Outline Part Four - Friends and the Holidays

Since my international co-workers and I were all orphans over the holidays, we decided to head to Bondi Beach for the classic Aussie Christmas.  It was a beautiful day.  Looking down across the beach you could see crowds of people in red and white Santa hats eating, drinking, and laughing together.  I sat for a moment and observed how the sun lit up the sand and reflected off the ocean, providing a new definition for the phrase: "white Christmas" -- making me stop and wonder: what is the holiday season?  Because here in Australia the season is most certainly Summer.      

I spent the better part of my day lying around the beach in a Santa hat and bright greet souvenir sunglasses drinking cider and white wine.  Most of my friends here are English so the, once unfathomable, idea of being warm on Christmas became a euphoric experience and everyone was overjoyed.  

Since Christmas I have been hanging out non-stop with my fellow orphaned co-workers.  Since none of us are working this week, we are like high schoolers during Summer vacation.  We make dinner, watch movies and and have sleepovers for nights and nights in a row.  The people that I hang out with the most are Keyon and Charlotte.  Both of them are from England but they have very different accents.  Keyon is from Bristol and his accent is reminiscent of Sid Vicious and 80's British punk rock.  Charlotte, or the other hand, is from London and she sounds a bit like one of the Spice Girls (though I would never say that to her face.)  Anyway, since all of my Australian co-workers are with their families I have found myself on a week long British Holiday.  I hope life is good back in the states because things are stunning out here.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS AND HAPPY NEW YEARS!   

Outline Part Threre: Sydney, Newtown

Sydney is an amazingly well laid out city.  The suburbs are integrated into a network of trains and the main lines go through Circular Quay, showing off the harbor bridge and opera house.  This serves as a constant reminder that you are in Sydney and no where else.  The Central Business District exists in multiple layers, reminiscent of dreams in which rooms progress into more rooms.  What you originally thought was an underground food court becomes a shopping mall --> massage studio --> train station.  When you finally decide to exit the indoor labyrinth you realize that you are four blocks from where you entered, as if the entire city that takes place above ground also exists below.


My friends out here live in Newtown, the once-bad-neighborhood turned cool-artsy-counterculture-oasis.  Newtown was an affordable place until gourmet restaurants bloomed and housing prices skyrocketed due to pure desirability.  Even if you have never been to Newtown, I know you know exactly what I am talking about.  The other day my friends were jokingly scheming to bring crime back in order to create a catalyst for reverse gentrification.


My friend Daniel once told me his theory of Gentrification by Coffee Shop and I still think about it all the time.  This is roughly how he explained it:
So South Berkeley runs into North Oakland right?  And South Berkeley used to be the sketchy transition area between nice Berkeley and ghetto Oakland.  Then they built Sweet Adeline (this really cool coffee shop-bakery) in North Oakland.  Now people bring there kids here, they ride their bikes here, and walk their dogs here.  Regulars come here every morning to get coffee.  Everyone wants to live walking distance from their local coffee shop so, of course, young couples start to move here.  Slowly North Oakland becomes gentrified and the transition area moves further into Oakland, just past Sweet Adeline because Sweet Adeline is the last coffee shop before copious liquor stores and run down buildings, but once they build another coffee shop...


I apologize for the digression.  Please forgive me.

Outline Part Two - Roommates

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?"

Interlude 2

My favorite and least favorite thing about street fundraising is that we work in a different location every day.  This is sometimes a pain because I have to figure out the transit system, but it is also cool because it gives me an excuse to visit little areas that I would never voyage to on my own.  Sometimes it feels a bit like a tour of concrete suburbs that could easily blend in with any English speaking country.  You know the ones that I'm talking about: the grocery store next to the bank next to the dive bar next to the old antique shop next to a series of dormant businesses with barred doors and dusty windows.  The streets are a monotonous set of strip malls pasted together on cracked pavement.  The occasional tree, plopped down like a castle in a fish tank serves to make you feel as if your habitat is closer to the natural world, providing the illusion that you can escape from your bubble at any time - or is it an illusion?  

Interlude I

Everyone loves bartenders and everyone hates street fund raisers.  These are facts.  You can ask anyone.  If I were a person who felt my job defined my identity, I would probably be a complete mess from the contrast of treatment.  The bartender is the definition of cool, the keeper of keys, the dealer.  You want to be her best friend.  She can hook it up or refuse service at her whim.  You abide her as the dominatrix of liquor and you love her because she washes away your anxieties and brings you to a place where everyone is successful, good looking, and alright.    

Paradoxically, the street fundraiser is the scapegoat.  She reminds you of the deterioration of the planet: the helplessness you feel in the face of global warming, economic crises, mass starvation, disease, six-hundred pound gorillas stealing resources in a time of widespread scarcity, and most excruciatingly of all, she reminds you of death -- of the lack of control you feel in the face of even your own death.  Once you are down, she digs you further.  She reminds you that there are charities.  Charities are important.  Charities would not exist without donations.  She tells you that if you don't donate, you are part of the problem.  However, if you do, the result is abstract, intangible, and the problem still exists.  Finally, the alienation and confusion build up inside you.  You find yourself projecting all of your hatred onto this twenty-something-year-old idealist street fundraiser who is persuading you to donate money to a charity that you have never heard of, for a cause that you feel no control over.  You become so internally frustrated that you decide to stop by the next bar and order a drink.