Day 3 in Sydney was another beautiful day and another day when we logged over 10,000 steps walking around the city.

We started with another wonderful breakfast at the hotel, then I spent some time editing the photos we have taken on the first two days in Sydney. Then we ventured out in search of the King’s Cross neighborhood, an area that had been recommended to us. We found it, but it took some serious climbing to get there – it is a couple of hundred feet up an escarpment behind the hotel.

King’s Cross seems to be a cozy neighborhood filled with nice homes (many with wrought iron railings, ala New Orleans) and funky little shops. Our prize was McDonald’s where we got two very nice ice cream cones for A$0.50 each – about 40 cents US – cheaper than we could get those cones at home!

It doesn’t take much to thrill us.

The public spaces in Sydney continue to impress us. There seem to be small parks everywhere. This strikes me as a very pleasant, livable city.

Next we adventured onto the subway. This was a bit daunting as the Sydney subway is a “tap on, tap off” fare system. You don’t buy a ticket or a fare card (though that, too, is an option). Instead you just charge the ride to your credit card by using the smart phone’s wallet. I made sure that both Marlene and I were set up to do this, so we took the subway from King’s Cross to City Hall – just two stops (and just A$1.00). We had to wait only a couple of minutes (trains run very frequently here) and took a ride on a double-deck driverless subway train. Oh, it is a brave new world!

We were impressed with the subway and were also impressed with the many bike paths in downtown Sydney. Like Barcelona, Sydney does much to encourage the use of bicycles and scooters.

After exiting the subway at City Hall we walked toward Chinatown in search of thrift shops. We didn’t find any large thrift shops and I am not sure we ever made it to Chinatown but we did find a food mall that was wall-to-wall Asian restaurants and fast food joints filled with young Asians. There are a LOT of people of Asian descent in Sydney.

We then walked about a mile to an area that had several thrift stores – Surrey Hills. It reminded me a bit of the Haight-Ashbury district in San Francisco. It had a “hippie” vibe.

On the way to the thrift stores we happened upon an Aldi. Marlene was thrilled to see it. We bought some bread and chips.

We had sandwiches with the bread and ate them with the chips. Then we played cards and Marlene continued to school me.

We had breakfast at the hotel and met Leo and Gloria, a couple from Canada who will be driving around Australia for 5 weeks. The weather was iffy – cloudy, cool and a little drizzle – so we didn’t rush right out after breakfast. Instead we played some knock rummy and Marlene continued to whip my butt.

The complementary hotel breakfast is VERY good. Eggs, sausage, ham, mushrooms, toast, juices, yogurt, coffee. Really excellent.

When we ventured out it was to walk to the The Rocks section of Sydney, near where the ship docked yesterday. We found lots of little shops but they were pricey. So we walked down George St and finally found a place that we thought had reasonable prices. We bought 4 t-shirts and a couple of souvenir magnets.

On the way there we stopped in the Museum of Modern Art but didn’t do much other than get some photos with some funky sculpture.

Then it started to rain. We made it back to the hotel without getting soaked but were tired and napped. We had leftovers for dinner – the chinese fast food we bought yesterday.

We went to bed early, leaving the TV on. I awoke at about 3am and was surprised to see a live NFL game – Denver Broncos and New York Jets playing in London.

This was a busy day. It began early, with me rising before dawn to catch a glimpse of the iconic Sydney Opera House as we docked. I wasn’t disappointed – I got some good photos.

But disappointment – and panic – soon followed when I realized that my phone was unable to connect to the cell service in Sydney. That had never happened before, even in third world islands. To eliminate the suspense, I will tell you what I learned later in the day: older cell phones (like mine) sometimes don’t recognize the cellular frequency used in Sydney. That leaves me hope that it will resume working when I get to Europe. But in the meantime, only Marlene’s phone has service. I have to rely on her phone and its hotspot to do anything – maps, text, email and, of course, blogging. But the hotel has free WiFi and I can use it when there.

Disembarkation went pretty smoothly. As usual, we took our bags ashore with us. We grabbed a taxi to the hotel. The driver asked us if $40 was ok. When we said that Uber was only $28 he said “Well, you can pay $35 if you prefer.” If we prefer? Yes, we prefer to pay less. Interesting negotiation.

We arrived at the hotel around 9:30am and were surprised to hear that the room was empty and we could go right up. We were even allowed to grab some breakfast. So far this hotel has impressed us. I will give a full review later but Marlene has already complimented me for choosing it.

We then embarked on a day of walking to various sites of interest. Our initial goal was to view the Sydney Opera House from land and we did that but along the way we saw many beautiful parks, interesting buildings and learned of a shopping mall and cathedral and we had to add those to our itinerary. All told we logged 15,000 steps. And we weren’t done – at 11pm we went for a stroll down by the harbor and added another 3,000 steps. A lot of walking on a very full day. We slept well.

Sydney is chock full of beautiful public spaces and public buildings. The New South Wales Library is amazing. If you think that libraries are no longer relevant, just visit this one. It was filled with students doing research and the second floor was a combination of an art gallery and a playground for children.

We walked from the library to the Opera House and got some good photos both there and on the way there. We found the Carnival Luminosa still docked near the Opera House.

We wandered the city in search of a magnet for Marlene’s brother Mike and eventually found ourselves at the Pitt Street Mall. That is where I learned that my phone might simply be too old to work in Sydney. We also got some chinese food from the food court. The serving was so large that it fed both of us and we packed up about half of it to take back to the hotel. On the way back to the hotel we stumbled upon St Mary’s Cathedral and went inside. We were both completely blown away by what we saw. This cathedral is both HUGE and BEAUTIFUL It is, I believe, larger than Notre Dame in Paris and is every bit as beautiful. Just not as old.

After a nap and some cards (Marlene won 2 to my 1) we strolled down to the harbor. We found some interesting people to talk to but were a bit surprised at how quiet the area was. Saturday night and none of the bars had music. Not like most American cities. We strolled on the pier at Finger Quay and admired the many multi-million dollar boats.