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Sydney, Australia.

The most authentic thing in Sydney is how they celebrate Christmas Day. The 25th of December, in the morning, you can see everybody waiting for the bus to go to the beach, wearing a swimsuit and a Santa Claus hat. Although what they really like is to brag about the last night of the year, so much so, that they even created a brand: the NYE (New Year’s Eve). Thousands of people come from all over the world to Australia to be the first ones to celebrate the New Year and see the fireworks from the Harbour Bridge, one of their beaches, or parks. One week before the event, the Tourist Office organizes seminars to explain how to manage all the hustle and bustle that take place those days. The first suggestion was priceless: “if by noon you don’t have a good location to see the fireworks, you can go back to your hotel room and watch them on TV”. With that, as with everything else, they were exaggerating. Following their advice, we found a good location in a little creek and we went there 10 hours before the show, with our cooler and our take-away-sushi. It was not until 5 minutes before midnight that people started to arrive with no rush. As I said before, much ado about nothing.

All the beaches and creeks surrounding Sydney are the real things that make this city something special. The natural harbour where it’s located has many fantastic bays. If you are rich, and you have a boat, you can have a lot of fun. Actually you’d rather buy a boat with a shower, because most of the water is polluted. Only the beaches facing the ocean are safe. Among them, the best one is Bondi Beach. It is a beautiful spot 30 minutes by bus from downtown. Although the water is freezing cold, half of the city goes there every weekend. The other half goes to Manly Beach, a beach for surfers, crowded even though swimming is not allowed due to the strong currents.

Some of you probably think that we were very cruel with Australia. I’m pretty sure you are right, but we only know two ways to see things: you either like them or not. We are too old to worry about how it sounds. We like the wine with cork, hearing that noise when you open the bottle, and smelling the oak or the fruit bouquet. So much fame that Australian wine has and all their bottles have a screw top, like the old Coke. That’s how they are in everything: 100% fake. From the image that they want to show to the rest of the world, even their wine that is bad and expensive, to the marketing that they create around their country. Europeans don’t even know and Australians buried it, but it was a big scandal when they found out that all the official propaganda for promoting tourist inbound Australia was created with pictures that were not from the country and that they were telling more lies than truth.

And it is a shame because indeed it is a great country. But overpromised. That is why we prefer to reduce your expectations. But having said that be sure that if you anytime decide to visit this country you will life first class moments: every time you will see kangaroos, sharks or koalas; when you’ll climb Kaja–Tjuta; at the New Year’s Eve fireworks, and such a long list that you will end up thinking that we were unfair about it. I bet you will.

Australia photo gallery
Tourist information to travel to Australia
Tourist information to travel to Sidney