A closer look
Sydney Opera House was originally estimated to cost seven million dollars and take four years to build, but thanks to architectural hubris and engineering nightmares, it ended up costing one hundred and two million dollars and took fourteen years. The striking white sails that make it a globally recognized icon are covered in over a million self-cleaning tiles, but the interior acoustics of the main concert hall were notoriously terrible for decades, completely defeating the primary purpose of an opera house. While millions of tourists flock to the harbor to take the exact same selfie with the building in the background, very few actually bother to pay for a ticket to see a performance inside. Instead, they prefer to sit at the aggressively overpriced bars along the concourse, fending off bold seagulls that will violently swoop down and steal a twenty-dollar basket of fries right out of your hands the exact second you look away to adjust your sunglasses
