First impressions of Sydney

A remarkably relaxing city -- maybe too relaxing?

(I’m sorry this piece is a bit late, as the next might also be. The combination of travel, jet lag, and awful weather has meant I’ve been unable to do much more than sit in cafes waiting for the rain to let up.)

I chose the above cover photo because it has been my view for most of the last six days, with the sunshine replaced by rain. Since I've landed in Sydney, it's been either soaking wet, or I've been laid low by jet lag. What walking I've done, three ten-mile treks, has been limited to the few moments when the sun comes out and the streets blossom with people heading to the cafes and pubs, before the dark clouds move in again, drenching everything and everyone.

For most of the last week, I’ve sat at one of the five cafes that ring the five-way traffic circle near my apartment in Paddington, my favorite being the aptly named Cafè Fiveways.

What little I've seen of Sydney, beyond this small slice, I've genuinely been captivated by, but I've not seen enough to know it, beyond the superficial observation that it feels like a city that's the child of London and LA, having inherited the best qualities of each.

With Los Angeles it shares a majestic setting along a coast spotted with beaches, and a temperate climate that's flush with exotic and beautiful trees, such as the albino-barked Gums, the various Palms, Camphors, and the soaring Banyans. Sydney isn't so much a city as it is a massive sprawling park with the occasional home, with perhaps more vegetation, green, and open space than in any other major city I've been to.

That's not including the most glorious part of Sydney, which is its coastline, a ragged, long, volatile stretch that undulates, dips, soars, and along its length manages to include almost every known geological member of the land meets ocean subset.

My first walk was supposed to be an eight-mile stretch of coast, from Malabar Beach to the famous Bondi Beach, but large stretches were closed by the large waves threatening to knock over hikers, and footing too slippery for my Tevas. I managed only a few miles. When I could think of anything other than falling, it was about the fractal dimension of Sydney's coast.

For mathematical novices, the fractal dimension is a measure of how ragged a coast is, which is a deceptively deep concept that comes from the naively simple question, "Exactly how long is a coast line?", that various mathematicians have asked. It's an example of how fundamental math can emerge from childlike questions. What the length of a coast is seems like it should be obvious, until you ask exactly how does one measure that? Then the complexity begins to reveal itself. Imagine walking along the shore using a ten-foot rod, laying it end to end, and counting up the total length. The answer will be different, and longer, if instead you use a one-foot, or a one-inch rod, unless the coast is perfectly straight, at which point they all will be equal. The fractal dimension is (sorry to be a geek here), a limit of that measurement as the hypothetical rod goes towards zero. The closer to one, the smoother the coast is, and the closer to two, the more rugged. While walking it I assumed Sydney’s was rather high, only to find when I got back to my apartment, soaked and cold, that it was only 1.15. High, but not as high as it felt, presumably because of all the bad weather.

While Sydney might superficially feel like LA, from London it has gotten almost everything else, from neighborhood high streets dense with businesses, to an extensive bus system, to a pub culture, to its sporting obsession, to a dining scene heavy on past colonies, and given to takeaway, with London’s Indian high street replaced by Thai, Vietnamese, or Japanese.

There have been moments during my walks, when delusional from fatigue, I've looked around and given how similar the built environment is, thought I was in London, only to look above the rooftops and spot the white sails of ships bobbing in a distant harbor, or the swaying fronds of palm trees.

Australian urban culture is still almost exactly the same as the English it's descended from, with the notable exception that the Aussies are way more friendly and consequently, pleasant to be around. Gone is the performative cynicism, the "oh isn't life awful," the "if you are bitter, you are deep" ethos, that fuels so much of English small talk, replaced with an optimism, politeness, and cheerfulness that I am sure the British will say is also performative, and paper thin.

Maybe, and while I've only been here a week, and most of that has been sitting in cafes, I still feel confident saying Australians are the most openly cheerful, polite, and friendly citizens of a first-world country that I've been around.