The Elephant in the room...

The topic that all expats avoid.  The one taboo.  I’m about to break it and point to the rather large elephant sat in the corner.  This is a post I wasn’t going to write, then decided it would be cathartic to.  And so it has proven.  I’m feeling much perkier and have my spring back in my step.  I believe writing this and acknowledging it has helped.

Mum, if you are reading, you may want to look away now.  I know how upset you get reading about anything where I suggest I am anything but happy.  But I am happy, yet have fluctuating emotions.

Homesickness.  Why am I still having such bouts of homesickness after being here almost 7 months?  How can I be?  Surely I am living the dream.  In the promised land.  Sun, sea and endless throwing of shrimps onto never ending BBQs.  Great hats with corks to keep all the flies at bay.  Where men wear thongs with pride.  No snow.  No need to put my favourite North Face coat and boots on for a weekend walk.  Am I insane?  

And because I thought I was odd, having such thoughts curiosity drove me to the web site, www.pomsinoz.com to read of others experiences.

And what did I find?  It was like reading my mind.  My jumble of thoughts and emotions all laid out.  But written by other people.  Lots of other people, all feeling the same.  In fact, many feeling a lot worse than me.  I can’t recount how many posts I read where people were going home within the first 12 months.  Not that I am in a state of mind that I want to return home.  Just yet.  But reading about the experience of others just reaffirmed that I wasn’t in fact going mad. 

I am just going through what lots of expats before me have, and continue to go through.  Especially expats from the UK.  Reading a lot of posts from people who returned to the UK, saying how they finally felt at home.  How you realise what an amazing country we have, given the experience of living elsewhere for a period.

For a lot of people, home will always be home, no matter where you live in the world.  And home is a lot of different things to different people.  For some, it’s family life.  Others it’s the history and culture of the UK.  Some even claim to miss the weather (yes, I’m in that camp).  One of my happiest days last week was spent playing football in the pouring rain.  But for me, it is based on a lot of intangible feelings that lurk around in the pit of your stomach and start infiltrating your brain.  Things that wouldn’t make a lot of sense to people if you said them out loud.  Which I’ve tried.

Football.  There, my number 1 of “things I miss”.  And not just going to football, which I always knew would be like a large hole that I would never fill, but living in a culture where football is so ingrained.  Like a religion.  Countries in Europe, and through Central and South America are like this.  People live and breathe football.  With a passion.  Stadiums are their temples, places of worship.  Football here is little more than a 3^rd rate sport, with genuine attempts to raise its profile such as the signing by Sydney FC of Allesandro del Piero.  But even del Piero can’t make a silk purse out of a pig’s ear.  

I did go and watch a game, and vowed never to return due to the laughable standard of football and the terribly plastic atmosphere.  We have yet to see whether the great man himself will renew his contract for a second year or whether the lure of home, and Italia, will draw him back.

Surely, you can watch the football from England people ask.  Not if I want to hold down a job.  As a result of the 11 hour time difference, most of the games are on at between 2am and 4am.  I’ve watched a couple of “early” kick offs, specifically the victories against Liverpool and City, but to function at work, I do need slightly longer sleep time.  I’m not getting any younger you know.

The homogeneity.  One that will surely raise the rankles of any Australian readers, but Australia all looks the same.  Within reason of course.  I could write a whole post about how different the Great Barrier Reef is to the Red Centre of Uluru.  Spill hundreds of words about the contrast between the Blue Mountains (when you can see them through the mist) and the glorious coastline around Sydney.

But, in general, transport me to a high street in Cairns, or a street in Perth, or drive through a suburb anywhere, and it all looks the same.  Which gets kinda dreary.  The beaches are glorious.  But aren’t 90% of all beaches, anywhere in the world?  Have you travelled around the beaches of Cornwall through a glorious English summer?  A beach is a beach, is a beach, is a beach.   

