SYDNEY IS ONE OF THE MOST ROMANTIC, FASCINATING, YOUNGEST, AND ECLECTICALLY DIVERSE CITIES ONE CAN EVER LIVE AND WORK IN. Per the above paragraph and back to the dark showers 20 months ago, I can picture little things that could happen when you travel by yourself in a country for a year; finding a little job a small backpacker motel in a small city in the tropics, learning how to surf from a local in an even smaller town in the middle of nowhere, going on runs in farm/wine country and having animals look at you as they have never seen anyone exercise on their gravel roads before, walking in a park with views of the Sydney Opera House and Sydney Harbor Bridge to only have wild cockatoos land on you to eat out of your hand, sharing a small apartment in a big city with 3 good people, running around the brick and cobblestone corner to get a bottle of wine (tightly wrapped in a brown paper bag) before the night starts, hiking up view points by yourself with a camera and knowing no one to go with, etc. You just GO and these little things I envisioned seem to add up in a magnificent way. What I am trying to tell you here is that the Sydney portion of this adventure (living and working for 3 months in the heart of the city) has produced some of the best realtime visions I had almost two years ago when I was picturing this episode of my life. Sydney is special in a magical way.
THE FIRST ADVENTURES IN SYDNEY ACTUALLY TOOK PLACE WHEN MY GOOD FRIENDS BRIAN, JEFF, AND KYLE WERE IN TOWN (before I started living and working here in the city). I called them my chickens and I was the mother goose as tried my hardest to keep them all in the 'coop' physically and mentally. The first adventure was out to the Blue Mountains which are about an hour west of Sydney. We chose the tour that our friend at our hostel recommended and wow what a referral because it was probably one of the best days/nights we all had in the 4 nights/5 days we were in New South Wales. Our driver was a white guy who still had roots into the aboriginal culture through his grandparents. The Blue Mountains are sacred to the indigenous and Nick, our guide, knew A TON of cool information as he took our group down massive valleys and under waterfalls and to sheer cliff look out points. It was spectacular. Yes we have all seen green forested mountains and seen pretty things in a landscape, but there was something a little more special about the Blue Mountains that I can't quit put my finger on. Maybe it was the sacredness...maybe it was the legends, myths, and true stories that our guide told us about during the whole day...maybe it was that fact that around every corner everyone was looking for the most deadly spider in the world, the Funnel Web. Apparently that little guy is all around the Blue Mountains and as a side note our guide made 10's of thousands of dollars as a young kid catching these killer spiders and selling them to research companies to extract their venom to facilitate finding an antidote. Maybe it was that I with 3 of my best friends who I hadn't seen in almost a year who flew thousands of miles across the largest ocean in the world to hike through these sacred caverns, cliffs, and crevasses. MAYBE IT WAS ALL OF IT...
MORNINGS ON THE CITY RAIL (SUBWAY) SYSTEM BLASTING OUT TO THE WESTERN SUBURBS IS SOMETHING SPECIAL. Up early before my other 2 flatmates and bundling up as the yellows, oranges, reds, and grays of Autumn/Winter are now here and it is brisk and cold outside. My walk to the train station is uphill through Elizabeth Bay (wealthy and fine) to Kings Cross (cheap and party oriented) where I can still feel and smell the beer and premixed alcohol stains on the sidewalks washed out by hoses from city workers. It sometimes reminds me of the streets in Pamplona, Spain any 'next morning' during the San Fermine festival (Running of the Bulls). Headphones locked in and a backpack covering the corporate business casual shell my body is required to wear to this particular place of business, the morning commute for Ryan McLeod is an hour of awakening that I love. While the corporate life is extremely lame and boring, I thoroughly enjoy the PROCESS of living and working in Sydney, Australia. I can't tell you how many times I have had great music playing on my mp3 player (i.e. Jim Croce's Box #10, or Phazing by Dirty South feat Rudy, or Sam Cooke's A Change is Gonna Come) and have looked at the sun rising over the skyline of Sydney and had a smile on my face. I smile for many reasons (that I am alive, that I have the freedom to see/travel this beautiful globe right now, that I have friends and family in small places, that I AM) but the main reason I find myself smiling at moments like these is because it is transcendentally mirroring the EXACT SAME SMILE I had 20 months ago picturing possible moments like these on the floor of my dark shower in my little hermit-like studio apartment in Los Angeles.
