If you're in a bad situation, don't worry it'll change. If you're in a good situation, don't worry it'll change. ~John A. Simone, Sr.

So, the Sydney years traumatic, fun, exciting, challenging... all those things plus more.


As previously mentioned I was commuting between Sydney and Melbourne for over 6 months, had my flat in Melbourne with all my stuff and a furnished flat in Sydney.  The move meant a pay rise, career rise and extra extra work and stress and pressure.  At first it was great and actually it was great for the most part, the problem was one of not being able to be as honest  with everyone as I wanted to be.  I never want to ever be in that situation again.


But... we shall not talk work - we shall talk about Sydney.  It is an amazingly beautiful place, the waterways in and around all of Sydney and its outlying suburbs make it a tourists dream - so many good photo opportunities.  The shopping is excellent, the restaurants are excellent, the beaches are almost as good as those in Perth (ok, they might be better - but I have to vote for the home side).  It doesn't take a long time to get out of the city feel and into another place... going north to the wine acres takes only a couple of hours - it takes three from Perth to get to Margaret river.... the Hunter Valley - home of Rosemount and oh so many other better wine makers... is a beautiful place - one I went to visit often - often on my own.  I did a lot of travel on my own in Sydney - but it was fine - there was so much to see and do.  The Blue Mountains - west of Sydney - again only 2 hours drive - is an amazing place, such wilderness and yet not... great restaurants - great views - great wildlife - remember Skippy on TV.... all in the Blue Mountains. South of Sydney is Wollongong and more great beaches.  


After the first six months I got a flat of my own, got my stuff moved up from Melbourne and settled into the suburb of Five Dock, half way between Sydney city and my work in Villawood... (have to note here that Villawood is where the main immigration centre was in Australia - most new migrants came here first, went to school and learnt english and had a half way house before entering Australian society - thankfully we didn't come here - we had people to meet us in Perth and get us "into" the society, this "immigration camp" was next to the factory where I was working.  When I was in Sydney it was being turned into an internment camp for illegal immigrants.  Anywho, Five Dock was up river from the main harbour in Sydney - and was at one stage in the history of the city a fairly important dock area.  The next suburb inland was an area of heavy industry - this waste land would become the home of the Olympics.  Five Dock was mainly settled by folk of italian origin... hence lots of really great shops and restaurants of the Italian variety - the next suburb towards the city was settled by Greeks, so - lots of great Greek restaurants and shops.  Sydney seemed to me to be very much like this - little pockets of groups of people of different ethnic backgrounds.  Around Villawood (further inland towards the west) were the "newer" migrants - vietnamese, thai, palistinian communities... all in little pockets.. Quite strange, my experience of Perth was that there were not these concentrations of ethnic communities - they were probably there but did not seem as pronounced. 


Like I say - Sydney - great place to visit, but in my experience - not a place I really wanted to live in.  I met a lot of people, thought that I had become friends with lots of nice people, found that this friendship, like the beauty of Sydney - is only skin deep and can not take a bump or a bruise.   Scratch the surface, and it is a dirty and sad and sorry place - but again. Like everything in this blog - it is only my opinion.  I was lucky enough to be in Sydney during the Olympics in 2000, an amazing experience and I did make some good friends - the ones I stay in touch with are from Germany......


So, obviously not being happy with Sydney I started letting folk know that I wasn't happy and basically to tell the absolute truth - I was having a melt down and really really really needed to get out of their to save my sanity.... Who came to the rescue - none other than my wonderful friends in Germany.... my old boss from Melbourne threw me a life raft and asked me if I would like to come to Germany... my then bosses in Melbourne - bless them- gave their seal of approval and let me go....