Day 7: A Day in the Olympic Park

Okay, so this one has a lot of pictures, but bear with me. So when I was just a little tyke of nearly seven years old in the year 2000, Sydney, Australia got the Olympics. I remember McDonalds was selling this blue backpack that said "Sydney 2000" on it, and my mom bought it for me. I carried it around my entire 2nd grade year. I felt super special that the Olympics were in "MY" city.

The quality of this picture is terrible,
but it looked a little something like this. 

Anyway, when I went down to Sydney, I knew that the Olympic Park was one of the places I wanted to see. Turns out, they've turned the whole area into a place where families can come and mingle, or have picnics and such while their kids play. We had a great vantage point from where we were of the Olympic Stadium (left picture). A few days earlier, I took a picture of the front of the stadium while Tanya and I were driving (middle picture).

The picture on the right is the MASSIVE park where we had our picnic and proceeded to play for the rest of the day. Below the flags on top are slides, and there is a big orange net that kids can climb on, swings to the right that you can't really see, and a spinning satellite dish of death that will be described in detail later on, as it was a major part of the day. It was a fantastic park, and we were literally there until the officials forced us out. We simply were having too much fun to stop.

Eliza, Amelia, Bonnie and I all sat down when we first got to the park and began searching for four leafed clovers. Me, being the pragmatically minded, or otherwise unimaginative, person that I am thought...there's no such thing as four leafed clovers you silly girls!! But I played along anyway. Turns out...they aren't as rare as you'd think. At least not for those who know how to find them, and who have the patience for it. Amelia found two within the first five minutes, and Eliza wasn't far behind. Finally it came down to me and Bonnie who had yet to find one. She beat me by a good five or ten minutes, and I sat there in the clover patch like an idiot, refusing to leave or go back to the table empty handed. FINALLY the gods smiled down on me, and I found myself a four leafed clover. I put it in my wallet, let it press and took it home with me as a souvenir. Best. Day. Ever. :)

Actually, yes, that is a real-life 4-leafed clover. Thanks.

So here we have the aforementioned orange net that we climbed on, myself quite unsuccessfully, as you can gather from my awkward position. At one point, we got so sick of crawling across the stiff ropes that we decided just to fall through the spaces between them. While not a far drop below, it was still a BAD idea. Amazingly enough, I fit through them, but only just barely. I remember at one point my head and arm being squished against each other, the other arm scraping against the rope as I hesitatingly dropped to what I thought was my death. I had rope burn for a few days...

After being worn out by the younger, more able children, I decided to sit down and look at the view of the Paramatta River we had from where our blanket was, and then Sam and I took a walk down to it, and beheld this vision of the sunlight on the water.

It was a lovely stroll, and we even saw a few people getting tickets because they apparently thought they could park wherever they pleased. Luckily, Sam is patient with my tourist picture taking, but I should also thank Janne for her incessant photography for without it, some of these pictures would not exist.

So here's the spinning satellite dish of death I mentioned earlier. Basically you pile as many people on as possible, and it spins in a diagonal-like fashion--tossing it's occupants to and fro, and every which way. We convinced Sam to get on it with us, and I'm not sure she will ever forgive us, but I know she had fun. As you can see, at several points I had strangers on top of me, as you have ZERO control over where you land when this thing spins. Some poor child kept getting smashed every time we went around by either Sam or myself, and we were helpless to stop it.

You see, another problem with this contraption is that is it IMPOSSIBLE to get off unless you happen to have abs of steel, and lightning fast reflexes to jump off as soon as your section hits the ground. I finally just gave up and watched Sam try to get off which caused laughter so hard that I could not move or breath. Amazingly enough, no one lost a limb or was significantly injured in the enjoyment of this ride.

As the day drew to a close, we had the most beautiful sunset bid us goodbye. It was a truly wonderful and exciting day full of laughter and, at times, relaxation and beautiful scenery. I think it was at this point that I realized how grateful I was for the good friends I have in this beautiful city for traveling is only as good as the people you share it with. Plus, they knew exactly the right places to take me to make my trip and enjoyable and memorable one.