The Only Non Gay In The Village
Trip Start
Nov 16, 2005
1
35
38
Trip End
Jun 04, 2007
Sydney, Australia
Friday, November 10, 2006
Karen started work within a week of us arriving. In hindsight, I should have done the same. The fact that I didn't made it increasingly harder for me to settle as a result. And the less I settled the less I wanted to work. The less I wanted to work the more I pined for home.
Whenever you tell someone you're homesick their immediate response is Why? Other than family and friends what can you possibly miss about England? And the honest truth is I don't know. I've been homesick on this trip before but not like this. We'd spent the last 13 months on the road not knowing where we'll be from day to day. Then all of a sudden it's over. Your thrust back into a life you worked so hard to leave behind, temporarily or not, and I wasn't prepared for it. In short the thought of going back to work filled me with dread.
Maybe once we get settled into a flat and get a little normality back into our life things would become easier.
Within our second week we'd found a flat we liked in the city and promptly moved in without really doing any homework on the area. It wasn't until a day or so later we realised we'd moved into the heart of gay Sydney. Initially we thought this was pretty hilarious and, by and large, it was. Sydney is an openly gay city and rightly so, it's up there with San Francisco as being one the most gay friendly cities in the world. It's on show and in your face, and their very proud of it. However, they let you know how proud 24 hours a day 7 days a week. The noise was unreal.
Those of you that know me will know that I'm a pretty liberal guy. Comfortable and tolerant in almost any surroundings. Looking back I've got no doubts that some of the attention I generated was self inflicted. I had a skinhead, tightly clipped beard and pair of Aviators (Sun Glasses). I don't in anyway claim to look like him but the locals must have thought I was modeling myself on George Michael during his Faith days because during our time here I was getting toots from cars, wolf whistles, stares (the sexual kind) and once I even had my arse grabbed.
There's only so much a man can take and I ended coming over a little queer as a result of all the attention. But not in the literal sense you understand. Suffice to say I dedicated the whole of the next month trying to find us somewhere else to live. It was getting closer to Christmas and things were not looking good as the summer swept across Sydney quicker than you could say 'Mardi Gras'.
In order for us to move out we also had to find someone to move in to our current digs. Not an easy sell I can tell you. Things were looking bad, Karen not only had a boyfriend to support but also a grown child. I became so withdrawn and despondent during this period I will never know how she put up with my crap. It wasn't just the area that got me down it was everything about Sydney. We had no friends and I had no interest in being here.
Then out of the blue after we'd given up all hope a young and, thankfully naive, Irish couple took up the lease. The same weekend we manged to find a flat in the eastern suburb of Vaucluse, Watsons Bay and managed to move in before Christmas so we could prepare for the long awaited visits of friends and family over the festive period.
Things did change from this point. We'd landed on our feet at the new flat with our balcony providing us with spectacular panoramic views of the sea and the surrounding suburb of Diamond Bay. We now had a choice of 7 beaches all within walking distance, including Bondi beach and probably one of the nicest hotels (the Australian term for a pub), in terms of location and view, in the whole of the city just down the road.
Besides all this we also managed to inherit a group of friends through mutual contacts in Sydney and Melbourne and made good use of our balcony for BBQ's and entertaining.
We were happy for the first time since we arrived in Sydney.
