Sat, 11:59: Sydney’s currently three tallest buildings (excluding Sydney Tower, which remains the city’s tallest structure) were all finished with construction since our last visit three years ago. These include Crown Sydney (2020, 890 ft, 75 floors), which has a public observation deck at 820 ft, timed entry mornings between 7am and 9am—for free! Today we caught the 8:30 half-hour tour.
This observatory is pretty small and only located on the northeast side of the building, but hey—totally worth the price! Even with such limitations I was astonished this didn’t cost us anything. https://t.co/fgyPzotEgzhttps://t.co/vkdaEzUSzE
Sat, 23:34: The Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade ended on a bit of a downbeat for us.
We were leaving after the parade ended, and I noticed Sydney Tower getting bathed in beautiful light, in successive colors of the rainbow every few seconds. I stopped to take a picture.
Suddenly a young man walked up to me and said, “Do you believe in Jesus?”
I’d have gotten a great photo of the tower in blue if it weren’t for this asshole. He distracted me and fucked up my photo. I might have still gotten it quickly but I was caught off guard. So I just said, “No” and quickly walked away from him.
Then the guy hollered after me: “You’re gonna burn in hell!”
Ooh, I’m so scared of something that doesn’t exist! Still: fuck you to the moon, random dick.
Strangely, Shobhit was far more upset about this than I was. It may have been a very long time since I endured this kind of harassment, but I’ve still endured far worse. It took Shobhit a good ten minutes or so to get over it.
I still take great comfort just being in this great city. That these kinds of assholes are literally everywhere doesn’t change how awesome it is that Sydney goes above and beyond to officially support Pride in ways no U.S. city ever does. Plus, an astonishing number of straight people attended the parade, clearly happy to have any excuse for revelry. For most of them my sexuality is incidental, and we all celebrate together. So who cares about one rando Jesus freak? https://t.co/4nJAfmRvwY
