May 28

Hello again! Since today was our last day in Sydney it was quite an action-packed day with lots of sightseeing. The first place that we started out was at the Sydney Opera House with a tour led by Paul. Before going to see the Opera House up close I never knew that it was actually two separate structures with a breezeway in the middle. Contrary to the name the Sydney Opera House does not put on operas very often, it is mainly plays, cinemas, and concerts that happen within those giant sails. The design is from a Danish man named John Utzon which ended up being slightly modified over time because of the engineering and stability issues. When people from different countries come to the Sydney Opera House they do a recognition of countries where they have a moment of silence to show respect. Inside there are 3 different theaters named the Playhouse, Drama theatre and Concert Hall. Playhouse is where all the Shakespearean plays occur. This theater is special because there is no wing space up on stage so the directors must plan how they want their backdrops to look and most of them choose to create backgrounds out of lights. Originally when this theater was built it was used as a cinema for showing surfing movies and attracted surfers from all over the continent.

The Drama Theatre is usually used by the Sydney Production Studio. The most unique thing about this theater is the first three rows of seats because they will be covered for shows done by Aboriginal people because they cover their bodies in paint. Another reason the seats are so unique is because they are below sea level and can be removed and the stage that they sit on can either be elevated for more stage space or lowered for an orchestra.

The last theater, Concert Hall, is the biggest one in the Opera House, with multiple decks of seats, is where the majority of the orchestras play and also sporting events used to be hosted here such as a boxing match, sumo wrestling matches and body building competitions. This theater is where Arnold Schwarzenegger won his last Mr. Olympia. Concert Hall is also where they have their concerts because it is the biggest and the acoustics are the best. I think that the coolest thing about this theater is that they will show films and bring in an orchestra to play the score of the movie. At the top of Concert Hall you can see these giant see-through rings which are actually used to better the acoustics and are called Acoustic clouds. Before the building could be finished a new crew was hired and the new manager did not like Utzon so he kicked him off the project and Utzon never got to physically see with his own two eyes his finished project. There is a room in the Opera House that is dedicated to him and the only performers in there are a grand pianists or other singles. The giant painting that is shown at the bottom is hanging in his room and depicts how Utzon saw one of Bach’s songs; for example, the giant black strokes were heavy notes.

         Fun fact about the Sydney Opera House is that during the building of the structure no one was injured even though there was no use of safety equipment or safety harnesses.

         After the tour was done we split off into three groups for lunch and some of us went to the Munich haus for lunch. Once lunch was over we all accidently met back up in the Rocks Markets for one last Sydney shopping experience, with a stop at the Gelatissimo shop for gelato. We all came back around the same time and some of us did laundry while others journaled or went up to the rooftop to read and enjoy the view for one last time. We were all downstairs ready to go to our dinner cruise by 6:30 so we walked to Darling Harbor.

         Once we got on the boat a lot of people were feeling seasick because the waves were knocking against the boat hard. We were not even out of the dock by the time that people started lining up to get their dinner at the buffet. It was nice being a buffet because this way everyone could find things that they would eat and a lot of people tried new things. Once we were done eating you could either sit at the table and continue talking while waiting for dessert to arrive or you could go up on deck and look admire the lights and music from Vivid Sydney. During the dinner cruise the boat circled Sydney Harbor multiple times and had to go back across the bridge a couple of times because the waves were rough from so many boats being in the harbor at one time. After the cruise ended back in Darling Harbor it was just a short ferry ride back into Sydney Harbor. On our walk back to the hostel we could see all the lights in downtown Sydney and the mini displays that were all throughout the city. Back at the hostel we just had to finish up packing to be ready at 7 am to depart for Canberra.

This is Drama Theatre

This is Concert Hall