Work’s been quiet for me as of late. That’s a good thing in some respects. It’s given me a bit of a chance to get out and do stuff in Sydney to start to form routines into my life here. Being around the city during weekdays (instead of traveling for work all the time) has opened up loads of possibilities – getting back into Ultimate for one. Every Wednesday night for the past month or so I’ve been playing in the Eastern Suburbs League. They call it a “league” – but it’s a bit of a farce. Most weeks there’s barely enough people there to field two teams, let alone an entire league. So, so far it’s really just been a weekly pick up game. In a way, I almost prefer it that way. You get new people showing up each week, but there’s also the regulars that you get to develop more of a friendship with. That’s what I enjoyed most about playing Ultimate in Japan, and this has a similar vibe to it. Most of the regulars I met are cool, so it’ll keep me going back.
I’ve also come to realize lately that hardly anybody in this city is from Sydney. At first I was a bit self-conscious of my ever so very Canadian accent (what’s that all abooot, eh?), but screw it. Sydney’s not the kinda of place where you’ll stand out because of something like that. Everyone’s from somewhere else, whether it be some other part of Australia or abroad.
Take my office for instance – we lease space out from this company called Regus which manages our office, and our floor is shared by probably 20 other companies. As a result, there’s lots of little satellite offices on our floor for international companies. Right next door to us, I hear nothing but American English all day (the walls are paper thin). I could be anywhere, if it weren’t for the view reminding me which city I’m in.
I’d like to think of myself as something of an oddity being from Canada, but the truth is – there’s tons of us here, and even more that have spent some serious time in Canada. I would probably be more original if I was actually born here. To give you an example, here’s the typical conversation that takes place when I meet a real “Sydneysider”:
Aussie: Hey mate, I’m Gareth (or some other weird ass Aussie name)
Me: How are ya, I’m Scott
Aussie: Where ya from?
Me: Canada
Aussie: Which part?
Me: Well, I lived in Ottawa but I was born in New Brunswick
Aussie: Oh really, I used to live in Toronto (or Vancouver, or Calgary, or some other part of Canada I’m really not familiar with).
It’s so hard to be original nowadays… at least in this city.
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