Flat Stanley celebrates Kinsey's birthday in Sydney

Everyone had Friday (1-Mar) and Monday (4-Mar) off school and work so we packed up and flew to Sydney for the long weekend and to celebrate Kinsey's 14th birthday. I was so excited to be sitting in the front of the plane instead of in a mail bag in the cargo hold.



Kinsey's birthday present was a shopping trip in the famous and cosmopolitan Pitt Street Mall in the heart of the CBD (Central Business District) in Sydney. It was raining, but luckily they had cut up a plastic folder to protect me on the journey and it doubled as a rain coat! Here we are in front of a popular Australian shop for girl's clothes.



After a day of shopping, we headed down to Circular Quay (pronounced "key") to eat dinner and then see a play at the Sydney Opera House which is home to opera, ballet, concerts, and lots of plays. We saw The History Boys. The opera house has 5 theatres. Two of them are side by side under the beautiful tile sails and the foyers overlook the harbour. There are 3 smaller stages below on the ground floor. The play we saw was in one of the lower theatres.



Here I am standing outside of the Opera House just before the play with the Harbour Bridge in the background. You can climb up to the very top, but it was windy and I was too afraid to blow away. I like the view from down here.






Photo bomb!!!

On Sunday morning, we went to The Rocks in Sydney. The Rocks is where Sydney really began in 1788.  It quickly became a place with lots of bad people and did not have a nice reputation, but in the 1970's, they began restoring the whole area and now there are a lot of historical buildings and very trendy shops and restaurants. On Sundays, they close the streets and set up a market. I really enjoyed the street performers and singers (performing on the streets is called "busking") and some are even semi-famous.  This is Mark Wilkinson.  He has 6 albums recorded and has successfully toured in Australia and Europe.





My first exotic bird! An ibis. That is one funny beak.



On Sunday night, Scott and Cheryl found an Irish Pub with a band. Kinsey loves live music so they are always on the lookout. It was so much fun. There are a lot of Irish who have immigrated to Australia in the last 8-10 years. Ireland is in a recession and Australia is doing very well, so many come here looking for work. We had a great table upstairs where we could look down at the band. Being as flat as I am, it was quite easy for me to even do an Irish dance keeping my arms straight and only moving my legs.



On Monday morning we headed back to Perth. I needed a cuppa (cup of coffee) to wake me up after such an exciting weekend!