Sydney with Brendan

Our first day in Sydney we got to spend walking around the city with an old friend, Brendan.  Claudine first met Brendan when she was a graduate student at the University of Maryland.  Then he came to BYU as a visiting Professor for a year and lived with us for several months as he looked for an apartment.  Brendan now lives in Brisbane and happened to be in Sydney for the weekend.  It was wonderful to catch up.  It had been nearly 10 years since we had seen him, but we picked up our friendship right where we had left off.

 St Mary’s Catholic Cathedral was gorgeous inside and out.  

Down the street we saw another Catholic church that I’m guessing doesn’t have quite the patron base.

Sydney reminded us of San Diego with a little of London mixed in.  There is a great skyline, great beaches, and architecture with a significant British influence.

 Some of the window-shopping was quite unusual including Aboriginal art and Swarovski crystal.

We saw interesting buildings, birds, and trees.    The trees always looked just a little different.

Wandering around the city were Ibis birds.  They made a loud cry and were interesting but also kind of a nuisance.