Sydney's VIVID!

Got to Sydney Friday about five, took metro from airport to hostel across the street from train station.  Only trouble was about four roads intersected at that point, so I did have a little difficulty finding hostel on which of the six corners, but it was there OK, but with a non-prominent sign .  But across the street from train station it was.   Was in a room with five other guys, I am older than any three of four guys together, the fifth was 35 so I couldn't count hi in the mix.  He had arrived into the room half hour before I did, so we went out for dinner.   Before dinner was over it started to rain, at first a drizzle, then a moderate rain, then a down pour, which continued Saturday and Sunday too at a steady down pour.  Flooding, power outages, sopping wet clothes, and umbrellas turned inside out in the wind gusts.  But Monday morning was dry til about noon then drizzle again for an hour or so, then sunshine, and twenty degrees cooler in the lower fifties.  Friday nite I walked the main streets just to see part of the town.  Saturday I went about ten blocks to the Barracks, which houses prisoners, for twenty years males until were assigned their labor site, about half worked for the colonial government on building roads, buildings, sewers, fences, and the prison barracks, the rest as farm laborers, town merchant assistants...   After the first twenty years newly arrived males were assigned quickly, or in housed in temporary locations, because the Barracks were needed to house female prisoners or free females until assignments were made, and a fair number arrived pregnant even if they weren't when they boarded the ships in England.  So much for voyages of two to six months duration.  After almost a hundred years the Barracks were used as judicial offices and courts until the mid -1970's.  Now it has been restored to its original condition, and is a museum about early history in general, and the history of the prison origins of the early population to Australia.  Now it is a badge of honor to have prisoner ancestors, and not shameful at  all as it was in the previous fifteen decades.  Australians like being mavericks!  So that visit took most of Saturday, and I was wet to the skin when I got to the museum, and wet to the skin when I got back to the hostel.  Sunday morning I moved into the Australia tour hotel, and even though it was only five blocks from the hostel, I took a cab,even then my backpacks were really wet just going from doorway to cab and cab to doorwsy.  Sunday still pouring down rain so I just walked around where ever it was dryer.  Today we went on a city tour of the high points of the city, there were trees down everywhere, and pools of water in most of the low spots.  Saw bondi beach, walked along a path on the cliffs next to the ocean high up in the cliffs, saw the botanical park in the heart of the city, the opera house, harbour bridge, saw people climbing on the walkway high up in the bridge's steel superstructure, too high up for me!  Tour was over by noon, so I stayed downtown and walked  around, and went to see the maritime museum.  Again about the prisoners, and history, from the maritime perspective, including the sending thousands of 'orphans' to Australia to help populate the country.  The museum has a working replica of Captain Cook's ship the  Endeavor.  It has sailed as many miles as the original, before it sank (?).  And has a schedule for future ocean crossings coming up.  The London navy offices have the records of how the original was built, and then remodeled before Cooks voyages, so the replica is an exact copy.  Got thrown out of the museum at five after seeing the Endeavor, an Australian destroyer from the late twentyth centruy. And a submarine of the same vintage,as well as about thirty smaller vessels of historical note.  Then I walked my feet off, and waited for six thirty to see Sydney's Vivid, a city wide light show.  See attached pictures, and these are not all in one place, then there are street entertainers, musicians, acrobats all over.  This 'vivid' is all over, from small? Two by two foot displays to building sized displays: the Marriott hotels varied colored lights on its whole face, moving designs on the Sydney opera houses roofs.  Tomarrow im going to the blue mts two hours by train away, then hop on/off buses.  The tour company has a two hundred and some dollar tour, the hostel has several blue Mt tours for about a hundred or a little less, but the tour guide told me just to hop on the train, then the busses, for about fifty bucks to see the same things... I'm gonna try that and see how it goes.