Sydney Opera House

While classes technically started on Monday, I honestly can't really call much of what we did class, but more of just exploring this amazing city.

Monday morning, we headed to "The Australian" Museum, featuring the history, life, and culture of the Aboriginal People.  

After spending a couple hours exploring, we headed back to our hostel to get ready for our dinner at the Opera House.  Every Stanford abroad program has one really nice Bing Dinner (the Bing Family is a major donor to all the stanford overseas programs), and ours included a fancy dinner and then ballet at the Opera House.

We got all dressed up and started an amazing night (best explained through showing a TON of pictures, starting before we even left the hostel)

Liz, Jocelyn, KL, Ryan, Elaina, Me, Lisa, Coop

we're trying to make this photo happen at as many events as possible :)

then we boarded the bus and headed off to the harbor.

Before dinner, we had time for a major photo shoot in front of the Opera House and Harbor Bridge

all the girls

 The "manly men" (aka the only 12 boys in a group of 48)

 

The usual group of girls with the boys, ANeil, Ilan, and Will

Larkin Love (we were all in Larkin, and representing the Larkin 'L')

 

we got a little bored with the posed photos, so we had to mix it up a little, James Bond style...

Then we headed off to dinner at this gorgeous restaurant right next to the Opera House called Aria.  The food was delicious!

 

Our delicious menu...

 

and amazing appetizer!

 

My lovely table

and the Bings were even nice enough to provide us with wine...

...so of course we did a popcorn toast!

After we finished dinner, it was raining, so we decided to run (it wasn't very far) to the Opera House 

WE MADE IT!!! Coop and I led the run from dinner to the Opera House!

 Coop, Me, and Shara

All wet, but still in a great mood since were at the Opera House!

We actually ended up missing the first (of 3) acts, but this was actually a good thing, since we were able to explore the opera house and of course take more pictures both inside the Opera House

and outside!

This is the ballet we saw

We finally made it inside

this is the view from our seats

during intermission

All in all it was one incredible night I'll never forget :)

Sydney Harbor Bridge

Opera House at night