#BiggestCityOnTheContinent

[roodiaries]

Sydneyside

Foreword: This blog post is divided into sub-sections to make it seem less long ;)

Residing on Sydney's North Shore: The Compartment Life

I arrived back in Sydney in late January 2017 with a vague resolve to get a house, job, girlfriend, life, etc. on a nice comfy, non-committal, short-term basis. I haven't spent more than a year in one accommodation since I was 18 in fact.

House was the first objective, even before a guarantee of a stable income and some rapidly dwindling funds, post-Asia/East Coast travel. I spent a week of searching high and low for an affordable place with my own room and not in the back end of beyond. I visited numerous dull-sounding (and looking) suburbs, such as Lidcombe, Ashfield, Arncliffe and Auburn. I did also check one out in Woolloomoolloo. That would have been a cool place to call home, and Russell Crowe lives there!

I settled for a shared-room in the north shore suburb of Willoughby, and sacrificed my single-room agenda because there was a giant partition in this room (a deal-breaker and meaning I had privacy and my own corner), and the room-mate seemed a good fit: a shift-working nurse from The Philippines named Andrew, and not a major party guy. The 'landlord' – actually renting out the place himself and sub-letting it to us – was a Korean wing-chun instructor called Sam who worked in the studio area at the front of the house, but lived elsewhere with his family. There was also a single room near ours, where a guy from Taiwan called Dean was staying. I regret not hanging out with those three more often, but our schedules clashed and everyone was always busy. In 5 months (before Dean left), we managed to eat dinner together a total of once! The lack of a communal area or large kitchen kind of prevented much socialising anyway, and I mostly just saw Andrew (but even sharing a room, I wouldn't see him for up to a week at a time). It was functional and comfortable, but not social.

Pullman Prestige

I got a job at the Pullman Sydney Hyde Park Hotel in the Food & Beverage Department in late February. Like my apartment and car, I found the job on Gumtree – the perennial lifesaver! I immediately loved the job, and it was certainly my favourite one so far in Australia. I ended up staying the entire 6 months that I was permitted with the WH visa. I liked the prestige of wearing a tie and uniform at work, and being in a fancy, air-conditioned establishment right in the heart of the city. It was my first taste of hospitality, and I particularly enjoyed the team atmosphere, with staff bonds forged via countless high-pressure stressful-but-funny situations,

e.g.:

Having just two hours to transform two rooms, including the main events room from a day conference into a giant dinner party complete with dance floor, stage, hypnotists and countless decorations, while trying to manage the three-inch high flood of reeking viscous sewage in the pantry next door

Anzac Day when every room was full with lunch events and tonnes of staff were needed (getting paid double-time = $49 per hour), listening to stories of veterans and their relatives (but later that day I was in the wars myself when I fell down the stairs and sprained my ankle!)

Numerous sports teams (AFL and NRL) eating relentlessly and drinking unstoppably, and all the constant clean-ups and late-night stays; listening to their conversations was surprisingly boring

When outlandish day-conference guests and clients rampaged illegally through the uncleaned, bombshell-like pantry and store-rooms, clambering dangerously over furniture

Being behind the pop-up bar during massive rushes, and having my first exposure to lemon and lime bitters (which I learned to make), as well as pouring techniques for wine and beer

The classic 'no cutlery or glasses ready' scenario right before a big event and the rush to find everything with not enough staff or time, making do with the wrong types

Lorenzo not getting along with the rest of the staff, tickling you while you carried stuff and refusing to do the vacuuming because it was beneath him! “Not the hero we deserve, nor the one we need.” But also a legend in his own right

Mardi Gras night in March – our hotel was the starting point for the whole half-a-million-strong parade: as extravagant floats passed by, we served drinks and canapes to numerous drag queens and divas (with requests including putting a sausage roll between their boobs, “can I take you home tonight?” and much more, producing plenty of awkward laughter and lack of a clever response from myself)

Arguments with the narky banquet chefs: “where's your supervisor!?” Plenty of tut-tuts if you couldn't carry three plates or were not on time, but all good fun in the end (I think)

Some shifts in breakfast or room service: plenty of awkward customer exchanges – e.g. saying “have a good day!” and then finding they were just getting up to get food; trying to choose between saying “you're welcome,” “that's OK,” “no problem” and “no worries,” and then mixing them up: “that's no worries, welcome!” Also when the owners of the building were in town, and I took away the coffee of Wong Kan Seng, the former Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore, before he was finished (almost died of mortification); and some good times there too, especially working with Joshua (the only other Englishman who also started on the same day as me), as well as Steve or Anne Sophie in room service

Particular mention goes to the banquets team I worked with the most: Bibek with his sudden high-pitched voice when speaking to customers (“room service”) and the infamous brown bag; Jess, the Aussiest girl in the hotel who always helped me out patiently while never taking shit from nobody; the supervisor Jona who hired me, taught me the ropes and was always keen for after-work beers; Guthrie with his laid-back attitude and film chats; and management trainee Sy whose random soundbites echo in my head to this day (“get to the choppers,” “OK team, it's show time,” “time to disappear”), always facilitating an atmosphere of fun and nonsense in the face of some overwhelming shifts.

Since I still work for the same company in a different location right now, I won't bitch too much, but plenty of staff at Pullman Sydney were not happy and began quitting over various issues, including management and lack of shifts. Money often seemed to be favoured over staff (or customers for that matter) with shifts regularly cut and annoying initiatives to upsell more stuff (the guests don't want a bloody extra croissant, leave them alone FFS). Lack of sufficient staff for a shift was also a constant blight, but in general you had a lot of freedom and variety working in banquets, and were often given considerable responsibility, and the experience was definitely a positive one.

