Back in action

It’s been an inexcusably long time between posts. In fact, it’s been so long that my grandparents have emailed me to shame me into writing again. When my grandparents use the computer, they mean business.

I’m happy to report I’ve done too many thing in the past month for a full rundown. Here are some of the highlights:

·         Found an apartment!

·         Furnished said apartment, partially from Ikea, and transported all my things back from Ikea despite not having a car or renting a car for the adventure

·         Got a free desk for my room

·         Joined a hiking group

·         Went to an international meetup and met people from across the globe while watching fireworks over the harbour

·         Hosted a friend from DC and toured her around the Opera House and the Coastal Walk

·         Visited the Australian Jewish Museum

·         Walked around Sydney Olympic Park

·         Watched Romeo and Juliet  at the Sydney Opera House

·         Went to Tasmania, which included a free whiskey tasting (at Tasmania's oldest legal distillery), a brewery tour, a visit to an exceedingly strange museum, seeing Antarctic plants at the botanical gardens, and an encounter with a very strange Kiwi 

I felt like I was devoting all my free time to apartment hunting, but now that I’ve solved that it seems I’ve traded for traveling. I am planning on doing another trip next weekend (details to come) and then will be hosting at least one friend, and then my dad, next month. Hopefully this will make me more rather than less focused on sharing my experiences.

I also downloaded a new book for my most recent plane ride (from the bustling Hobart airport, where you have to turn off your phone to walk from the terminal to the steps up the airplane) on tourism as a business. Having only read the first chapter I can’t say whether it’s good or not, but the author brings up an interesting point: travel writing almost never critiques traveling. It bills itself as journalism, but even other “lifestyle” subjects – movies, books, television – are subjected to harsh words and preferences.

I think it’s this culture of the good that has contributed to my absence from the blog. While in general my time here has been, and continues to be, pleasant, there are trivial annoyances that come with living here. I’ve shied away from writing about some of these things because travel writing traditionally paints a rosy picture, rather than a realistic critique, of the place it discusses. I’m not sure exactly how that happened, but I’m excited about this book because it pointed this out to me. It is an astute observation and also gave me the confidence to share certain things that are less than excellent.

For example: Sydneysiders are notoriously difficult to break in with, for a number of reasons, partially because the university culture here encourages people to live at home during higher education, and then high costs of living mean people often stay at home even after they graduate. The combination of living at home and having all your friends from high school, or earlier, around means that it’s difficult for an outsider to get included.

I’ve made some friends here, but it is difficult to get past the meeting and towards the friends stage, or even to the hanging out again stage. It is difficult to coordinate schedules, particularly since I don’t have any friends “at the office” who I can just head to the bar or the park with after work. Having to plan everything goes against my inclination towards spontaneity and simply takes a lot of effort. It's also caused me to think about what makes people friends, how I interact with people, and who I would consider a friend. This includes both the qualities that I want my friends to have as well as the type of interactions I have with this set of people. I likely spend too much time thinking about this. 

On the plus side, I did go to trivia tonight with a few Australians - I think I am slowly breaking my way in.