I FOUND A JOB WITH A LARGE FMCG (FAST MOVING CONSUMER GOODS) COMPANY THROUGH A TEMP AGENCY. My duties were customer service and data entry. I was taken in as one of their own and before I know it I am being invited to company Friday night parties where drinks are taken care of (open tab) etc. One of the nights out we were out at a bar in Darling Harbour in the Sydney CBD and there was a piano man playing from 9 to maybe midnight? What is important to know here (and for those of you that know me know I LOVE piano bars and everything that revolves around them) is that I was so happy to see a real PIANO MAN after being on the road for a long time (been I think since some of those times at Shout house with you San Diego visitors :)) that I ended up leaving his gig WITH HIM to go to his next gig. He was this old silver-streaked pony tailed locally known Sydney piano man that happily said I could ride with him to his next gig. I even helped carry some of his gear. The next thing I know we are zooming across the Sydney Harbor Bridge and we are talking of the differences between piano players that play for money and ones that do it for passion. We talked about piano players in San Diego, Los Angeles, and most importantly, Las Vegas. I gave him my contact information and as we enter the bar for his midnight gig he tells the bartender that anything "this guy wants is on me." So now I am solo, WAY out of the Sydney CBD with a piano man I met at a company party that I temp for and he is picking up my drinks? Only in Sydney, what a laid back kick-ass city.
I WAKE UP FROM A NAP ONE DAY IN MY SMALL ELIZABETH BAY APARTMENT BY MY ROOMMATE WHO IS SHAKING ME THAT WE ARE HEADING TO THE ROYAL BOTANICAL GARDENS. Clumsily I get dressed and open my eyes as I feel that this particular Saturday morning's champagne had been stronger than before. Shaking it off and packing my backpack with a bottle of two or wine, we head out. Jen and I are flatmates that are big on missions and wine and that day we were set out to find thousands of dollars worth of birds. We found them. Perhaps with a slight advantage and previous experience, my good friend Jen knew exactly where to take us to go to where the cockatoos SWOOP. We stopped at a small convenience store in Wooloomooloo to get some cereal as bait and I will tell you it more than worked. The next thing I know we have $10,000+ (apparently they are around $2k a piece back in the states) of wild cockatoos LANDING ON US and eating out of our hands. The Sydney Harbor Bridge and Sydney Opera House casually are to our backs as we are attempting to internationally communicate with these birds that 'we are Americans and mean no harm, here is the food you requested.' It was awesome. Talk about a traveling experience and something you read about in a magazine, we were living it right there and then. The best part is when you would be innocently standing or talking/doing nothing and one of them would just FLY DOWN AND LAND ON YOUR HEAD TO SAY HELLO. Only in Sydney.
ANOTHER TIME I FOUND MYSELF IN THIS CITY IN A TAXI CAB WITH SUNGLASSES ON TIGHT AND A BACKPACK CONTAINING MY NIKON D5000 DSLR READY TO FIRE. I started the con right away for fun and told the cab driver that we were late for a birthday party in Watson's Bay so to 'STEP ON IT.' The reason for the lie and the hurried-ness on him was because I was chasing the sunset over the Sydney skyline and didn't want to miss a great photo opportunity. Watson's Bay is a above the very rich 'gold and silver sun splashed condos of the eastern suburbs' (where Nicole Kidman has her place or whatever). Anyway, little did the taxi driver know that we had no birthday party to go to and Jen (different Jen -- ol' 2020 Mortgage from San Diego friend Jen) and I had been cleaning and drinking in the apartment with our other flatmate all day and we had, basically, no idea what we were doing being in a cab at 5pm. Champagne and orange juice always seems to seep into its consumers in a way that makes you feel on top of the world. We took pictures at Doyle's in Watson's Bay and the sunset. Time to go. After having a brief encounter with a couple on holiday who thoroughly enjoyed our presence and invited us to other events going on in the evening, we collapsed into a taxi and headed for the city. I can still remember my recommendation of going home being instantly rebutted by my friend Jen who said "Shady PINES!" We were woken up by the cab driver on the corner of Crown and Oxford in Darlinghurst and GUESS WHERE WE WERE?!? Shady Pines!
