No, no, don't go around trying to figure out the end of that sentence. It's not an English sentence missing a verb and a thing to be "on". I've just written "Sharon is in Sydney" in Estonian. Although, Sharon was on Sydney's monorail about twenty minutes ago. That was pretty neat, actually. You got to see the best part of the city center - the bits above the first floor.
Sydney has some awesome buildings in the city center, but you never get a good look at them from the street. The shop fronts of Sydney are so... "shopfronty". You have to look up to get a good look at the architecture of the place.
I can tell you, walking around the streets of Sydney looking up at the buildings is not an effecient way to a) travel, or b) find the shop you were looking for.
So it was nice to take a ride on a form of transport that was right on eye-level with some of the best features of Sydney's buildings.
It's a shame the monorail is going, but I can completely understand why. As a tourist attraction it's okay, but not earth-shattering. As a form of public transport it's a bit daft.
The thing goes one way on a loop around a small section of the city proper. If you (like me) get on at central station and want to get to Paddy's Markets (two stops down from central, but in the wrong direction), you have to pay $5 and take a tour of Sydney before you can get to where you're going.
I thought I'd be saving time by taking a "vehicle" but you'd get there faster (and cheaper) on foot.
Still, I'm glad I managed to go on it before it was removed. Sydney won't seem the same without a monorail buzzing over the streets.
Lesson to anyone thinking of putting a monorail in their city as a form of public transport: Work out how to make it go in two directions. That may require two monorails, but it's a heck of a lot more convenient than doing a round trip every time you want to go somewhere "upstream".
PS. I'm in the UTS library, using eduroam to get onto the interwebs. Today was the first time in my life I've used the phrase "thank you, eduroam". Sometimes wireless is actually useful.
Sharon on Sydneys (not Sydney's). :]
ReplyDeleteAnd no, that wasn't me commenting before. Seeing as I've been reading your blog for a while I figured I might as well say hello. Hello!
Hello!
ReplyDeleteI was always told to use the apostrophe for non-Estonian place names - especially if they used a letter that wasn't part of standard Estonian (like a y).
I take it that's not a universally accepted thing?
Hello again!
ReplyDeleteReally? No, I don't think that is universally accepted. I have hardly ever seen place names written like that, which is why I reacted. Ta on New Yorgis, Sydneys, Scarboroughis.
I was always told that non-Estonian place names often just get an 'i' on the end in the genitive case (if they don't end in a vowel in the nominative, like Sydney), onto which you then add case endings.
I'm sure there's a place on the Internet where Estonian language experts fight about this. I'll let you know if I find it. ;)