Sydney Day 1

Rach and I managed to get up at 6:45 this morning and in the car driving to the airport by 7:15. Our flight left from Hobart Airport on time at 9:30 and we landed in Sydney at about 11:30. It was only about an hour and a half flight.

We caught a taxi to Coogee from the airport and reached our hostel by noon. After dropping our stuff, we first went for a walk around Coogee and the beach.

Rach lived a block away from this beach for six months when she studied abroad at the University of New South Wales. Actually, her building is behind the white building in this picture. She had told me stories about being there, obviously, but the awesomeness of her location became much more apparent being there myself.

We bought a comprehensive public transportation pass that will cover everything we want to do throughout Sydney and the Blue Mountains that lasts a week, called the MyMulti3 pass. It’s really nice to have because Sydney is covered with trains, ferries, and buses, and it could get expensive to do all the different types of traveling.

We hopped on the bus to take us from Coogee to Circular Quay, which is the busy stop by the waterfront in downtown Sydney which connects buses, trains, and ferries. There, we transferred to the train to take us out to the Olympic Stadium.

Rach was somewhat familiar with the area around the Olympic Stadium because there is a pair of field hockey stadiums where all the different clubs in Sydney play their games, and she played for one of the UNSW clubs when she studied here. The train stop is right by ANZ stadium, which I think was originally the Olympic Stadium and then was renamed after the 2000 Olympics concluded.

We bought tickets for the Sydney Swans vs. Greater Western Sydney Giants footy game that was happening that night, and ANZ stadium is where the game is being played. The game wasn’t until 19:20, though, and we arrived in the area at about 17:00. We made our way over to the hockey fields to have a look at it.

The walk took us through most of the area where the different fields are arenas where built for the 2000 Olympics, which was cool to see. When we reached the hockey fields, there were some games going on, so we stopped and watched for about an hour.

It is quite a nice field. I don’t know how Rach was able to go back to the states and played on lesser fields after playing on these ones.

We walked back over to ANZ stadium and hung around outside for a bit to get a bite to eat. We settled on a bowl of chicken pad thai being sold at a booth outside the stadium, and sat by a water fountain to eat amongst the frenzy of people.

While ANZ Stadium is the home stadium for the Giants, it felt like a home game for the Swans. This is because the Swans are a well-established AFL team in Sydney, and this game was the Giants debut in the league. The Giants are going to need to acquire some more fans. The last picture kind of shows what I mean, the Swans are red and the Giants are orange. How much orange do you see people wearing there?

The game was… confusing. I had looked the rules up in Melbourne when we attempted to go to a footy game the first time, but I couldn’t remember all the rules. We pieced together most of what was going on as the game went on.

Footy is the closest thing to a free-for-all I’ve ever seen in a sport. There are 18 players per team on the field, and there’s no real offside or other restrictions that I could discern. Players and can run with the ball as far as they want, provided they bounce the ball once every 15 meters, and can kick or pass the ball in any direction they want. A pass has to be done by bumping the ball with an open hand or a fist, it can’t be thrown. If a ball is kicked further than 15 meters and is caught before hitting the ground, the player who catches it can claim a “mark,” which is essentially a free kick from that point. It doesn’t matter which team the player who kicked the ball is on to claims a mark.

Finally, to score a goal the ball has to be kicked between the middle two posts, untouched, for 6 points. You can also score 1-pointers by having the ball be touched before going between the posts, or by kicking it between one of the middle posts and one of the side posts. The ball can hit the ground and still be a valid goal, it just can’t be touched by anyone else before passing the posts.

I could see how the game could be a lot of fun to watch, but this was sadly not a great game as my introduction to footy. Since the Giants are a brand new club, they suck. They really suck. The only excitement after the first quarter of the game was to see if the Swans would break 100 points. The Swans were successful, just barely: the final score was 100-37.

We got back on the train and took it back to Central Station in downtown Sydney, then caught a bus back to Coogee. We walked back to the hostel, weary and ready to lie down. Tomorrow, we’re going to take the ferry to Manly Beach and then explore some of the western half of the CBD, since we covered a lot of the eastern half when we had our layover back in January.