SHADY PINES IS ONE OF THE BEST BARS I HAVE EVER BEEN TO IN MY LIFE. First of all there is no sign for the bar anywhere. Anywhere. Not even on the door. It is in a back alley of the Darlinghurst area of Sydney and is an absolute GEM. Picture an underground rustic low lighted (amber and yellow lights) lamp style-taxidermy bar with bartenders who have pens in their ears and haircuts from the American 1940's. Seriously. So their trademark drink, while you are sitting around old whiskey and PBR style drink paraphernalia, is called a WHISKEY APPLE. They pour a shot of Jim Beam into a cup and at the same time food-process 2 green apples in a juicer and pour the frothy remnants on top of your whiskey drink. I have ordered 4 at a time before (for me). I am not an alcoholic so please know I ordered 4 so that I didn't have to wait in line again for these little treats. They are gone like a Slurpee and a few gulps just gone. Gone. Also, Shady Pines is only open until 12am. YOU HAVE TO GO THERE IF YOU ARE EVER IN SYDNEY PLEASE EMAIL OR CALL ME SO I CAN HELP YOU FIND THIS PLACE. One night there the band played only two requests of the whole audience, and guess who they were from? Jen and Ryan got to hear John Denver's Take Me Home Country Roads (Ryan) and CCR's Proud Mary (Jen). I love Shady Pines and will miss it greatly when I leave Sydney.
MY MOST RECENT JOB AND LAST JOB THAT I WILL HAVE HAD IN SYDNEY IS AT A CALL CENTER THAT SELLS LIFE INSURANCE AT A VERY FAST PACE. Firstly, I must say the commute and hours are right up my alley. Hours are 12pm to 8pm. Commute is a 30 minute train ride across the Sydney Harbor Bridge with Darling Harbor on my left and Sydney Opera House on my right. Headphones, blue skies, Sydney skyline, I wish you could see it every day like I do. My same temp agency found me the gig and I got feedback from my soon-to-be company that I was "one of the strongest candidates they have ever seen." I guess I killed it in my mock sales call with one of the managers in front of 4 to 5 people. I can tell you right now it gave me chills and felt awesome to be back in my profession I have been practicing since high school; SALES. As much as I am glad to be taking a huge career break from it and don't know if I will ever go back to work full time in sales, it is absolutely great to know that you can take me out of the sales floor, but you can't take the sales floor out of me. It felt awesome. In the first two days I have 3 sales and the other 5 new hire teammates I went through training with, combined, have 1. Weird how the ol "Nice guy Eddie" approach (thank you Mark Feder from the sub prime refinancing days in San Diego) can stick with you and shine when needed in a sales environment anywhere in the world. Not to mention it is LIFE INSURANCE for pete's sake. The challenge is so fun and every minute or so the automatic dialer is connecting you with people all around the country of Australia where you start your script with a very curious "hello?" as the dialer has about a 1 sec delay as you and the customer are connected instantaneously. There are wine bottles on the sales floor as incentives daily and the managers are cool as all hell. Great place to work as everyone is young and from all parts of the world; England, USA, Australia, New Zealand, India, Ireland, etc. and everyone shares a bond that they are doing a very enduring job and everyone, in turn, respects everyone else and parties together. Let me put it this way...basketball shorts and 'flat-blacked' Jordan hightops are allowed on casual Fridays. I just started laughing as I am next to my soon to be new friends and they look like they are about to shoot hoops in the break room at lunch. Outstanding place to work in an outstanding city they call Sydney. Going to miss this place a lot when chapter 2 starts in New Zealand here shortly.
