Sydney So Far...People

I’ve never been a fan of small talk. It’s inane and unoriginal. Granted, sometimes it’s an ice-breaker or a way in to starting a more interesting conversation. Heck, sometimes it’s just nice to fill in an uncomfortable silence. But it always comes across as so fake to me. I play along though. I’m not that much of a miserable sad-sack!

During my stay in Australia, I’ve learnt two things about small talk here. Everyone still talks about the weather, that’s not a Briticism. Secondly, an extension to that is how the weather relates to the surf. I’m no surf girl so I end up doing the nod-and-smile trick or simply just agree with everything they say. I have no idea what good surfing conditions are. Aussies are mad bastards. They go out surfing come rain or shine. For that reason, I can’t use that to gauge how good the surf is. Sometimes it’s blazing sunshine and someone will say the surf is bad today. I feel obligated to say something in return…”Yeah…that surf ey? Terrible…tsk” One couple even asked me whether the surf was good one day as they wanted to go out for a swim. I just made something up but felt terrible when they decided not to go out.

One guy asked me if I liked Freshwater. I thought he meant fresh water, which at the time sounded like a strange question. I just said, “Yeah, it’s great,” still thinking he meant Evian or something. He then went on to describe the beach, the view and, of course, the surf. Ooooh, there’s a place called Freshwater. Well at least my enthusiasm for fresh water still translated to enthusiasm for a beach. They do have odd names for places here – Curl Curl, Wee Waa, Woolloomooloo. Oh dear. So I have to be a bit more aware of what I’m saying as I could be nodding and agreeing to anything!

I will eat my words slightly as I do like bantering with customers. It’s always been my favourite part of a job that involves front-of-house work. We get a lot of regulars that come into where I work and they’re all lovely. There’s a retired Aussie couple who come in and they must be the happiest people in Australia. They’re like a beam of sunshine when they walk in. They are always smiling and have the most fascinating stories.

Although I have spoken to a lot of Aussies through work and other social situations, I haven’t really made that many Aussie friends. So far, with what I have witnessed on the Northern Beaches (Sydney), that’s a good thing. However, it would be nice to make a few friends locally before I leave.

The one thing I do like about Aussies is how abrupt they are. Aussies don’t sugar coat their words. It makes things a lot easier in life when you know exactly what someone thinks. There are no significant anecdotes which stand out at the moment so I’ll come back to this in a future post as I’m sure I will have plenty of fodder once I start travelling.

I have definitely gone for quality over quantity when it comes to Aussie friends. I’ve become quite close to one girl who I work with which is a miracle as the rest hate me or don’t really talk to me that much! Most times when I leave work and say goodbye, I get silence back. It’s a bit disheartening!

Georgia has done plenty of travelling herself and is very level headed for her young age (19). As Georgia is an aspiring actress, we have the love of films in common. Our hatred for idiot customers and the spoilt self-obsessed demeanour of the youth within the Northern Beaches are other views we share. To know that I’m not alone in my observations and for the fact that an AUSSIE agrees with me, makes me feel better. Rather than be offended by their ways or turn into a self-conscious paranoid ball of mess, I choose to look for the funnies. It gets me through the day.

The other Aussie is a recent acquirement. He’s the boyfriend of a friend…shush, it still counts. He was absolutely lovely when I visited them both and stayed the night. He even offered out a couch/room at his parent’s place further north up the east coast for when I move on from Sydney!

My collection is growing and I’m determined to find more nice Aussies. I’d like nothing more than to be convinced that Australia is the happy-go-lucky laid back country that was previously promised to me. People do ask me if the UK thinks that Australia is like Neighbours, which it obviously isn’t. This made me wonder whether Aussies think that Yorkshire is like Coronation Street or, heaven forbid, Hollyoaks! I don’t think they get those soaps here anyway. Phew!

It’s not been that easy making friends with backpackers or other expats either which I half expected. Now I have firm friends in roommates Mel and Steff, I feared I might end up hanging out with them and not really trying to make friends with anyone else. Another element is the fact that now I’m stationary and working, I have slowed down a lot and don’t have the impetus of not having much time on my side. For instance, I’m still in touch with Rich who I met and spoke to for a couple of hours one night in Singapore. We covered a lot in that time! I don’t think I’ve spoken to a fellow backpacker to the same extent in the three months that I’ve been here! It’s not great really.

I surprised myself as I did actually try when I first arrived but discovered a weird cycle that happened within the hostel. It’s literally an excerpt from my years in Secondary School. A new backpacker would arrive and you’d strike up conversation with them at a random moment. You think a (friendly) connection was made but before you know it, they’ve been sucked into “the main group” and you don’t hear much from them again. As each member of “the main group” disappears, they are replaced by another one. They’re made up of the same stock characters – the geeky nice guy that everyone likes, the overly flirty girls, beach bum guys and the mature gapper. Now I can’t be arsed. The end is in sight now so I’m looking forward to moving on and making new friends as I travel.

I’m not a fan of friend-groups anyway. I have a series of individual friends back home as well as those I met at university dotted around England. Some of them may know each other but, for the most part, I usually see them on their own rather than as a collective. I like it that way and it definitely cuts down the chances of drama.

However, sometimes conflict just follows me around. I had a bit of a set-to with one woman who pounded on our wall and came over shouting about how she didn’t pay $90 a night to listen to our conversation. The thing is, we weren’t even being loud. We’ve had loud music (DJ Steff in the house!), blazing arguments and attacks of the giggles (I have a loud laugh when I find something truly funny). But this time we were just having a serious conversation about our travel plans. I got down off of my bunk and was ready to give a verbal beat down. The stupid woman walked off before I even started. Damn.

Other than the random guy moments (future post to come), there was only one other confrontation and that was with a drunken idiot who decided to throw a lot of nasty words at my roommate. I’m very protective of my friends. Lucky for him, I was half asleep so he didn’t see the full extent of my feistiness. I generally try to avoid confrontation if I can and am not a violent person in the slightest but my protective instincts kicks in when it comes to my friends…or I guess if some stupid woman bangs on our wall at night, ha. You don’t want to see me when I get angry…

Not to worry, as all was not lost as I was put in touch with a few people via friends on Facebook. I only ended up meeting one but she turned out to be awesome. Again, quality overrules quantity. My roommates ribbed me for meeting up with someone I’d only ever messaged once or twice on Facebook. It’s another incident which showed the glaring differences in our outlooks towards travelling. I had no qualms about meeting a near stranger and it worked out to my advantage.

I met Emma for a drink one evening and we had a great chat. There were no awkward silences and we had a lot in common. Emma completely empathised with me as she arrived in Australia friendless and did everything in her power to meet new people. Emma joined clubs and started new hobbies and soon went from wall flower to social princess. I should have followed suit really but I honestly had more faith in the backpacker community.

Emma introduced me to her friend Bex who was, at the time of our first meeting, based in Dee Why where I work. We met for coffee and had a lovely chat. Unfortunately our conflicting diaries have meant that I haven’t seen as much of Emma and Bex as I would like to which is a real shame. Nevertheless, I do feel like they are people I will remain friends with for a long time so I won’t feel like it’s goodbye forever when I eventually leave Australia.

If my trip was to end tomorrow, I would be extremely happy with the friends I have made in each country. I was hoping to meet a handful of awesome people overall but the total has already reached double figures and I’m not even half way through my trip yet!