Good Morning America. I made the mistake of getting up at 4 AM to check email and other internet trappings and cannot get back to sleep. My jetlag still hasn’t completely worn off and it’s too early to head out-and-about. So I’ll pass on a few observations while I wait for the sun to rise.
Sydney is like a mélange of America’s great cities. It relies on its ferries like Seattle, its parks like San Francisco, its tunnels and bridges like New York, its subways like Chicago and its freeways like Los Angeles. But, in just as many ways, it’s unlike any of them.
It’s very clean here. I’ve yet to see any trash on streets or graffiti on buildings. And it’s – how do I say this – very “white” here. There are some Southeast Asian influences; but, those are mostly in the food. The indigenous peoples can be found as street vendors in the tourist areas, but are not seen in the business districts.
Except for my clothes, I’m indistinguishable from the locals. My Anglo-Saxon looks fit in here. Those of African descent are tourists, like me, and dress like tourists, like me, in their shorts and t-shirts. I’ve yet to see a local in anything but a collared shirt. Even the fishermen enjoying the day along the shore wear collared shirts.
Another difference from the United States is the club scene. I’m not talking about our suburban country club scene or the night club scene in our cities. I’m talking private clubs. My hotel is attached to the New South Wales League, a private club with hard liquor, smoking and gaming machines. I got in trouble for walking through the casino in a tank top and was asked to say in the food and beverage area.
But the private clubs serve more private addictions than social ones. The pub is the center of the social scene. Sydney’s pubs are lively, local and loud. I had some pub grub – a floater pie, which was a meat pie riding a wave of mashed potatoes – at Sydney’s oldest brewery off a side street and up the hill from the old town tourist district. Except for the smoke-free air – which I guess all Irish pubs have now too - it reminded me a lot of Ireland with friends sharing a pint or two or three.
It’s now twelve hours later and I’ve just returned from today’s day tripping. I caught the monorail – a tourist venue that glides from the City Center to Darling Harbour to Chinatown then back to the City Center. It’s an efficient way to see some of the city as long as you’re not counting on it being on time. My longest stop along of this path was the Australian National Maritime Museum on Darling Harbour. It’s a massive building filled with detailed exhibits documenting the nation’s seafaring history both before and after European settlement.
One last observation on differences between our peoples is that Australians don’t suffer from the love affair with their cell phones that we Americans do. Sure they have them, and they occasionally use them. But not to the extent seen in the States. I saw perhaps a half dozen people talking on a phone all day. I see that, on any given morning, while driving to work. And such use is now illegal in California. We love our phones.
Finally, I like to thank my friends, Tina from NCPA and Mitch from Macquarie Cook, for their travel advice and ideas. They helped take some of the guess-work out of this first part of my stay and I greatly appreciate it.
Sydney is like a mélange of America’s great cities. It relies on its ferries like Seattle, its parks like San Francisco, its tunnels and bridges like New York, its subways like Chicago and its freeways like Los Angeles. But, in just as many ways, it’s unlike any of them.
It’s very clean here. I’ve yet to see any trash on streets or graffiti on buildings. And it’s – how do I say this – very “white” here. There are some Southeast Asian influences; but, those are mostly in the food. The indigenous peoples can be found as street vendors in the tourist areas, but are not seen in the business districts.
Another difference from the United States is the club scene. I’m not talking about our suburban country club scene or the night club scene in our cities. I’m talking private clubs. My hotel is attached to the New South Wales League, a private club with hard liquor, smoking and gaming machines. I got in trouble for walking through the casino in a tank top and was asked to say in the food and beverage area.
It’s now twelve hours later and I’ve just returned from today’s day tripping. I caught the monorail – a tourist venue that glides from the City Center to Darling Harbour to Chinatown then back to the City Center. It’s an efficient way to see some of the city as long as you’re not counting on it being on time. My longest stop along of this path was the Australian National Maritime Museum on Darling Harbour. It’s a massive building filled with detailed exhibits documenting the nation’s seafaring history both before and after European settlement.
One last observation on differences between our peoples is that Australians don’t suffer from the love affair with their cell phones that we Americans do. Sure they have them, and they occasionally use them. But not to the extent seen in the States. I saw perhaps a half dozen people talking on a phone all day. I see that, on any given morning, while driving to work. And such use is now illegal in California. We love our phones.
Finally, I like to thank my friends, Tina from NCPA and Mitch from Macquarie Cook, for their travel advice and ideas. They helped take some of the guess-work out of this first part of my stay and I greatly appreciate it.
No comments:
Post a Comment