WITH A MONTH LEFT IN SYDNEY I REALIZED THAT I HAD TO GO TO A PERFORMANCE AT THE SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE. I had been around it numerous times for pictures with my parents and friends when they were visiting me but never went IN to the thing because it costs money for some typical tour or you need to book a concert/opera/ballet/etc. I randomly go to the Opera House's website to see what is playing in the next few weeks and something caught my eye immediately. A Tribute to John Williams by the Sydney Symphony. You have to be kidding me right? You are telling me that it just so worked out that in the last 3 weekends I have in Australia, in Sydney, living a 5 minute train ride away from the Sydney Opera House, that the music of Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones, Jaws, The Olympics, Harry Potter, Close Encounters, Superman, etc. is going to be performed in the Main Concert Hall by the Sydney Symphony? Unbelievable. So after analyzing maps of the concert hall online and bouncing between Ticketmaster and the Opera House's website, I manage to conjure up and buy two tickets FRONT ROW in a box seat on the side of the main stage. $70 each only due to getting them early. Next thing I know I am with my friend Kelly (from England), who I met out and about in the Sydney nightlife a few weeks before, and we are drinking champagne and taking pictures with Darth Vader and Storm Troopers before the show with the Sydney Harbour Bridge in the background. Friday night, nice out, Sydney buzzing, 8pm, feeling loose, feeling great. So the seats I analyzed forever to get turned out to be incredible seats. Not only were we front row we were RIGHT BEHIND the french horn section (9 horns total I think) and I was so close I could read the title of the sheet music they were on while playing. For any of you that know John Williams as a composer you will know that he LOVES using french horns at pinnacle moments in his symphonic compositions. Well, I can tell you first hand, he is on to something. The horns, as the buzzed guy behind me was yelling, "its the engine room!...the horns!...THE ENGINE ROOM!!" to the symphony, were amazing and I have a new found respect for them. It is obviously hard to explain it but the next time you hear Princess Leah's theme on the Star Wars soundtrack pay close attention to the muffled, yet extremely important french horns. Chills and shivers in a good way is all I can say.
ONE OF MY FINAL CHAPTERS IN SYDNEY WAS MUSIC PRODUCTION AND REMIXING SCHOOL. Ableton Live is the software program and I have always wanted to go to school to be shown how to use it properly. It is a program that is heaps (word they use here) beyond some of the other music creation and remixing tools in the world (engineered in Germany) and can do certain things that other software applications cannot. What I want to tell you about this school is that in the very first day it accomplished 2 physical affects on my body in only a three hour period; make the hair on my neck stand up, and made my heart pound with adrenaline. What is the last class you took that did that? The classroom was a semi circle table with laptops and MIDI controllers and no more than 8 people were allowed in this privately ran school. 5 minutes from my house in Kings Cross, it couldn't have been in a more perfect location. We learned everything from music theory, drum beat creation, song warping, synthesis of bass lines and melodies, remixing, performing live, audio effects, MIDI effects, mastering sound output, frequencies, etc. IT WAS AMAZING. Probably the coolest class/school I have ever been to besides when I taught myself how to edit on Avid years ago during independent study in the Speech Communications building at The University of Washington. This was better though because after we made stuff everyone in the class would play their sounds for everyone to hear so that you can learn from your peers. It made me think I maybe should have gone to an Arts school from the age of 19 to 23. Can't ever trade the times at UW though...not for anything. In all, with Ableton Live School I attended in Sydney I will just say one thing: "they should have never shown me this."
AUSTRALIA IS UNIQUE IN SO MANY WAYS. HERE IS A LIST OF THINGS I HAVE NOTICED THROUGHOUT MY YEAR WORKING AND TRAVELING THE COUNTRY:
- "MATE" is not only used amongst friends but also used to strangers and even from a boss to an employee.
- KANGAROOS run around everywhere in the country, across roads, and even on golf courses.