Not that I want to sound ungrateful, although I probably do, but when you have crappy beaches like we do in the UK (aforementioned Cornwall aside), going to a good beach, usually on holiday is a highlight that usually gives you months of subsequent smiles, just thinking about sitting there, listening to the waves, sipping your cocktails, listening to the strains of “bolinhas”, from the local Portuguese doughnut seller.

When you can go to the beach everyday, it loses a lot of its allure, its sparkle, it ability to invigorate.  How many of you would like to celebrate Christmas every week?  Aside from the fact that I would be about 383 years old.  Think it would feel as magical not having waited the whole year for it and endured the endless Christmas carols played in Next since September?

I started this post ruminating on homesickness.  I have slightly digressed but hopefully given you an insight into my feelings in the meantime.  I am not jumping on Expedia to book a flight.  I am not packing up the apartment.  I am not checking out the Lloyds Banking Group job site.  But I am sharing this with you so I can try to better understand how I feel.  And to let myself know that there is no right and wrong decisions per se, just decisions that are right for me at the time I make them.

I often read about the mythical “2 year rule”, in that you should give yourself 2 years before deciding what to do as an expat.  I don’t buy this.  

Firstly, who came up with such an arbitrary number?  What is this based on?  Maybe on the old immigration rules that you had to be here 2 years before applying for citizenship.  That’s now 4 years, so blows that out of the water.  

And secondly, for people who really do decide to go home, why should they sit out their time here being unhappy, counting down the days, ticking them off the calendar until all 730 have passed?  If their gut tells them it is time to go home, then home they should go.

Me, I still have 537 days to go.

Until the next time folks in the life of an expat.

Drinks, art, football and drinks

As I promised in my last blog, there are a few things that I was going to update you on.  Things I had been up to since my last dispatch.  Not that much of it has been overly exciting but my mum seems to enjoy reading about it.  And it saves me the cost of a stamp, sending her a real letter.  So mum, this is for you, but you may be sharing it with many of my other friends.

A couple of weekends ago saw me attending the annual beer festival at the Australian Hotel (pub, remember) in the Rocks.  I met up with a mate from England who was over here with work.  Budget constraints within Lloyds Banking Group means that they can no longer afford to provide biscuits for team meetings.  However, they can fly a couple of people business class to the other end of the world for beer festivals.  I was assured by Steve that he was also here to work on some other stuff, but I’m not so sure.  I think Steve thought I wanted to meet up with him as we had not seen each other for a while.  Actually, the real reason was that I was hoping he was going to return the box of Lapsang Souchong tea that I lent him in 2003.  I ended up very disappointed.  That said, we had an excellent day that seamlessly segued into an evening bar crawl around some of Sydney’s less touristy pubs.

With a head that was as tender as a heavily worked over steak, I again met up with Steve and Andy on the Sunday, to do the Bondi to Coogee coastal walk, along with Scott and Kelly.  It was like “Yorkshire’s day out”.  All we needed was for one of the cafes along the way to start selling Yorkshire Puddings.  It didn’t happen.  We picked a good weekend for the walk as it was the “Sculptures by the Sea” event.  A random collection of art pieces placed along the walk; some better than others in my humble opinion.  But then, I’m no art critic.  I can’t tell a Manet from a Monet.

Tuesday of the following week saw me attending my first ever Spanish class.  Something that I have been threatening to do for years.  For a long time I have been dipping in and out of Spanish language books, listening to Spanish language podcasts, and even immersed myself in Spanish for 3 months last year whilst travelling around South America.  For the first time I am now formalizing my learning and have started an 8 week, level 1 course.  I have grand intentions of continuing post this course and taking my learning to a level where I could actually have a conversation in Spanish.  Some cynics have suggested that it is my way of trying to meet dark haired, buxom senoritas.  Me? 

My weeks really are beginning to develop a structure, and this continues on Thursday nights with me signing up to an outdoor 5 a-side futsal league.  Futsal is an extremely popular sport around the world, just not so in the UK.  It is essentially “normal” 5 a-side but with a small, less bouncy ball, large goals, and mainly no contact.  The no contact thing is the hardest to get used to, especially with a referee as fastidious on the rules as the one we have each week.  That aside, it is great fun and I’ve met another bunch of lads, both European and Australian.

