at the museum and you could easily spend hours exploring the Beagle, Endeavor, submarines, Navy ships, etc. As it was we spent a couple of hours just visiting the regular exhibits and the Darwin displays. As a big Darwin fan and prior visitor to the Galapagos Islands I loved seeing the original drawings of wildlife and speculating about how wonderful and horrific it must have been to be an explorer and researcher 175 years ago. The History of the Swimsuit exhibit was pretty snappy too. My brother in law and sister had spotted an interesting downtown food court so we decided to head there for lunch. The black clad crowds descend underground for feeding :-) Admittedly upscale for a food court it had all the falafel/kebab, Chinese, Italian, and European food stalls you could desire. Tea at the Westin and then off to the airport to head back to Perth. The airport was great, the flight and the guy with the obvious lung congestion issues (swine flu?) in front of me were not so great. It takes forever to cross this jumbo sized country. A great trip and Sydney is high on the list of cities I know I could visit again and again and always find something new and interesting to get into.