A few observations from the flip side:

American money IS really boring.  I had heard that before but could never really relate.  It also feels substantially less robust than Aussie money.  Perhaps currency reflects culture in more ways than intended.  But you certainly spend a lot less of it.  My idea of a reasonable price is so far from what it used to be.  Shopping at certain outlets and chain stores felt almost like getting away with theft.  I guess there is something to be said for a mass consumerist culture.  Although, taxes and tipping sucks a bit.  Go easy on the foreigners who might shortchange you.  They probably just come from a culture with a more straightforward billing system.

Driving on the other side of the road only seemed a little strange when I was on a new road.  It created a particularly strange sensation while on a road lined with eucalyptus trees though.  Coincidence?  I think not.

Changing seasons on the way there was not particularly hard, but coming back to winter is quite a depressing experience.  If the cold doesn’t get to you, then the lack of light does.  We came back to Sydney on the shortest day of the year after having been in a city where it was still light at 8pm.  Luckily the days can only get longer from here.

My Many Homes:

Going back to LA felt the same way it always has.  I guess I’m used to coming home again, even if the trips happen less frequently than they used to.  But this was the first time I have ever gone back to New York and not been returning to my own humble abode.  I can only describe the sensation of going back like that of reading a book or seeing a movie that you loved as a child but haven’t been exposed to for many years.  You remember the major plot points, the characters and how it ends (usually with a slice of pizza at 2am on a Sunday) but you’ve forgotten little details here and there.  I’d see certain street corners, overhear conversations on the subway, get trapped in the stampede of a deli lunch rush and find myself thinking, oh yeah, I remember that.

It was also louder, more congested and just generally more insane than I remember.  I guess after living there for enough time you develop the ability to shut out everything but what you need and want to hear, see and even smell, then lose it after spending some time away.  But I muscled through overstimulation with the iron will (and stomach) of a true New Yorker.  Yeah, I’ve still got it.

The bagels are amazing, the cocktails are generous, the pizza is rich and delicious and the coffee sucks.  But it tastes like no other coffee in the world.  That slight hint of burnt metal and taste of grounds that have spent weeks at the bottom of the machine is a flavor I fondly associate with the Big Apple, ode de health violations.  I also thought I walked plenty in Sydney, but I realize now that no creature on earth walks as much as a New Yorker.  It took wearing holes in one pair of shoes and my only pair of feet before I got my city legs back.  Aussies will be able to swim around the planet when the polar ice caps melt but until then they’ll never beat a New Yorker in an endurance walk.

But perhaps the most surprising thing about going back home was the fact that it made me really feel how much time has passed since I’ve been back.  When you move to a new country, how you feel and what you experience tends to change every few weeks.  Excitement becomes culture shock, because excitement again.  New experiences become everyday life.  Odd becomes normal and eventually your new environment becomes your new home and before you know it an entire year has passed.  But for the people you left behind, the people whose lives now have one less person in them, they seem to have felt every day pass.  You can tell by how tightly they hug you when they finally see you again.  You can see it in the tears they can’t hold back when you have to say goodbye for another year.  It suddenly becomes much harder to leave than you thought it would be.

But because of all those people, both East coast and West, I now have more than one place to call home.  As hard as it is to be separated by time zones and hemispheres, I know I can not only always come back but that I will also always be welcomed.  I’ve felt so much at home in two vastly different cities now, that  when people here ask me where I’m from I have trouble deciding what to say.  And I wouldn’t feel that way without the people I have so much trouble prying myself away from.  So I consider myself lucky, exceptionally lucky.  And if I continue to be as lucky as I am now, maybe I’ll have a third city to call my home.

Now, I’m going back to two different places that I’ve called home for most of my life and I wonder if all the commonplace everyday things that I once took for granted are going to stick out like the peaks of the Opera House.  Will the LA traffic finally seem as ridiculous as I know it really is?  (although Sydney has its fair share of congested arteries as well.)  Will NY actually seem like the densely, jam-packed pickle of an island I had once been so accustomed to?  Will I experience a sense of relief at finally no longer being the one with the accent?  At least no one will think I’m Canadian.

I’ll report my findings upon my return to the land of Oz.  Until then, I’ll be enjoying a literal change of season. Cheers!

The only things that still throw me off are two particular Australianisms.  One is “How you going?” the Aussie’s way of saying “How are you?” “What’s up?” or “How is IT going?”.  And even though I can answer the question without hesitation, it still incites in me a desire to respond with what my American instincts would consider a misuse of grammar like, “I go fine”  or “It be well”.  And the other one the induces a bit of a shudder when I hear it is “Ta” yes, just “Ta.”  I think it’s a shortening of “That’s alright” which is the common response to “Thank you” out here, along with “No worries” which reminds me a bit of the Americanism “No problem” (an expression hammered out of my vocabulary long ago, by a boss who wouldn’t stand for the lackadaisical “Jamaican” nature of the response, and preferred the much more gracious “You’re welcome” (that’s still what I always say)).  But “Ta” like the Hawaiian “Aloha” also seems to mean thank you, hello, goodbye, and many other things I’m sure I haven’t figured out yet.  Personally I prefer “cheers”.

So since my daily interactions with Australians, are only peppered by the occasional language confusion, I forget that I am now the one with the accent.  It only takes one or two sentences before they ask “Are you on holiday?” or get more straight to the point with “Where are you from?”.  It’s easy to forget I’m a foreigner.  Sydney is like an odd collection of the neighborhoods I know from LA and NY, in look, pace, lifestyle and culture.  So unlike when I lived in Italy and felt as obviously American as I’m sure I looked (not that I wore a Mickey T-shirt or anything, but come on, the Europeans know Americans when they see them) I expect to blend in here like a eucalyptus tree.   And I pretty much do, until I start talking.  It’s then that I get a taste of what I’m sure every immigrant in the States gets at one point or another.  It’s pretty interesting being on the flip side of those accent induced conversations.

