Flash back to Andrew & Paige's visit in May for this post. After, they left for Cairns to visit the Great Barrier Reef they headed to Sydney to finish up their trip with Andrew's sister and dad. It so happened, the weekend they were in Sydney, we were also there visiting our friends Alex & Matthew. Alex and Matthew had recently moved to Sydney from Canberra. They generously offered us room in their beautiful new apartment that overlooks the Sydney Harbour. Here's a view from their balcony.
Pretty awesome, huh?
So another reason for our Sydney trip was to see Walking with Dinosaurs, the Arena Spectacular! We somehow convinced Alex and Matthew to go with us. By somehow, we mean Alex was like, "Meh, I'm only marginally interested," and then Matthew said, "Greatest thing ever. We have to go!" This was excellent for two reasons. One, life's always more fun with friends. And two, we're not sure we would have been able to navigate the Sydney subway on our own. This is a view of the bustling Sydney subway on our way to Dinosaurs. Espresso on the go anyone?
The Sydney trains are triple deckers! That's right, you walk on and can either go up or down to the next level if you think "ground level" just isn't interesting enough for you. Fancy.
This is Acer Arena, where all the glorious dinosaur action was taking place. We didn't let the fact they were advertising for an upcoming Miley Cyrus concert diminish our excitement.
So, the show is essentially a two-hour science lesson for kids, narrated by a "paleontologist." Laurel commented that his hair was way too fabulous for a paleontologist. This science lesson, however, features life-size, animatronics dinosaurs, so it's automatically the greatest science lesson ever. Here's a Utahosaurus facing off against a Stegosaurus. The pictures are a bit blurry because of the extreme dino-action.
Velociraptors! Ever since Jurassic Park they are mandatory for any self-respecting dino-show. Although, to digress for a moment, when Greg grew up and memorized his dinosaurs there was one called Deinonychus. And Greg is 98% certain that the so-called raptors of Jurassic Park, while extra-awesome, are in fact Deinonychus.
They also had a flying Pterodactyl-type dinosaur. It was all right. Greg was hoping for swooping all over for the areana, but they decided for the moving screen behind the dinosaur to give the illusion of movement. Oh well, I guess they are just saving the budget for the T-rex.
Apparently a Triceratops was not cool enough, so they used a Torosaurus instead. This also included the best line of the night, "With its horns and muscular physique, what could challenge a torosaurus . . . except for ANOTHER TOROSAURUS!?" Cue Torosaurus fight.
While we may have been the oldest people there without children, Dinosuars didn't disappoint. And more importantly, a childhood dream of Greg's was fulfulled. Dinosuar success!
Later that night, we met up with Andrew and Paige and hit the bars of Sydney. Andrew thought he'd participate in an age-old Australian tradition of challenging Greg to a bar fight. In the end they decided to just get another drink instead. Good times!
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