This is Australian jet lag syndrome with which I've become intimately familiar. I've watched the lovely Australian sun rise over Darling Harbour two days in a row now, sipping on the Mocha Nescafe Instant coffee that the apartment's previous tenant so graciously left for me to find. I'm presuming that she was Italian because the other food items indicate strong preferences toward various shaped dried pastas, risotto, coffee, wine, parmigiano cheese, olive oil, Modenese aceto balsamico, and Barilla pesto. The other tenant had to have been an American health nut, indicated by the pile of women's fitness magazines, dried fruit & nut mixes, 'Skinny cow' ice cream bars, and artificial sweetners in the other cabinets. After a brief trip to a corner convenience store & viewing the prices, I now understand value of the treasure trove that I inherited. Everything here is significantly more expensive than I expected and the US/AUS dollar exchange rate is not helping. Thank God for free Google food.
In my first 2 days here, I've come to understand and have been warned about many of the cultural and linguistic nuances between Australians and Americans. This is what I've discovered and what you, as an American, need to know:
1) You will have best friends within a day or 2 of arriving. Australians and other expats living in Sydney are brilliantly friendly. Within the first 48 hours, I feel like I have made life long friends. Even the less than fortunate rainy day can't take away the warm glow I feel already for this city.
2) You will be made fun of, as will your accent. Australians pride themselves in their abilities to imitate the American accent. The following scenario will inevitably play at some point or another during your time here: An Australian will make an nonsensical exclamation involving one or many of the words: like, OMG, Oh my God, LOL, Woot!, awesome. It will sound normal to you, so much so that it reminds you of that singular annoying girl from high school you'd thought you'd have forgotten by now, but haven't. Then, all will laugh and you will laugh at how much pleasure the Australians derive out of their performance and it will be a grand time. This has already occurred to me on oh I'd say 5 different occasions.
3) Australian false friends:
- 'Meet you in the avro', doesn't mean someone wants you to Google directions to a particular coffee shop. Avro = afternoon
- 'Fanny' as in 'fanny pack' or referring to your rear end is to be avoided. Fanny = female reproductive organ
- Do not ask Australians which team they are rooting for. root (as in support or cheer) = the American expletive beginning with F. My friend got into an interesting situation at a client outing to a local Australian rules football match when she continued to ask the individuals present who they were 'rooting' for.
4) You will drink a lot. At the Australian League Football match yesterday every time I didn't have drink in hand, someone offered to buy me a beer. I think over the course of 8 or so hours I must have had 6 or 7 drinks. And this included me refusing drinks at times in fear of exacerbating jetlag fatigue. This excuse only worked once and then my drink of choice determined by popular vote was a Vodka Redbull over beer. Naturally, I accepted my fate. I've yet to figure out how I'm going to balance the anticipated exponential increase in caloric consumption with my pre-exisiting tendency to over eat.
5) Championship games can be tied and rescheduled. As it was explained to me on the plane the AFL Collingwood Magpies (a fiercer version of a crow...think Hitchcock's 'The Birds') and St. Kilda Saints tied last weekend in the championship game. I'm thinking, "Tie? A Championship Game? Does the concept of shoot out or overtime not exist?". Apparently not, which I thoroughly benefited from this weekend. Not only did advertising sponsors have to cough up an additional $60M or so for round 2, but I also got to partake in the great masculine tradition of beer drinking, cheering (not rooting), and shouting loudly at strategically positioned TV screens in a crowded bar. It was great! Plus the accents really make the experience that much better (pronounced 'bettah' in Australian with a slight swing of intonation at the end.)
Places I recently explored:
- Darling Harbour (the area where my apartment is located)
- Darlinghurst (So I took the wrong left getting out of the subway at King's Cross, the one that leads to the Red light district, as opposed to Emily's aparmtent. Oops!)
- Paddington
- Australian Rules Football- I still don't entirely understand the rules, but I'll gladly watch a sport that has men running around in short short and tight shirts on a field that looks like a Pokeball any day.
Quote/accent of the day: (Immagine a Scottish accent) "I'd never thought I'd come to a bar and have 6 minute conversation about poached eggs."
For now, I need to rehydrate and write some peer reviews.
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| The View from My Apartment: Darling Harbour |
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