By Erik Skye

December 11, 2010:

Arriving to a splendidly-sunny afternoon in Sydney, my first job was to get myself downtown where I had a rental car waiting. I‘d been through this exact drill a year earlier, so I simply followed my old trail via the subway and then a short hike through the urban jungle (quite literal in places like Hyde Park) to Hertz. One difference from last year is that I now have a greater appreciation of Australian history thanks to some of the reading I’ve been doing. Hyde Park was originally a barracks for about one-third of the Sydney convicts working on Government projects in the early 1800’s, but now is an impressive collection of walks, lawns, gum trees, museum and other goodies in the middle of the metropolis. The locals were quite enjoying it (sun bathing, walking, playing games, even a wedding processional…)

In the Prologue, I mentioned meeting a new French friend named Ceren. How we met was through Craigslist. I had placed an ad in the Sydney Craigslist under rooms wanted some 3 weeks earlier. It was sort of a “hail marry” in hopes of finding a good social group. Wow, what a find. Ceren is an amazingly sweet person and very open. We turned into pen pals before my arrival, and agreed that I would rent a room in her shared flat. So a lot of the ice was already broken before our first introduction.

Take a look at the photo of the flats (three shown side-by-side) – called a “terrace” and note that each unit, per discussions with the owner, is a cool 2 million (Australian and American dollars are equal currently). The location is Surry Hills, close to city center. Each terrace is 3 stories tall and 130 years old.

My next task after the rental car was to find Ceren at an on-going food festival called Master Chef. She was working for a Greek man named Gary. Gary imports olives and processes them for wholesale in Australia under a company called Olympus Grove. (I got to sample some – exquisite!) Ceren was born and raised in Paris, but her parents are Turkish. She’s been in Australia for almost a year and has made many acquaintances – some of whom we met at the food festival and at a birthday party near Bondi Beach later in the evening. Actually, through Ceren, I met probably about 5 French women, a few French men, 2 Italian women, a German man (who sounded like an Irishman (a leprechaun, actually!) in his Aussie drawl) – all on holiday or work visas, a young Persian man whose parents immigrated when he was a child, Gary (Greek), a Kiwi, and just a few Aussies. I’m beginning to wonder where all the Aussies are! Socially, the day ended-up being very rich. We all did a lot of talking about Australia from the perspective of foreigners and talked about each other’s languages and customs, etc… Here’s something I found quite nice: The French and particularly the Italian women hug and kiss (warmly, everyone including me!) on greeting and saying goodbye. Why don't the American French and Italian's do this?

As I noticed last year, many people want to talk about politics, world economy, etc… when they find I’m American. One even asked who I voted for in the presidential election, to which I replied “I’m not political”. They seemed satisfied with the answer.

I also got to enjoy a nice hour’s run in Centennial Park without managing to burn my pale Alaskan-white skin…

Time for Day 2 – the first full day. Let’s go see what we can find…