After months and months of seeing the Sydney Opera House featured in every DVD about Australia I could find before making the move here, it seemed to be blown out of proportion. I though I had tired of seeing it; in the scores of images I'd seen already, the Opera House was ubiquitous.
Seeing it face to face, especially at night, I was humbled. Watching birds swarm the white sea shell exteriors, catching bugs amidst the lights, they reminded me of bats swarming the tower of a cathedral. The design is so imaginative, I recalled the feeling of awe I had in Anton Gaudi's Sagrada Familia in Barcelona.
Passing along the backside of the Opera House is quite funny. It's the side you can't see from the Harbor Bridge, and the walkway is very narrow. Walking along this narrow path with a high wall obstructing the view of the eggshell exterior above, it looks like any Convention Center in the United States. If someone were dropped on that little walkway, they would have no idea they were in Sydney until they rounded the corner to see the stairway stretching above the main entrance.
I have quite a reverence for this icon after seeing it face to face. On the way from our walk around the Opera House Jamie and I noticed a park just across the road. We went on a walk to explore that area the following day, which is the topic of the next post.
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