Observations from Our First Week (Updated with Some New Insights)

Attire here is ‘different’.  That funky, late teens early 20’s Urban Outfitters-esque style is all the rage and it’s everywhere, even mature people working in the CBD are dressed this way.  At first I thought it was just a few people with questionable style but alas it was not.  Another puzzling trend here is the wearing of boots with shorts or skirts.  If that’s what it’s going to take to fit in, count me out.  Similarly, Alex isn’t feeling men’s attire either.  He thought the jeans he bought in Chicago were tight but they’ve got nothing on the skin-tight jeans the men of Sydney are wearing.  Their jeans are as tight as the skinniest jeans you’d see on a woman in the States.  And men rolling up their tight pants here is a trend as well.  I’d call it ‘Boys Town’ goes mainstream and don’t think it’d catch on at home.  The other interesting menwear trend is men of all ages dressed like surfer dudes.  I haven't seen this many people wearing Vans since eighth grade.  One 'interesting' haircut that we've been noticing frequently is the shaved undercut (the hair is long on the top but shaved up to the ear but only on one side)... on women!  I don't think I could ever be so brave but the women of Australia have no qualms about it.

Sydney isn’t what we expected (we were told it’s the NYC of Australia).  In fact, we’ve compared it to a number of different cities, for different reasons, but NYC has not yet been one of them.  It’s quite hilly like San Francisco (our place is at the top of a hill so we can’t go anywhere without having to struggle up a huge hill to get back home).  The style of homes in the area we’re in reminds us of New Orleans architecture with all the balconies on the entire front of the second story.  We likened it to Boston when we were in The Rocks because of all the brick streets, old buildings and no straight road to be found.  The people have all been very nice and super chill so it got a Chicago comparison for that and all the beautiful green space.  Lastly, the palm trees everywhere made Alex think of his days in southern Florida. 

The people are less attractive than you’d anticipate.  In ads & movies, Aussies are hot, blonde Adonis-esque men and supermodel-looking women but in reality, they have just as many average and/or unattractive folks as we do back home.

But they sure are fit.  People here exercise… a lot!  Runners are everywhere all day, every day.  You see them in the parks, on the streets, in the central business district at lunch – it’s impressive (and inspiring, we’ve been running a lot since we got here too).

Pregnancy is everywhere :/  What’s the only thing we’ve seen more than runners?  Extremely pregnant women.  Like every other lady we’ve seen so far is preggo.  It’s scary and has turned me off from drinking the water.

Women might be having babies, but the men appear to be doing all the work.  Dads on Daddy Duty is the norm, not the exception (maybe that’s why the women don’t mind getting pregnant).  We’ve seen Dad’s with their kids at the beach, at the store, in the park – its awesome! 

Another thing it appears women are not doing, working as executives.  We’ve been in the CBD everyday for at least an hour and we’ve seen countless men in suits on every corner but no women dressed as power players.  It’s weird, I wanted to ask, where are all the ladies in suits hiding?!   (I have been assured by a friend that there are in fact, a good number of women business professionals - thought I still haven't seen many).

Final thought; Alex has decided I am part Asian.  Every tourist spot we’ve hit has been filled with Asians taking a ridiculous number of photos of everything, including the most mundane things (like common fish at the Aquarium).  Well, I too want to capture the memories from our trip so I’ve been a bit camera-happy (though I don’t think I’ve been thaaaat bad) resulting in endless mocking from Alex.  He gave me the Asian nickname ‘Ding Dong’ so we’ll see if he gets a copy of any of these pictures when we get back…   

Fast facts that we found interesting and worth sharing:  Australian money is plastic (and therefore, impossible to tear), $5 is the smallest bill, $1 & $2 are gold coins, the $$ coins are smaller than their 5, 10, 20 or 50 cent silver coins (which confuses me every time), the crosswalkshere  all beep indicating whether or not you can cross (when its time to cross it sounds like a laser gun from Star Wars followed by a bunch of quick beeps), kebabs are wraps (not skewered meat - I found this out the hard way), every electronic outlet has an on-off switch and toilets have two flush options (depending on how much water you need to flush whatever you just did down).