Feeling very manly here...
Sydney has been a rush. When I first came in I didn't think I was going to enjoy it too much - I'd been mainlining nature and now all of a sudden I'd have to switch gears to city life. It just seemed so abrupt. The shuttle from the airport to my hostel went from bad (waiting two and a half hours for it to show) to worse (dropping me off six blocks from the hostel with bad directions). The hostel itself made me need to leave and get a drink. The rat guarding the gate seemed like the final straw.
Maybe it's cliche, but the bars in Australia was where things started to turn around.
There was a craft brew pub right next to the hostel, so I immediately got to try some local beer. My first night I met an anthropologist and a counselor who bought me drinks and told me stories of life in Oz. The second night I'd only stopped off for one drink before taking a nap but I got waylaid by Gerry and Jay, an owner and creative talent for Heckler, a successful ad agency in Australia. They told me about some of the sights to see and took me back to the company to show me some of the work they did. I've always been fascinated by the work Weiden+Kennedy do, but these guys were all that creativity and a glimpse into where it comes from.
The next day I set out and saw the sights - the Opera House, the Bridge, the Botanical Gardens... And this weird little gem down an alley:
The third night I took Gerry's suggestion and took the ferry to Manly. When I got there it was bucketing down, but I chanced on to a local concert going down at the massive bar (well, set of bars all housed in one building). It wouldn't normally be my thing, but the energy of the crowd got me all wrapped up in some boot-stomping Aussie country, so much so that I missed the last ferry back. Two of the local boys adopted me, gave me a couch to crash on and some late night munchies. The next morning I rode the bus out to a graffiti spot one of them had told me about. Sadly it had been erased, but his heart was in the right place. From there I headed over to the world famous Bondi Beach.
More than the bustle of a massive metropolis, it's the people of Sydney that make me glad I visited here.
