Sydney. Where it got its name, I don’t know. My belief is some aboriginal blowing his — pardon the expression — didgeridoo — misspelled my first name.
Sydney’s like Toledo, Pittsburgh, anyplace an American passport still buys you friendship. It’s comfortable. Everyone helpful. I lost my way, and they tried to tell me, but who can pierce that accent? Romanian, I can understand. Australian, not. So the person actually walked with me.
There are buses, trains, taxis, ferries across Sydney harbor, cars and enough bikes to thrill our transportation czarette Janette Sicko-Khan. An airport that’s 30 minutes away. Movie houses playing even, if pressed, non-Australian movie stars.
It’s a crisscross of different villages. The Left Bank-ish Redfern, the liberal gizzard of King’s Cross. Britannia-sounding names everywhere: Elizabeth Street, Oxford Street, William Street, Victoria Street, Regent Street, Crown Street, Liverpool, Paddington, Waterloo, Haymarket, the Royal Hotel. So far zero in honor of Camilla. There’s Potts Point, but that’s christened for whothehell knows.
Then there’s the primitive names. Woolloomooloo. Woollhara. Woomera.
The colorful lifestyle. Peeling off a 15-hour flight from LA, landing 6 a.m., one bloke’s breakfast was two beers. Demon Rum is built into the local spleen. Trendy Paddington’s in honor of a gin distiller. Suburban Pyrmont was bought for a gallon of booze. Had the buyer sprung for a chaser, he’d probably also have owned Melbourne and Perth.
Down Under has its own personality. Lavender-colored jacaranda trees. Homemade chocolates. Handmade underwear. Gifts wrapped in recycled bathroom tissue. Hopefully, not used.
A friend lost his $500 iPhone in a taxi. The next passenger handed it to the driver. The driver returned it to the QT Hotel, where he’d dropped my friend. The desk clerks were so happy they cracked open a bottle of champagne.
The town’s iconic buildings are local sandstone. Extracted from hardship quarries. Worked by the sweat of ye aulde Brit prisoners, Sydney’s first settlers, who at night were locked in gaols. The quarries were called “Purgatory” and “Hellhole.”
Taylor Square. High life and low life all night long. It’s where transgender showgirl Carlotta, inspiration for Broadway’s musical “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert,” did his/her thing.
Tour guide Richard piloted me in his special one-of-a-kind powder blue 1964 Holden Premier. “This car,” he said, “is pure Australian. Built by Australians, for Australians, driven by an Australian, ripe for Australian distances and climate.” Roll-down windows, no power steering, and my face has more stuff on it than the dashboard. But he was lovely and so was his car.
Everyone is into what’s American. “Jersey Boys” played here. Ditto “Chicago” and “The Lion King.”
People in the marketplace have opinions on our presidential candidates. Our election’s on TV, our fearful hurricane’s on the airwaves, our sports are all over the news. It’s USA cars. Labels familiar to us — Cartier, Tiffany, Burberry, Chanel, Hermes, Prada, Lauren, Gap, Zara, Ferragamo, Brunello Cucinelli, Longchamps, Swarovski, Jimmy Choo, Miu Miu, UGG, Vuitton, Sheraton, Four Seasons. It’s burgers, franks, lattes, bagels.
Not big is Starbucks. It began with a string of outlets. Now only a few are left. Why, I don’t know. I don’t care either. Not my problem.
Tipping isn’t mandatory. In restaurants, 10 percent is a max. Try that in New York. In a store, salespersons eagerly rush to wait on you. Expect that in New York. A maitre d’ politely apologizes for having kept you waiting. Lot of luck for that in New York.
Culture? There’s the Jewish Theater. And Cate Blanchett’s theater. And the real theater, the Taronga Zoo. To schlep there it’s a ride to the wharf, a boat across the harbor, then a cable car. And red kangaroos, gray kangaroos, wallabies, black swans, koalas.
May not come up in conversation, but you should know a koala sleeps 20 hours a day. (Like a guy I once went with.) When awake he’s hungry. (Same guy.) Rear-end cartilage keeps him comfy (not the guy, the koala) so his nap is in the crook of a tree. No hemorrhoids. No Preparation K. No proctologist who says: “Look, it’s no picnic for me, either.” A vegetarian koala will absolutely eat nothing else — nothing — but eucalyptus leaves.
No fencing around the kangaroos. They stared at me staring at them as they dined on fruit. I tried calling out to one. The kangaroo ignored me. The guide didn’t. She said: “You Americans speak such funny-sounding English.”
Untouched by the panic of terrorism, Sydney’s a city where good people can actually live. To an outsider, it appears free of much of our own metropolitan angst. There are only three problems: Too bloody far away. It isn’t New York. And the people have to learn to speak more better.
If the heavens allow me, I’m back to civilization Thursday.