Old People In Newtown

After waltzing all over Sydney, we took the train to the MacDonald stop, where Maddy met us for a late afternoon/evening at her Study Abroad campus, the University of Sydney.   The uni is located in the Sydney neighborhood of Newtown, which is actually pronounced “new-town.”

First we walked through the suburban neighborhood in 99 degree heat (it may have dropped to 97 by then – who knows!) to get to her student village, and then we hung out for a bit in her dorm apartment.  She has her own room (which is about the size of Torie’s shared dorm room), while she and four other girls have a pretty good sized apartment with a full kitchen (Maddy has to do her own cooking!) and two bathrooms.

A couple of her roommates from dinner the night before stopped by, so we chatted a bit with them.  Carol and I were pretty worn out from our day in the heat, so it took a bit of time for us to get up and go tour the campus.  More walking!

(According to my fitbit, I walked 11.49 miles on Monday, which I went ahead and rounded up to 11.5 miles.)

We walked over to the campus quad and admired the view of the Central Business District from afar and admired the Great Hall.  On the way over, we saw two Kookaburras in a tree (alas, not an old gum tree).  They got in quite a brawl with a few sparrow-like birds who were either harassing them, or trying to chase them away.  It reinforced Maddy's bizarre hatred of birds, and frankly, did not speak well of the bird population of the university.

Kookaburra brawls in the old gum tree.

We then walked over to King Street, a long main street through Newtown that is full of restaurants (no shortage of Thai, other Asian, and vegetarian places there) and shops.  It’s a very lively street, and Carol and I were clearly the oldest folks at the restaurant.  We ate at Urban Bites.  The food was good, and the whole street was pretty funky.

The Great Hall

After dinner, we walked to the Newtown train station, which was many blocks away.  So we got a pretty good feel for King Street, which, like the one in Old Town Alexandria, is full of restaurants.  The difference?  In Old Town, out at dinner or walking around, Carol and I are the median age.  In Newtown, we definitely are on the older side – lots of students and other young folks hanging out there.

All in all, a very lively area.

More of the Great Hall, probably

modeled after Hogwarts.