Ok, I lived in Sydney for 8 years, I didn't grow up there, I was transplanted there for uni, where I managed to change courses once, and drag my degree out to five years instead of three, just for the fun of it... so most of my time there was as a starving student, in fact, I went part time at uni so that I could work more hours at my crumby job, a means of coping with my own personal 'rental crisis'-- and this was years before the official one occurred.
When I left, it was because I had been crying every morning before work because I hated going into the city. I was working on George St as a humble pen selling girl, where I didn't much enjoy the prospect of having business types eyeball me over $700, gold nibbed fountain pens made in Switzerland. Where the men were so blatantly pervy, and the women were so blatantly frustrated and resentful. The fact that I was a vegetarian with a creative arts degree and some big opinions about conspicuous consumption habits got shoved a little deeper down into my gut everyday... and so I left...
And ever since, I have been one of those people who go around complaining that nothing works outside the city. I hate bad food, I hate bad art, I hate when I go shopping and I can't find what I want, I hate the stares you get outside Sydney when you dress ever so slightly differently from the mainstream... but yesterday really put some things into perspective about why I did leave Sydney, and why I'm not about to move back there.
To be fair, it was raining and I know that things are a little hiccuppy on rainy days... but still...
1. Your traffic is a joke, like an actual laughable joke. Nothing works, and I try be to pretty reasonable and relative when I look at things like this- in the scheme of world problems, Sydney's transport network doesn't really rate in matters of importance, but all the same, it is one massive joke, where between the roads, the trains and the buses you just can't seem to get it together. The structure of your streets are so outdated that nothing moves. It shouldn't take 2 hours to get from Concord to the city.
2. The price of real estate is a joke, like an actual laughable joke, the type of thing which could severely paralyze lifetime dreams and such. Who in their right mind would work a 40 hour a week job to come home to live in a cupboard and spent all day Saturday in traffic? Yummy food and pretty art don't justify this.
Ok, well really these are my only qualms, but they are big qualms! Maybe Sydney when you get this stuff sorted out, we can talk.
B.
