A Day in Sydney

Warning: I'm haing trouble formatting these posts when I add pictures. This post is a bit out of order. Hopefully you can figure it out, and I'll work on it!

After the Botanical Gardens, we went to the New South Wales State Library (I know, are we big nerds or what?). Again, some background. I belong to a group called LIBEX, which facilitates librarian exchanges. Anthony, who works at the State Library, e-mailed me a while back to see if I wanted to exchange. I couldn't, but he invited us on a tour of the State Library while we were in Sydney. Of course, we took him up on it. One of the most fun things we discovered is that the State Library owns all of Jim's books! Here is a picture of Jim with his most recent book, at the State Library of New South Wales. How cool is that!


So I'm having trouble figuring out how to format these blog posts once I enter in pictures, so this post may be a tad out of order. Today we went to the Royal Botanical Gardens, and it was absolutely gorgeous. It was also a tad disturbing. Let me set the stage: Last night Nancy was out on our hotel balcony and called me out to join her. She was watching what we at first thought was a big bird flying around. But no; we realized it was a bat. A huge bat. Fast forward to today. As we're walking along in the Botanical Gardens, Jim points up and we see, no joke, HUNDREDS of bats hanging in all the trees. Here is a picture:










































It was cool, but also very creepy.



Okay, back to the beginning. We had such a fun day today! First, we walked down to Darling Harbor, which reminded me very much of Baltimore's Inner Harbor. We decided to go to the aquarium, which was wonderful. I think most exciting of all was seeing our first platypus. It is so much smaller than I thought! I kind of pictured them being the size of beavers, but they are much, much smaller. They only grow to be 50cm, or under 20 inches. They are just about the cutest things I've ever seen.



Then we had what will hopefully be our last truly American experience, and had McDonald's for lunch. But I also had McDonald's in Taiwan, so I justify this by saying I need to try McDonald's in each country I visit. Do you believe me?

Okay, back to Anthony and the State Library. Anthony lives in the historical neighborhood of Paddington, and invited us to tea. His home was absolutely gorgeous. Anthony and Douglas told us that when they bought it, it needed a lot of TLC. They must have really worked, because it's beautiful now. After tea, we managed to take the bus back to our hotel all by ourselves! We were quite proud.

Tomorrow is our first presentation. We are a bit nervous, and are anxious to get one under our belts. Immediately following tomorrow's presentation, we head up the coast for another. Hopefully I can update you then!