Recently, I spent almost a week in Sydney, visiting Jeff and Alex. Their apartment is very cool, with a beautiful view of Sydney Harbour, the Opera House, and the city skyline. It could use a bit of a clean-up though, as I’m sure they would agree.Overall, the trip was a lot of fun. We went to a bunch of awesome beaches, including a great day walk from the famed Bondi Beach to Coogee Beach. We chilled out pretty hard as well. Bondi:

Mackenzie’s Bay:

Tamarama Beach:

Bronte Beach:

Coogee Beach:

In addition, I was able to check out the Opera House, which I actually found to be a bit cooler than expected. If you were to ask the 9th grade Will what the word “Australia” reminded him of, he would probably say that the Sydney Opera House is the first thing that comes to his mind. It was really cool to finally see it; it’s quite picturesque. Sydney Harbour Bridge is nice as well.

Finally, Alex and I (after barely making a 7:15am train) traveled about three hours to the Blue Mountains one day, where we did a nice long five-hour walk. The scenery didn’t come close to that of New Zealand, but it was still a pleasant afternoon.

Kinda sweet.

Despite having a good time in Sydney, it is definitely not my city. Personally, I found it to be painfully common, and if you don’t like the beach, there’s just not a whole lot to do. It’s very spread out, and you basically need to take a train everywhere you’d like to go. The Opera House and the Harbour Bridge are nice (for an afternoon), the beaches are very nice (for two afternoons), but the prospect of spending more than three afternoons in Sydney, Australia is not particularly nice at all. I spent six. Yikes.

I’m very glad I chose to live in Melbourne, to say the least. Furthermore, if I’m going to be brutally honest, it almost angers me that people even attempt to compare Sydney and Melbourne, let alone favor the former. I just cannot figure out what makes Sydney unique. The people are noticeably meaner, and the city is noticeably dirtier. I struggled for about 45 minutes to find a place to eat one day, to the point that I was eagerly looking for a Subway or Mcdonalds. Again, Sydney is definitely not my city.

In any event, I do maintain that I had a good time, although I wouldn’t go back just to visit. However, I did get a chance to take some fairly rad pictures, shown below.

In conclusion, Sydney is pretty “meh.” If you are like my father, who can’t stand the beach, it’s really not for you.

P.S. I just booked the most unfathomably wicked 26 days of travel for the month of June. Eighteen of these days will be spent touring the east coast of Australia, and 8 will be spent on the North Island of New Zealand. Please send me an e-mail (williamabrwolf@gmail.com) if you’d like to see the itinerary, and I’ll gladly ship it your way. Many pictures are included.

Stay fresh,

William