Arrival in Sydney

This morning, the MSA student symposium ended with a discussion session around lunch time and shortly after the conference, I took off with Matt and Anita for Sydney (via car). The conference was very useful and it was great to have a smaller conference that was focused on students and helping students develop their presentation skills. I think it was a great idea and Aaron did a good job of organizing the symposium.

The drive from Wollongong to the CBD of Sydney was about an hour and 15 minutes or so. The drive up the coast was very scenic, but it was a little hard to keep my eyes open because I was tired and the car ride was pretty smooth. Matt dropped me off at the hotel where I will be staying for 2 nights before the ICONN conference in Darling Harbour.

I am staying at 'The Establishment' which is probably the nicest hotel I have ever stayed in. After checking in, I came upstairs to find that the room is pretty crazy cool. The phone has a touch screen that had a personalized welcome message on it, the bathroom had a candle burning in it, the lights can all be controlled by the phone, and they had a surround sound radio that was playing classical music when I came into the room. It is definitely pretty nice!

I immediately went down to the area known as 'The Rocks' to checkout the Sydney Opera House and the Harbour Bridge, etc. After a short walk, I came to the waterfront and there were definitely a lot of people outside. I walked around for a while and must have come across 5 or 6 different weddings or wedding parties getting photos taken with the bridge and/or Opera House in the background. It was quite windy outside, so it was funny to watch the photographer staff try to manage hair and dresses. I can only imagine how expensive some of those weddings were...

Afterward, I met up with Anita and we went to a few notable bars in the area. We went to the Argyle first. This used to be a warehouse for wool prior to shipment. The atmosphere of the bar was pretty cool and they definitely had a unique bathroom setup that was interesting to see. After this, we walked around 'The Rocks' for a bit longer - there were many restaurants and pubs all over the place and most of the architectures were definitely older and very European.

We had dinner at an Italian restaurant and each ordered really good pizzas. After a good dinner filled with great discussion, I made my way back to the hotel (located along Pitt Street) to call it an early night.