A Brief Commentary of Sydney as a City

Overall, I like Sydney a lot. I prefer it to Melbourne, Canberra and definitely Adelaide. However, it’s a city of two halves. On the one hand, you have the dingy, dull, congested, prosaic, worn-out, uninventive, crappy, commercial-and-business-dominated city centre, which has a surprisingly high East Asian population (it feels like 50% Asian, not that that’s a bad thing; just unexpected). On the other hand, you have the stunning Sydney Harbour & Parramatta River (together known as Port Jackson) with its unending bays and natural/man-made sights; and the relaxed coastal suburbs with further wondrous views west over the city and east out to the vast Pacific Ocean. Public transport is second to none, and the Opal card makes travelling relatively cheap and convenient (by bus, train, tram and boat). Going out is expensive, but there are always cheaper hidden places, and happy hours provide good value for money: the beer and bars improve exponentially when you escape the CBD. Like much of Australia, it feels very suburban, middle-class and family-oriented: sometimes a little too clean and organised for my tastes (though I never visited notorious parts like Blacktown or Mount Druitt). It also has access to some incredible nature and national parks in all directions. It’s somewhere I’m glad I lived, but not somewhere I particularly need to live in the future. It lives up to the hype in many ways, but from my perspective, it can’t match the major European cities for history, architecture, food or atmosphere.

Social Life a.k.a The Pub & A Few Other Things

I had three main friends outside of work: Tatjana and Eisen from my farm work days in Renmark, and Mark from my uni exchange in Singapore. I spent many sessions out in Sydney's array of bars: those at Circular Quay and Darling Harbour which were pricier but had wondrous views while imbibing copious schooners of sweet wholesome 'cold ones'. These included but were not limited to the Bavarian Bier Cafe (lovely German beers for $5 at happy hour), Pontoon, Sweeney's, Hotel Harry's, Lord Roberts, The Clock, The Palace Hotel, Bald Rock Hotel and all other bars in Balmain (where Mark lived and our favourite suburb, full of homely pubs). I was sad when all three of them left in June/July.

I don't want to try and seem cool by boasting about drinking sessions (I could never claim to be cool), but I did not do a lot else outside of work: this was due to the physical and mental toll some of the long shifts (especially night ones) took on me, leading to a reluctance to do any other exercise, and the unpredictability of my schedule meaning I couldn't reliably sign up to many social clubs. However, I did get out and about to enjoy some fantastic city walks along Sydney's coastal suburbs: Botany Bay, Spit Bridge to Manly, Bondi to Coogee, the Royal National Park, and the Blue Mountains to the west. I also enjoyed a four-day holiday in April to Queensland to visit Fraser Island, the world's largest sand island and a natural adventure playground full of intriguing rainforest, a highway on the beach, sea swimming pools, freshwater perched lakes, and lots of dingoes.

In addition, I occasionally worked for my Romanian friend Costi, who helped people move house in his spare time. One extremely memorable, epic job was during the hottest day of the Australian summer, when it was a ridiculous 43ºC in February: we drove 3 hours over the Blue Mountains to the town of Bathurst to help a Bangladeshi family move to Sydney; their new apartment had several flights of stairs which we had to carry everything up by hand, sweating profusely in the mean time; then we had to drive back to Bathurst (so 9 hours of driving that day) because the neighbour also wanted to use our van to move house, so we slept on his mattress, then woke up very early and began packing his stuff into the van. His furniture was way too big, so we had to drive to Sydney with half of it, unload it, and then drive back again to Bathurst, pack the rest and unload again at his new house, finishing at about 6am on Monday morning. It was a full 48-hour working weekend, including 18 hours of travelling and a great deal of physical work: I would name it as one of the hardest, most intense single shifts I've ever done. However, it was made a lot more enjoyable by the company of Costi, who drove the whole time, never bitched or complained and maintained a calm, good-natured demeanour throughout the weekend, making it feel like a doable team effort for which I was well-compensated. A legend and a role model, that's for sure.

Riding the Bus

A boring topic to write about in my blog, but taking public transport on average twice per day over 7 months in Sydney provides one with a window into a city's soul. I loved crossing the Sydney Harbour Bridge every day to and from work or social events, basking in epic sunsets and sunrises over the incredible Sydney Harbour while jamming to the classic tunes (see Crossing the Bridge playlist below for details).

-The time the bus driver didn't know how to get to the Harbour Bridge because of roadworks and shouted to the passengers at large to ask for directions!

-The time the driver yelled at a guy to come to the front because he supposedly hadn't tapped on his Opal card, but it turned out that he had: the incident had a tense racial undertone because he was the only black guy on the bus...

-When the driver of the last bus of the night couldn't pull up at the last stop before the bridge due to taxis obstructing the stop; a girl was waiting and screaming desperately for him to stop – and even I (Captain Quiet On Public Transport) – shouted to the driver to stop somewhere! He didn’t.

-The drunken night bus back to Artarmon after a late shift: two guys that had just met for the first time, the younger, cockier and skinnier of whom constantly disagreed bluntly with everything the much older, bigger guy said, leading to a confrontational end to the conversation (this journey was always followed by an unpleasant 25-minute uphill walk through the lost lonely suburbs where not a soul stirs and spider webs hang over the path ready to snag an unsuspecting face passing through).

Thanks for taking the time to read,

Scroll down for photos and previous blog posts,

Oliver