Doing Business In Australia: RBA and The Sydney Opera House

On January 19th I went to the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA). I was excited to go to the reserve because I wanted to know the reasoning behind Australia's change from paper to plastic money. Luckily, we had Senior Economist Richard Finley explain the Bank's monetary policy and how the RBA has contributed to developing the strong Australian dollar that exists today. I learned that the RBA decided to switch to plastic currency because it was harder to tamper with and counterfeit. Mr. Finley said that in the 1980's counterfeiting was a huge problem in the country. Now, the new money has many tamper-proof devices etched inside each bill. I was pleasantly surprised to find out the Australia's currency has three women on it, including the Queen of England. A bill also has an Aborigine on the cover. During the presentation I asked Mr. Finley whether he thought that the RBA's monetary policy or the Government's Fiscal policy played a larger role in the strengthening of Australia's' economy. He said that they both played an equally important role. After the presentation we had a tour of the Museum of Australian Currency Notes.

After lunch, our group had a tour of the Sydney Opera House. The opera house is one of the most recognizable buildings in the world. Visiting the Opera house was my favorite part of the trip. I never realized what a miraculous feat the architecture of the building was until I heard the story of its formation. There was a worldwide search for a winning design for the Sydney Opera house. Jorn Ultzon had the winning design and his blueprint was almost thrown away! The judges were amazed with his vision but it was extremely hard to bring the design to life. The Opera house took double the time and triple the money to build than expected. There was an extreme amount of math and science used to make sure that the Sydney Opera house was stable. However, despite all of the talented people on the engineering team, no one could figure out how to make the structure work. One night, Ultzon had a dream that all of the arches were cut out of a single sphere. That dream turned out to be the solution! From a far the Opera house looks white but the tiles are actually yellow to prevent a glare. Unfortunately, Ultzon never got to see the Opera house completed, he moved back to Denmark to be with his family before its completion. Even though he died in 2008, his son and grandson are still in charge of the Sydney Opera House and it is a protected National Building. Photographs were not allowed inside the performance rooms but the Opera house does hold the largest organ in the world.

Me in front of the great masterpiece

An inside view of the Opera house

Another inside view

A close up of the off- white tiles

A description of the great sphere idea!

Me in front of the Opera house once more

A grand view of the Opera house

After the Opera house tour, I went on the Sydney Harbor Bridge Climb. The climb was 3 1/2 hours and went all the way to the top of the Sydney Harbor Bridge. I walked through many narrow spaces and ladders to get to the top of the bridge. Even though I was so high off the ground I felt very safe because I had extensive training and climbing gear before I went on the climb. Once I reached the top I had a wonderful 360-degree view of Sydney including the Blue Mountains, the Opera House and the Harbor city, all places that I had been. My favorite part of the trip was when our tour guide told us stories about the bridge builders that built the bridge over 100 years age. The Sydney Harbor Bridge is the largest bridge that is built by rivets. Each rivet took 3 people to make and the bridge has 6 million of them. During the construction of the bridge 16 people died from falling off the bridge. After one person fell off the bridge and didn't come back up, a search and rescue team found him at the bottom of the ocean standing feet first stuck in the mud. One of the only people who survived falling off the bridge went in the water with such force that the top of his boots were around his thighs and the soles of his boots had to be surgically removed from his feet. It could get pretty cold on top of the bridge so each climber had a fleece jacket and a raincoat just to be safe.