I’ve spent almost a week in Sydney and I’ve noticed a few things. First, it’s very beautiful. It reminds me of all the best parts of Seattle and Vancouver BC mixed together. They have the “Sydney Tower”, but trust me it’s no Space Needle. Of course the Harbour Bridge and Opera House are amazing landmarks, but best of all they have sushi places like Seattle has coffee places… they’re everywhere, and I love sushi way more than coffee 🙂
Other things are just small annoyances. During the week, everyone is in a super rush all day long. Street vendors almost panic if something takes even a second longer than it should and they start apologizing profusely. One vendor accidentally dropped a coin while handing me back my change and just about had a stroke. Also, a large percentage of the population smokes here, a lot. It’s annoying when trying to get a breath of fresh air in the city, and it helps illustrate how everyone seems so high strung all week. At least things in the city seem to calm down a little during the weekends, but that’s probably because a lot more people come in from surrounding burghs and burbs.
Before flying out here, one of the papers had contacted me about an article they were writing about the conference. Since I had landed in Sydney a week before the conference, the Herald wanted to know if I was up for a quick photoshoot. They sent a photographer by and took a few snaps.
Photo: Ben Rushton via Sydney Morning Herald
Later that day I heard from Conrad, a very nice Aussie reporter for the Sydney Morning Herald, that his article would be on page 4 of the Saturday edition. The article was also posted on the SMH website (pdf).