Two other events of note have been Balmoral Uncorked and the Air BnB party.  Balmoral Uncorked is an annual event at my local beach.  Various wineries of the Hunter Valley set up stall and allow you to taste, and subsequently purchase their many fine drops.  Complemented by stalls selling cheeses, olive oils and various other foods, you had everything you could need for a fabulous Sunday afternoon.

For those not familiar with Air BnB, it is a global website whereby people advertise rooms in their homes to give traveller’s a more authentic experience than staying in a faceless hotel.  I used the site for my first month in Australia, which is where I was unfortunate lucky enough to have met Steph.  Based in San Francisco, the founders of Air BnB held a party on Cockatoo Island in Sydney for hosts and their guests.  So I went along with Steph, together with Darrol and Claire, two more guests that have stayed with Steph.

Not knowing what to expect I have to admit I was blown away.  Ferries were laid on every 30 minutes to shuttle us to the island from Circular Quay.  The bar was free all night.  It was, I kept checking!  And with a great selection of bottled beers, wines and cocktails.  There was free food served up from the excellent food trucks that have been doing the rounds of Sydney recently.  And once the guests were suitably inebriated, there was a DJ spinning some quality tunes, allowing us all to make idiots of ourselves on the dance floor.  Brilliant.  Oh, I did I mention the beautiful actress, Mila Kunis, was there too?  And her eyes are even more captivating real life.  She was with some fella called Ashton Kutcher who is mates of the website founders and did a little speech on their behalf.  

The last couple of weekends have been very quiet and tame in comparison, but judging by the number of shops getting in the festive spirit, I guess Xmas is just around the corner.  That being the case, I better start consolidating my finances and make sure I have enough to celebrate Xmas in style, have a rocking New Year’s Eve and usher in 2013 and all it holds.

Til the next time amigos...

Let the countdown begin...

Month 4 folks.  I’ll just repeat that, month 4.  Already.  Don’t know how it feels for you, but for me, it feels like it has just flown by.  Wasn’t just a few days ago that I was languidly sipping cappuccinos in Fremantle?  Exploring Perth and Kings Park by bicycle?  How many laundry days is that?  Ah, laundry day…

Well, it must have been longer than I think because today saw the arrival of November.  With only 7 weeks til Xmas.  I could do the whole “where has the year gone?” bit, but we can save that and do it to death on or around New Years Eve.  Or maybe New Year’s Day as we sober up on the ferry to Manly to recover.

New Year’s Eve.  Now that is going to be fun.  It’s always a great time in Sydney due to the world-renowned firework display.  But over the years it has become so expensive that I was resigning myself to sitting out with a pic-nic and watching them from a spot of grass.  That was if I could find said spot of grass amongst the hundreds and thousands of people who throng the Harbour and all the available vantage points along the various shores and bays.

Many people have essentially been priced out of a lot of the ways to see the fireworks.  Just getting entry to a place like the Opera Bar (where I watched the fireworks for free in 2001) is now costing in excess of $300.  And that is without drinks.  I think you get a couple of peanuts on entry, but I may have misread the small print.  A popular way of enjoying them is by boat, bobbing around the Harbour, but this is now in excess of $500.  But you get a complimentary lifejacket.

So it was with great joy that I stumbled upon the fact that Luna Park was having a New Year’s Eve party, headlined by a winner of the Australian version of the X-Factor.  Don’t ask me, I didn’t even watch the UK version.  Well, Ricki Lee’s presence is not why I booked the tickets.  The fact that they were only $99 each was the reason.  And when you realise the venue of Luna Park is virtually under the bridge, then you get a sense of what a bargain these tickets are.  Luna Park is the Coney Island of Sydney.  A 1930s theme park, which has been around since, well, the 1930s actually.  I think some of the rides may have been updated since then, or at least mechanically maintained, as these are also open to use on the night.  And the great thing is, it’s over 18s only.  So big kids can play little kids, without the inconvenience of little kids getting in the way.

