I am sitting on the couch in the apartment on Oxford Street. It is raining outside just like it did yesterday and it probably will tomorrow. It is becoming an unseasonably cold summer. I am eating a banana for the first time in ages. Because of the floods in Queensland, banana prices rose to $15 a kilo which made bananas an absurd luxury. Now banana prices have come down a bit so everyone and their mom is buying them. It is like this weird banana obsession. I came back from the grocery store today with a bunch of bananas and Sinan, my roommate, asked: "Where did you get those? How much did you pay? Are there a lot left in the store?" Talk about supply and demand. Anyway, it has been a long time since I last blogged and you are probably bored already because I am writing about bananas, economics, and the weather, three mind numbingly dull topics, so I will get on with the outline of my life in Sydney and I will try my hardest to make it interesting for you.
Roommates
I live with three Turkish guys: Sinan, Hakan, and Fatih. Sinan is the boss of the house, or at least we let him think that he his. He is the liasion between us and the landlord which gives him this false sense of power. It's fair enough because out of all of us, Sinan spends the most time actually in the house. Come to think of it, I cannot recall a time when I was home and he wasn't. Sinan spends all of his time watching Turkish sitcoms and playing this stupid computer game with mythical war zones and graphics circa 1990. Fatih is Sinan's cousin. He is the strong silent type -- the hardest working and the most serious of all the roommates. Fatih is a full time Civil Engineering student and he works nights at a kebab shop so he barely has time for sleeping let alone socializing. Hakan is pretty much the opposite or Fatih. He is the laid back one of the group. Hakan is always bringing home friends and hanging out on the balcony. I probably get along the best with him. Unfortunately, Hakan is heading home to Turkey to serve his five months of military service. This makes me appreciate how lucky we are in the United States not to have mandatory service.
The cool thing about living with three Turkish guys is that they know several kebab shop workers, coffee shop barristas, and convience store employees on the block. Because they speak the same language it is like they are instant friends (or at least acquaintances). It would be nice to have that sense of community. The only frustrating thing about living with three Turkish guys is that sometimes they get into Turkish speaking mode and I have to try and snap them out of it. Usually it goes like this: they talk for a bit and I yell "ENGLISH!." Then they translate what they said into English, which is usually something disappointingly mundane like.
- "I asked Sinan to go down and buy some coffees,'
- "and I told Hakan that I got coffees last time and it is his turn to go down and buy them."
- "Lily, who do you think should get them?"
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