Last day in Sydney. Took a nice scenic route suggested by Terry to Watson’s Bay then took it easy before the my first Australian Rules Football Match.
Photo Gallery: https://pics.mattichan.com/-uwc090
Watson’s Bay
Started by heading to Watson’s Bay using some instructions Terry had given me. Nice ferry ride to the Bay, but the downside is that there were a LOT of tourists in addition to the locals going to the Bay. One of them even literally was like sitting on my back to take a photo of her friend, I was completely leaning forward on my bench and she was still making contact (you can only really see a sliver of her hair cause she’s literally on top of my back)…ridiculous.
The bay itself was lovely, did a hike for a couple hours up and around the coastline.
Lunch – Bay Cafe
I missed my bus getting back to the city, so instead just sat down at a cafe cause it was blistering hot, and had an awesome lamb with tzatziki sauce wrap and a mango smoothie. Lovely little cafe right off the main street.
Centennial Park
Got an Uber back to the city and headed to Centennial Park for a bit to wander around. Had a nice convo with the Uber driver as well about Australian culture (or lack thereof…in their opinion).
It was really hot, but found the flying-fox colony pretty quickly (the foxes were pretty vocal and active, even at mid-day). They’re so cute, not that I would want to be close to one.
Around the other side of the swamp, found a whole bunch of other wildlife around a small pond.
Finished up, and headed back to my AirBnB to get ready for the AFL match that I had gotten tickets to.
AFL Match
Back in 2010, a bunch of us were in my dorm room flipping through the channels when we stumbled on this crazy game being played on ESPN. We initially thought it was rugby, but as we watched a team score, we were super confused and slightly amused by the way the officials signaled the score. We were so fascinated, we even bought and Aussie Rules Football and played a couple times on our campus lawn.
I was super stoked to be able to grab some tickets the week before on ticketmaster, and got some great seats right at midfield about 7 rows up from the field. I heard earlier in the week that the tickets had since sold out, and it was a sold out game to open the season. So cool and fortunate that everything lined up for me to be able to go to opening week, and the game was their equivalent to a rematch of last years AFC / NFC conference championship game (the game before their version of the Super Bowl — called the Grand Final).
Bonus: If you want to go look, the game we ended up watching on TV was the 2010 Grand Final, and it ended in a draw and they REPLAYED the whole match the week after…fascinating. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_AFL_Grand_Final for more info.
I walked over from my AirBnB, and walked through Sydney Olympic Park which was a LOT bigger than I originally thought it would be (much longer walk than anticipated).
Stopped for a bite to eat along the way cause I saw some dumplings and pan friend noodles. Lamb dumplings…delish.
Finally got to the stadium and it was so interesting. About half the crowd were home team (Greater Western Sydney Giants), and the other half was the away team (Collingwood Magpies).
The Collingwood supporters were so loud and were booing everything (even just random announcements or introductions), was kind of obnoxious, especially as an away team. They kind of reminded me of the Packers, so I was already inclined to root against them.
I sat next to a few really kind Australians who I chatted with about the cruise, and travels in Australia, etc. They made sure any rules or things I wasn’t aware of were explained, and just generally made the whole night a lot of fun. Ended up rooting for the giants, and even got a training kit to go along with the fandom. I’m all in now (go giants).
SUPER fun night, and we crushed Collingwood. Final score was 114-82, but they were really thoroughly outplayed, which was a lot of fun to watch.
Walked back through the park afterwards and settled in for the night, since I had a super early flight tomorrow morning (5AM flight).
Vibe Check
4 parts joy
1 part anger – people with no awareness of their surroundings and literally intruding into my space are so annoying, have a little bit of common courtesy…
Feedback
Leave a comment or question if you have any thoughts! Anything you want to know about as we go around the world? Any things you want to share as feedback, or any images that particularly spoke to you. I’ll try to read all of them as time permits!
Matti 
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