Just 59 days to get through.  And this will fly by I’m sure.  Since we last spoke I have now started work and been there 3 weeks already.  Where does the time g… ha ha.  Working has brought a little structure back into my life.  Without a little ballast I always find myself drifting a little.  I need anchoring to something just to keep me in one place.  And anchored I am, doing the 9 to 5, and enjoying the novelty (for me) of getting paid fortnightly.  It seems to be a feature for many Australian employers to pay fortnightly, for reasons I can’t seem to fathom.  All I know is that I am now nearly skint, yet another payday is just around the corner.  This works for me.  I can even put up with going into one of the ugliest buildings in Sydney each day to earn my corn.

I have other things to update you on but feel I have taken up enough of your time already.  One reader recently accused me of waffling!  How very rude. 

With that, I will say adios, and hasta leugo.

Let the countdown begin...

Month 4 folks.  I’ll just repeat that, month 4.  Already.  Don’t know how it feels for you, but for me, it feels like it has just flown by.  Wasn’t it just a few days ago that I was languidly sipping cappuccinos in Fremantle?  Exploring Perth and Kings Park by bicycle?  How many laundry days is that?  Ah, laundry day…

Well, it must have been longer than I think because today saw the arrival of November.  With only 7 weeks til Xmas.  I could do the whole “where has the year gone?” bit, but we can save that and do it to death on or around New Years Eve.  Or maybe New Year’s Day as we sober up on the ferry to Manly to recover.

New Year’s Eve.  Now that is going to be fun.  It’s always a great time in Sydney due to the world-renowned firework display.  But over the years it has become so expensive that I was resigning myself to sitting out with a pic-nic and watching them from a spot of grass.  That was if I could find said spot of grass amongst the hundreds and thousands of people who throng the Harbour and all the available vantage points along the various shores and bays.

Many people have essentially been priced out of a lot of the ways to see the fireworks.  Just getting entry to a place like the Opera Bar (where I watched the fireworks for free in 2001) is now costing in excess of $300.  And that is without drinks.  I think you get a couple of peanuts on entry, but I may have misread the small print.  A popular way of enjoying them is by boat, bobbing around the Harbour, but this is now in excess of $500.  But you get a complimentary lifejacket.

So it was with great joy that I stumbled upon the fact that Luna Park was having a New Year’s Eve party, headlined by a winner of the Australian version of the X-Factor.  Don’t ask me, I didn’t even watch the UK version.  Well, Ricki Lee’s presence is not why I booked the tickets.  The fact that they were only $99 each was the reason.  And when you realise the venue of Luna Park is virtually under the bridge, then you get a sense of what a bargain these tickets are.  Luna Park is the Coney Island of Sydney.  A 1930s theme park, which has been around since, well, the 1930s actually.  I think some of the rides may have been updated since then, or at least mechanically maintained, as these are also open to use on the night.  And the great thing is, it’s over 18s only.  So big kids can play little kids, without the inconvenience of little kids getting in the way.

Just 59 days to get through.  And this will fly by I’m sure.  Since we last spoke I have now started work and been there 3 weeks already.  Where does the time g… ha ha.  Working has brought a little structure back into my life.  Without a little ballast I always find myself drifting a wee bit.  I need anchoring to something just to keep me in one place.  And anchored I am, doing the 9 to 5, and enjoying the novelty (for me) of getting paid fortnightly.  It seems to be a feature for many Australian employers to pay fortnightly, for reasons I can’t seem to fathom.  All I know is that I am now nearly skint, yet another payday is just around the corner.  This works for me.  I can even put up with going into one of the ugliest buildings in Sydney each day to earn my corn.

I have other things to update you on but feel I have taken up enough of your time already.  One reader recently accused me of waffling!  How very rude. 

With that, I will say adios, y hasta leugo.  Till the next time...