- THE GREAT BARRIER REEF is the largest living organism in the world (trust me on this I have scuba dived it for 10 hours in total and it is AMAZINGLY ALIVE).
- COMMON PHRASES to someone would not be 'how's it going?' but 'how you going?" In a retail shop once staring at items I was comparing in my head a shop worker came over to me and said "Are you okay???" I thought she thought I was zoning out on drugs or something when really she was asking me, basically, "can I help you with anything?" THANK YOU CAN BE SAID IN MANY WAYS: "You're alright mate," or "Too easy," or "we're laughing," or "no worries mate."
- TOILETS: do not flush in the opposite direction from the Northern Hemisphere , but more in a raging way BLAST water from front to back or front to back like a geyser exploding. There are also two buttons on most toilets; 1 for a little bit of water (conservation) and the 2nd for a lot of water. Sanitary toilet seat covers do not exist, anywhere.
- MONEY: Tipping is almost nonexistent and not expected anywhere. There is no sales tax in any state. Betting on horses and greyhounds is available in, I would say, 1 out of 3 pubs, and can be watched and paid right then and there; 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. 1 dollar bills do not exist. The two dollar coin is smaller than the one dollar coin. Money can disappear extremely fast in Australia and if the normal casual working rate wasn't around $20 an hour, no one could afford to live here.
- HEALTHCARE: Universal and affordable, even if you are not on Medicade (for example to see a doctor is is only $60 to $100 and around a 30 minute wait on a walk in depending what city you are in). As a traveler with no insurance I once saw a doctor, had my finger lanced (infection), and was written two prescriptions that I picked up and paid for right downstairs...the whole thing cost me $130 and took 50 minutes.
- ALCOHOL: Beer is the coldest I have ever seen or tasted in the world. The taps are iced over like they have been frozen with liquid nitrogen (if you put your tongue to it it would definitely get stuck like Christmas Story). Beer pride goes by by what state it is from. For example, in South Australia everyone drinks Coopers (my favorite beer in Australia) but you may find yourself in Victoria and they love "VB" or you could be in New South Wales and they love their Tooheys, XXXX Gold in Queensland, etc. What I have learned that on a hot summer day in Australia, any of them ice cold are good :)
- PEOPLE: Women major in minor things, men care more about hanging with their mates than being with their women. This is the only generalization I am going to make as stereotyping cultures as you have noticed is not really my thing.
- ECONOMY: Great. Go there to work, live, and travel and you will have an amazing time.
SYDNEY IS SO LAID BACK AS AN INTERNATIONAL 'BIG CITY' IT IS UNBELIEVABLE. I have never seen one taxi cab have a plexi-glass partition wall in it and all of the cabs are normal mid sized sedans where you feel like you are hitchhiking in the back seat of some one's personal car. I have never seen a fight anywhere, anytime (keep in mind if you saw Kings Cross where I live you would think I have seen many...I haven't). I have never seen a gun shop and don't even know if they sell them over here. Normal work weeks at a company on average are around 37 or 38 hours max. If you are running late due to a train being late, for example, your boss will not talk to you (I have had 3 different bosses since I have been here) and say anything about it or come down on you. Drinks at offices on Fridays towards the end of the day are not only allowed, but a lot of times encouraged. People don't freak out if they miss the subway. I missed one this morning and starting laughing on how unfortunate my morning had gone and sat down to read for 9 minutes until the next train came. People work to live here, they don't live to work like some other cultures in the world. I have never seen anyone getting arrested. I have never/ever felt that I should watch my pockets while I go through a train station. I have never felt in danger. I can go to the bathroom at this bar that I am typing these very words in right now and leave my laptop on the table, unattended and not think twice about my belongings being stolen. Overall, I have really only ran into 2 negative people in Sydney that just haven't figured it our in life yet...one was a general practitioner and the other was a subway patrolman. Other than them/that, this city if I were to describe in a handful of adjectives would be that it is vibrant, eclectic, laid back, and has a very good healthy and metropolitan PULSE. Great adventures, RCM
