Saturday, November 04, 2006
People Watching
The last thing I wanted to do in Sydney before leaving was a tour of the Sydney Opera House. I got the chance this morning. It was a relaxing, if not pricey, way to spend an hour of my Saturday morning. I say this because the interior is not as awesome as the external structure. The best part was the main concert hall. Then again, you could see that by going to a concert.
More thoughts on Sydney:
- People dress to thrill. For the women: lots of tanned skin, XXL sunglasses. Men's fashions are surf or sport-inspired (in this case, soccer and rugby). Curiously, the NBA is not popular, and that is borne out sartorially. Hiphop culture is non-existent.
- Popular lunchtime cuisine: sushi rolls, Lebanese kebabs
I left Sydney in the afternoon for a quick flight to Brisbane, a few hundred miles up the East Coast. The flight was delayed and I didn't get to the hostel in Brisbane until 6. It's the slickest one I've yet seen: card-access doors, internet terminals with keycodes, and an attached full bar/club. I shared a room with two French girls that just arrived in Brisbane—and Australia. They were here to stay for a year and were in the process of finding jobs and an apartment. I was puzzled why they didn't start their journey in Sydney or Melbourne. (Later I found out that jobs for backpackers are plentiful here in the capital of Queensland.)
After dinner I watched TV—American programming, of course (Seinfeld reruns). Then I went down to reception and talked to a couple of employees, girls who couldn't have been older than eighteen. They pass out fliers for the hostel's club and even tend bar! This got me thinking about how many youths are in the service sector—store employees, bank tellers, even flight attendants here are far younger than their American counterparts. It seems these jobs pay better than in the States, but conversely, there does not appear to as large an incentive for attending university. Getting back to the action, these girls passed the evening watching Ace Ventura: Pet Detective on the telly.
At night I checked out the hostel bar, called Birdee Num Num. It's big—there's an outdoor area with a a tent, gazebo and smoking section, and a club section with four lighted platforms. The place was filling up with not only backpackers but locals, too. At the beginning of the night I talked to a local that looked like my freshman roommate, John Shea. He was short, hung his head low and darted his eyes as he spoke. But unlike John, he has a generally negative view of life. He doesn't like the "wankers" and "cockheads" you find at most bars in Brisbane that look to start a fight. When I told him that I was heading north up the coast after Brisbane he replied, "Why are you going to Cairns? It's too f***ing hot up there!" To be honest, I found his frankness refreshing. Most of the Australians I had met up to this point were connected to tourism and gave me a rose-colored view of life here. Finally, the Shea lookalike brought up Australian girls. I offered that they looked great but that they seemed to have a disadvantage in getting ahead in life. Shea added, "They're great when they're like this," pointing at the skin-showing 18-22 year-olds scattered around, "but after they're good only for popping out kids."
For a good while I alternated between the bar and the hostel's reception. The people I talked to had little interest in America, or at least not the facets that I expected. One of the bartenders who was on her break asked me if people in American clubs dance like in hip-hop music videos. (When I said more or less, she exclaimed that she couldn't wait to visit.) By 1 AM the bar was completely packed and the line to enter went around the block. The local guys were clad in Abercrombie & Fitch-style shirts (rugby, polo, T-shirts) and Diesel-knockoff shoes. The girls wore gaudy thin dresses or hot pants. Their faces were heavily made up and they smelled strongly of cheap perfume. It didn't take long to get tired of watching this group, and I soon went to bed.
