Topography and Scale

The architectural scales of my neighborhood vary tremendously. The block I live on is an example: it has mostly two-story terrace houses on the west side, but on the east side are one-story homes, two-storys like the west side, four- and five-story apartment buildings, and similar low-level office buildings. But just a few blocks away are five- to eight-story apartment buildings, mixed in with three-story houses, and 10- to 15-story buildings. Just a few more blocks away are 30-story buildings, and within a ten-minute walk is a 42-story building.

You would think that this would be an architectural disaster, but it's not, and that's because of the extreme topography here. A building may look like it is only one-story in front, but in the back it's three floors, because it is built on a hill. Near a park we walk to every day is a 6- or 8-story apartment building, that rises maybe two floors above street level, because it's built in a ravine.

Because the landscape is rolling up and down everywhere, small and large, short and tall, can all fit in together and still look pretty good. There are some exceptions of course: some pretty ugly stuff from the 1960's or 1970's, but it all fits in real well overall. There are some pix of all this on my flickr pages. Take a look:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mgt33139/sets/72157604067232214/

Some of the pix in the set above have sailboats - well they're on Rushcutters Bay, and this satellite pic is the same scene from above, from an earlier entry ...

http://startnewsydney.blogspot.com/2008/03/yarranabbe-park.html

Some positive differents

Many aspects of everyday life here in Sydney are simply better than in the old country. Two examples:

Attitude toward dogs
In three words, more laid back. Supadog usually goes on walks without a leash, and no one blinks an eye. Many if not most dogs are walked this way. Technically, there is a leash law, enforced as much as jaywalking.

In parks, this great laid back attitude is institutionalized: most times of the day, dogs are allowed off-leash. There are no segregationist "dog park" fenced-in areas where the dogs are all cordoned off to. They have the run of the whole park. It's so civilized.

Traffic calming
Here in Darlinghurst, just about every residential street has speed humps every few hundred meters. This, and closing off streets and alleys, keep speeding and taking shortcuts through neighborhoods to a minimum.

Differents III

Medicine
One of the more interesting aspects of being bicultural is observing the medical angle. With my shoulder injury, U.S. specialists rely on MRI to assess the condition of the bones, tendons, and other connective tissue. In Australia, the orthopedic surgeons rely on sonograms. In my case, neither had definitive diagnoses ...

While we're on the subject of medicine, here are a few more differents:
Physiotherapy = physical therapy
Anaesthetist = anesthesiologist

Drugs have different names, too, and over-the-counter drug consuming habits are different. There is no OTC benadryl in Australia, except in cough syrup. Paracetamol is acetominophen.

Some other things
bitumen = asphalt
footpath = sidewalk
pushbike = bicycle
ute = truck, pickup truck
boot = trunk
bonnet = hood

A lot of these are valid in the UK ...

Shorten that word

Some unique Australian language usages are adding the "ee" sound in "ie" or "y" sound after the first syllable of the original word ... barbecue becomes barbie, football turns into footy, Australian = Aussie, mosquito = mossie, etc. The same kind of thing happens with adding "o" after the first syllable of a word as a way to shorten it. For example, Darlinghurst becomes Darlo, Paddington is Paddo (these are two Sydney neighborhoods), service station becomes servo, etc.

The neighborhood and environs

The neighborhood I live in is Darlinghurst, which is very close in, a 20-minute walk to the CBD. Here is a layout ... zoom out some to see some places not on the original view ...



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