Good Morning! It was our last day here and we tried to cram a thousand last things into our day. We got up really early, ate breakfast, and caught the bus to the Wharf. We walked a couple of blocks and caught the 9:30 tour of the Opera House. (Erich and Pam walked to the rocks instead to do some shopping and scope out where the teens might like to go after their tour.)

The tour was awesome! Our tour guide, Toni was a lot of fun. She said that the Opera Theatre was going to be closed for an all day rehearsal starting at 10am, so she took us in there first. The theatre is one of five different venues housed in the Opera House. It holds 1,547 people and rotates 5 different operas at any given time. They never have the same opera two days in a row! This means that they have to change sets up to three times in a 24 hour period depending on the show times. Because the Opera House is on a peninsula, it doesn’t have the backstage room on either side of the main stage like most. They solve this problem by having huge lifts above and below the main stage, that literally raises or lowers the sets as needed. The entire inside of the building is made up of Australian Timber wood, to help with acoustics. This hall also boasts a Wagnerian Orchestra pit, which just means that it is located under the main stage instead of out in front of it.

The next hall we went into was the Concert Hall. We were lucky because the Sydney Orchestra was rehearsing and let us come in and take a listen. The sound was wonderful. Toni explained that the plastic rings that were hanging from the ceiling were put there to bounce the sound back down to the musicians (so they can hear what they are playing) along with letting the sound through, to the ceiling, so that it follows the curves in the wall for the audience to hear. This hall holds 2, 690 people and is only used for classical music. The lower seats in this venue are called stalls. The upper seats are called the dress circle, and the side seats are box seats. The organ in this room is outstanding! It has over 10,500 pipes! It was massive.

We learned a lot about the history of the building and saw some audio visuals to help with the telling of the story. There is a lot to hear, but one of the biggest things I remember is that it took 16 years (13 more than projected) and 102 million dollars to make it! That is some perseverance by the Australian government to make this happen! Ask your teens more about it. If they don’t remember, ask me.

After the tour we went to the Rocks and went shopping for souvenirs. (We walked a lot, but really didn’t mind.) We took the bus back to the hotel and all went our separate ways for lunch. Most of us rushed back to the hotel afterwards to change into our suits and go swimming in the ocean!

The Bombies were wicked! We caught multiple 20 footers and the rip was ferocious! We stayed between the flags and had a bitchin’ time. (Translation: The waves were huge. They were easily 20 feet high, and the rip tide was strong. We swam between the life guards flags and had a great time….just so you get a taste of the lingo. )

After the swim (where the water temperature was 64 while outside temperature was in the high 50’s) we either took hot showers or got in the hot tub. (See the theme here?) It was a really relaxing afternoon, and I think everyone had a great time. We went as a group to a restaurant called “Hurricanes” for dinner and then hit the IGA to get some Tim Tams for home.

Andrew, Emily, Maria, Carolyn, Audrey, Cathy, Patrick, and I decided we wanted to go the Harbour one last time. We caught the bus to Circular Quay (pronounced key) and walked around a while. We saw the Opera House lit up at night, the Sydney Harbour bridge, and a lot of neat artwork. (They had sculptures all around the city, and when we couldn’t find one to take our picture in front of, we made our own art. It was silly but lots of fun.) We finally decided we had enough, stopped to get some ice cream and drinks and caught the bus back to the hotel. Now we are frantically trying to cram all of our stuff into our suitcases in order to come home. (It’s not working so well…..)

Please continue to pray for our safe return. We can’t wait to see you and tell you all of our fun stories! Lots of love…..