Necessary Tourist Shots from the Harbour.

SYDNEY EXPLORATION: Opera House + the Harbour Bridge.

Here is the absolute proof that I am in Sydney. Opera House and Bridge shots are a must.

FUN FACTS:

Shout-out to wikipedia.

Sydney Opera House

• One of the busiest performing arts centers in the world. Hosting 15,000 performances each year attended by some 1.2. million people. (Christina went to an Andrew Bird concert here which sounds incredible!)
• In 1956, 233 designs were submitted for the "Opera House Design Competition," and Jorn Utzon was announced the winner. It was completed in 1973. I guess there was some may-ja drama surrounding his resignation. (Honestly -- it looks just like I thought it would, but the "shell-like" things are a different kind of metal pattern than I realized. I read in my travel book that people think it looks like Italian nuns playing football. Not sure I get that one...)
• Sydney Opera House has its own opera written about it, called the "Eighth Wonder."

Harbour Bridge

• The Sydney Harbour Bridge wasn't paid for until 1988, almost 60 years after it opened. Crazytown.
• I read in one of my nerdy travel books that it took 272 thousand litres of paint to get the first coat of grey on the bridge. And what's-his-face from Crocodile Dundee once worked on one of the re-painting crews.
• Some official guy was supposed to cut the ribbon and officially open the Bridge, but a crazy-craze named Captain Francis De Groot from a para-military group rode up on his horse and slashed it with a sword!