You guys ever hear of this thing called soccer?

Sydney is CRAZY today over football, as they call it. Last night, Australia's team scored its first World Cup victory in 32 years by beating Japan. Crazy thing is, that doesn't even send them to the second round of the playoffs -- I think they still have to play Brazil to move on, or hope Brazil ties or loses to another team. I don't really understand the terminology I've been hearing all around me today.

Last night I wanted to find a good place to watch the match, which started at 11 p.m. (of course, what better time to start a sporting event?), so I took the bus into the city and ended up at Circular Quay (pronounced key), which is sort of equivalent in DC to Union Station. Actually, it's probably equivalent in every U.S. city to Union Station -- they all seem to have one. Anyway, some firm had set up a giant TV screen and about 3,000 people jammed a square to watch the game. I watched for a while, but nothing happened, and I thought, see, this confirms what Americans think -- this is the second-most boring sport in the world. (Cricket being the first.)

Also it's winter here, and though the days have been warm, it gets darn cold after the sun goes down. So I went home.

Turns out, after I left, Japan scored, and then Australia scored three goals in the last 8 minutes to win. I'm kicking myself now for having left, and missed the crazy celebrating downtown, but who knew soccer could be interesting?

Today is my last day in Sydney -- I'm so sad! I've been trying to cram in as much as possible, both to get a good feel for the city and to write a travel article on how to see Sydney in two days. This morning I took the train to Bondi Beach, which surprisingly was only two stops away. The weather was gorgeous -- it must have been 70 degrees, but I don't know because I can never remember how to convert C to F. I rolled up my pant legs, waded in the surf and asked a hunky lifeguard to take my picture. Just as he did, a huge wave came up behind me and soaked me from the waist down. I sunned myself on some nearby rocks like a lizard for a while, trying to dry off, and realized going to the beach first thing had been a mistake -- I didn't want to leave. I finally dragged myself away, still looking like I'd declined to use the public toilets and paid a heavy price, but my pants eventually dried. After about 6 hours.

I had a vague plan to go to the zoo today, but since most of my time in Melbourne will be about animals -- I'm going to the aquarium and to an island where you can pet kangaroos, see koalas and watch a penguin parade -- I instead took a ferry across Sydney Harbor to a harborside shopping/dining/deck complex and just soaked up the sun. Yesterday was my big tourist day -- I went to the Opera House, took a bus tour of the city, etc. I'll write about all that later. Oh yeah, and I have a couple of posts I put on my laptop but haven't been able to get online to post yet -- Sydney isn't quite down with the WiFi revolution yet. (I don't have my laptop with me now, or I'd post them.)

Also today I picked up the gorgeous opal ring I bought yesterday. I'll post a picture, when I can recharge my camera battery.

I gotta plug my camera for a minute. It has a weird super-futuristic battery that makes the camera very small but also very expensive. I was reluctant, but the guy at the store talked me into it, and now I'm so glad. My last camera needed new AA batteries about every other day. I've been using this one for four weeks and the battery just started dying today. Fujifim Finepix. I highly recommend it.

Australians seem to have latched onto America's worst music. Everyplace I've gone, they've been playing '80s pop -- even the Queen Victoria Building, a super-upscale, sedate shopping center, had "Thriller" on its Muzak today. And there's no thought to matching song theme with store theme -- I ate in a steakhouse tonight that was playing disco. Huh?

Last night, for dinner, I wandered into a place advertising kangaroo pizza. Awesome! I was way psyched to try it, but they bait-switched me -- the pizza was gone, so instead I had panfried dory (the kind of fish Ellen DeGeneres voiced in "Finding Nemo). It was delish, but still I'm sad about the kangaroo pizza.

My Internet cafe hour is almost up, so I'll try to resume the blog tomorrow ...