Day 7 - The Rocks and My Date

I decided to head down to The Rocks, which is in the same area as the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. For those who don't know, I guess The Rocks used to be a real slummy part of town where all of the convicts and stuff went, but it's cleaned up a bit since then. I also think it is probably the more touristy part of downtown Sydney. Along the harbor there are a bunch of street performers. The more popular type seemed to be these Aborigines that would play their music and pose for pictures in exchange for tips. I never did it but I did tape the guy playing his music for your viewing pleasure!

Dang kid in the blue shirt got in the way towards the end! It also proved to be a learning lesson because he went into the didjaredoo and how to play it. There are apparently about four different movements you're trying to do while playing this thing. Also, the Aboriginal name for it is not didjaredoo; that name comes from what it sounded like when the first Englishmen heard it being played (so the English name for it is more like an onomatopoeia). The guy actually played it so it did sound like "didjaredoo" but I wasn't able to record it for you. Too bad.

Disaster struck a second time when my poor camera broke!! I tried to fix it but the lens was permanently disabled so I was forced to buy another Australian camera with its wonky plug. I also managed to get a picture of myself in front of the Sydney Opera House!

Oh yeah, look at that modeling! ;)

Later on was my date with the Aussie guy! Alas, I was not able to think of a reason to take a picture with him in it so I guess you're SOL on that one. Basically he's also 26, a carpenter and a Sydneysider. He's not too tall, though (my height) but that's okay. He's overall cute but he's got a bit of a uni-brow. I should stop being superficial because that's nothing that a little tweezing couldn't fix! Haha! He's also got a really strong Australian accent.* He seems like a nice guy overall. We went to a rooftop bar in The Rocks overlooking the harbor (although we couldn't really see it from where we were sitting) and sort of went over the differences between Australia and America. It was interesting because he was able to tell me more about some of the local cultural things. As an example, we were riding on the train back to Burwood and there was some graffiti that said, "Bring back the beef." I commented on it because I thought it was weird and referring to hamburger, but he told me it was actually about some sort of character (mascot?) in Rugby who is always saying that phrase "Bring back the biff". I think biff refers to the fighting and stuff that used to be allowed in Rugby. I'm guessing beef is some form of biff? Or maybe they just sound alike? Obviously I would have no clue about this on my own, haha! So for that reason he's pretty good to have around. And he actually paid for my taxi back to my place so I wasn't stranded like last night! Score! ;)

*Fun fact - Australian accents are actually less attractive when you're surrounded by them. Weird eh?