The other outsider viewpoint that being a foreigner has made me privy to, is an objective look at the practice of placeism.  Placeism, like all isms, is a bad thing, yet it is one that we accept into our everyday lives because it victimizes places, rather than people.  I myself have been guilty of placeism on many occasions.  It’s why I stopped telling people I was from Beverly Hills, often inducing drawn out conversations that go a little like this:

“Where are you from?”
“LA.”
“Where in LA?”
“West LA.”
“What part?”
“About 20 minutes from the coast” (45 by today’s traffic standards)
“Which area?”
“Between Hollywood and Santa Monica.”

That’s when people who know their maps would figure out I just covered a pretty large area of the city, and I would have to admit the truth, which was usually followed by:

“No, there is no West Beverly High.  I live in 90212 NOT 90210.  And no, I didn’t get a BWM on my 16th birthday.  But yes, I know people who did.”

I felt justified in my defensiveness, because judgements were often placed upon me because of where I was from.  And why shouldn’t they judge?  We all do.  But since I’m no longer in a place where I get why people from New Jersey say they are from New York (you’re really not), and us blue state residents feel compelled to make fun of the red states, I can tell you first hand that placeism is pretty pointless.

The Australians I’ve met have either vehemently defended where they were from, or preemptively made fun of it before anyone else could.  Each city seems to come with it’s only set of preconceptions.  Sydney is the urban active city, Melbourne following as a close second, while Brisbane and Adelaide are considered country, and Perth might as well not even been on the map.  Or at least, that is what I have gathered from these conversations, although I can’t really remember, because I don’t really care.  I came here completely free of any knowledge or preconceptions about any part of the country, and very willing to experience every part of it, good and bad.  So when people begin to launch into conversations about which places are dodgy or where the bogans live, I usually zone out because, in reality, I’d prefer to find out for myself.

So the next time you meet a foreigner, even if they seem to think that all Texans are George W. Bush, and all Californians are Paris Hilton, instead of launching into a well practiced diatribe in defense of your hometown, give them a chance to figure it out for themselves.  I, for one, will stop hiding the fact that I’m from Beverly Hills.  They can figure out for themselves that I don’t have a trust fund.  It shouldn’t take long.

At the same time, everyone living in the big apple will have days, weeks, and maybe even months at a time when they feel New York is the best place in the world.  Sometimes the streets are beautiful, the people are vibrant and interesting, and the air almost hums with energy.  I’ve had no shortage of experiences living in NYC that I know I would never have had anywhere else in the world, and met some of the most interesting people I think the human race could possibly produce.  So . . . why the hell did I leave?

Well the old adage is true, the grass is always greener.  And even though I didn’t specifically choose Sydney because of its luscious bluegrass, the idea of escaping the noise, dirt, population density, and air of constant bitterness clouding NYC, was too appealing to refuse.  I wanted to leave NY while I still had those days when I loved living there, but as they were getting fewer and further between, I had to act fast.

And indeed I got exactly what I was looking for, and then some.   My tiny, ancient, walkup was replaced with a spacious clean elevator building.  My view of the shut down factory and parking lot was replaced with sparkling harbor and shiny skyline.  I no longer have to cram myself on to the Great Lawn with every other New Yorker who doesn’t have a summer home, since there are no shortage of public parks, reserves and beautiful beaches just a short trip away.  The streets are clean, the transportation efficient, and all I hear through my window are birdcalls and the occasional horn of a passing ferry.  And maybe it’s because I have yet to pick a footy team to cheer for (don’t say “root for”, it means something dirty here) but the people have all been just as open and friendly as everyone said they would be.  And yet, something is missing.

I know I’m not suffering from culture shock.  How could I be when I moved somewhere that is so culturally similar to what I’m used to, that the only thing I’ve found shocking is the fact that everyone really does eat vegemite?  (How did you do it Kraft?)  But something definitely feels “off.”  When shopping, I have to emotionally prepare myself for the possibility of shop assistants being too helpful.  It doesn’t seem right that the train platforms aren’t packed with people looking down the tracks for approaching headlights, between messaging on their Blackberries.  And the legions of well behaved school children, in smart blue uniforms, are starting to look like the children of the corn.  Could it be?  Do I miss the shit?

Is the on and off love affair most people have with New York like a drug addiction?  Do the highs that make you want to dance down the street, celebrating the fact that no one will find it strange, only feel as good as they do because of the lows?  Maybe everyone loves Central Park, because any patch of tree shade and green grass is a mecca to the pavement dwellers.  Maybe the art museums, restaurants, bars and clubs, are all so great because they are not your tiny little excuse for a domicile.  And maybe, I haven’t been able to settle into this Stepford like city, because it has yet to show me it’s dark side.  I crave some schadenfreude.  I guess after ten years in NYC, I really did go native.

So perhaps this weekend I will hit up the Red Light District (not as a patron, just an observer), start a couple of fights on Oxford Street (which according to it’s reputation shouldn’t be too hard) and shut the blinds so I don’t get woken up by pleasant sunlight and chirping birds.  Maybe I’ll even leave a note for the garbage man to break as many glass bottles as he can while doing the morning pickup.  Then I’ll feel right at home.