Sept 14 - Harbour Bridge and Many Museums

All rested up, the 14th proved to be a very productive day of sightseeing. After some breakfast, we walked to the Rocks area by the Harbour Bridge and checked out some museums. First up was the State Museum of NSW that had several rooms on two levels containing a mix of all sorts of styles of art from paintings to sculptures to modern art throughout the ages. In the basement gallery, we came across a Pablo Picasso painting. Was he a ruhtard? Seriously, it looks like a challenged five year old drew the painting... But it was cool to see a famous painter's work up close. There wasn't even a plastic case around it, what if someone sneezed on it? There were also 3 paintings by a William Turnbull. I got excited due to the name until I saw the weak-ass effort he put in; The one was just a canvas painted dark blue. Another was a white canvas with two diagonal lines, and the third was basically blank with a couple triangles. Not impressed, potential relative Mr. Turnbull. Not impressed at all.

From here we walked down the road a bit through the rain to the Museum of Contemporary Art. I was excited for this one, assuming it would have all sorts of mind-blowing conceptual pieces. Alas, I was incorrect and it was pretty boring overall; most of the gallery space devoted to lame environmental displays. From here we headed back towards the CBD and stumbled across the Museum of Australian Currency. Jackpot! It was raining, so we popped into this odd museum for a visit. Turned out to be very informational and educational. There were timelines of Aussie currency, money samples, the bill printing process explained and a funny little video explaining the switch in 1966 to the dollar decimal system (that reminded me of Schoolhouse Rock videos from TV as a kid).

After the museum trifecta, and despite the wind and rain, it seemed like a good time to walk across the Harbour Bridge. At one stone pillar we stopped and walked up the stairs in it to a little theatre that played a video about the building of the bridge. Then we continued back down and across the bridge. I got a couple weird looks along the way, which may have been due to wearing shorts and sandals in the blowing rain. On the other side of the bridge we went into Luna Park, but had to turn back because it was being closed due to the rainstorm. Because it was chilly and a long walk back, the train sounded like a good idea and we took that back to the hostel. Hit up Woolworth's for some burgs and fried them on the stove at the hostel for supper. As 9 pm rolled around, it was time again for sleep. Starting to feel like I'm retired with the 9 o'clock bedtimes here.