I grew up in Sydney. It was a magical place. In the mid-1980s you could walk down Oxford St during Mardi Gras and simply step off the kerb to join one of the floats in the parade, and dance your way up to Taylor Square.

My piano teacher lived in an amazing warehouse on the water’s edge in Balmain; lessons in blues and rock augmented the classical training I had at school. The beaches were just suburbs where people lived, mostly surfers and Eastern European immigrants; George St still had charm, between the Regent Theatre and that tiny old art deco cinema on the corner; and Newtown was a little bit seedy and teeming with music and life from all corners of the world. Walking across the building site that is now Darling Harbour from then-derelict Pyrmont, I remember Centrepoint tower rising up behind the rubble, a symbol of modernity and the constantly changing skyline of the city.

Losing your hometown is a gradual process. It slowly disappears around you, and then one day you look up from the bus and… somehow you’re now living on the other side of the world (in Berlin in my case). Seen from this new and foreign vantage point, here are some of the things I really miss about my hometown. Some are still there, others have long gone, some will be waiting for me when I someday return.

Things I miss about Sydney

I miss being able to get on the 378 bus and get out at the last stop for a walk along Bronte beach, scrambling up to the cliffs and watching the waves crash against those magnificent sandstone rocks. I miss the original Bronte Café (circa 1988) run by Fiona who made sublime raspberry tart and chicken and mushroom pie, and Maurice who did magic tricks for the kids. Then the rest of the strip contained a Laundromat, milk bar, fish and chip shop, and some people’s homes. Now there are 13 cafes in a row, filled with chattering, laughing people and it’s still beautiful, but not the special secret hideaway it once was.

I miss the new Mexican Taqueria on King St, even with their block-long queues and slow food service. I miss walking around Newtown Cemetery and visiting all those graves of long forgotten sailors and, as local legend has it, the woman who was the inspiration for Miss Havisham in Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations.

I miss being able to jump onto any of the obscure ferry routes at Circular Quay and have a peaceful, almost private cruise around the harbour, watching the city float by and discovering new perspectives from the water.

I miss the cafes in Sydney…

I miss the friends who call on a Saturday morning with just one word ‘Coffee?’ and half an hour later we’re sitting around at Corelli’s, Barmuda, Victoria Park Pool café, or one of the many new cafés on South King St, reading the paper, discussing the week and making plans for visiting art or the beach later in the day. I miss long walks around the cliffs from Clovelly to Gordon’s Bay to Coogee or Maroubra. I miss seeing the Anzac Bridge rise up unexpectedly in the skyline from various angles through the high rises and parks. I miss the long lazy Sunday afternoons on the balcony with Lisa, reading the trashy supplements in the papers and watching the firemen across the road wash the fire engines.

Then there are the hidden treasures, like the handmade noodle place in Chinatown (ask a local), experimental sound gigs at Lanfranchis Warehouse or The NowNow improvisational music nights, the small town quality of always being connected somehow to almost anyone new you meet, and running into old friends in strange places. There is a lively and diverse creative scene around the city, popping up with the fantastic program at the new Performance Space at Carriageworks on Wilson St, in Redfern, which I used to pass on my evening stroll and would sometimes drop in to see what was on, or the community and culture walk which took hundreds of people for an amazing night immersed in local Aboriginal history and contemporary life on Eveleigh St, or ‘The Block’.

The really good local radio is something else I miss, you can choose between 2SER, FBI, or the ABC – Berlin has no community or public radio, and I’ve just started listening online to Triple J, which is finally making me homesick tonight! Something about hearing those familiar accents takes me back, and in a nice moment of synchronicity John Pilger is now in the studio, talking about the secret history of the country, and how the school text books and approved histories left out Aboriginal history, women, and the many diverse migrant voices to tell a very bland story about Australia…

I live in Berlin now, it is my new hometown, my place to explore, to build layers of memory across these streets, slowly becoming familiar as experiences seep through time and into the buildings around me.

What I’ve come to understand is that you can’t hold onto the past – it is, as they say, another country – and nothing will ever stay the way you imagine it to be, even in the absolute present, things ebb and change, life flows on. You need to learn to embrace those shifts and changes, while keeping part of the past held within your heart, walking with the shadows and ghosts but also being open to what is there now, and finding the joy in it.

–Jodi Rose

Planning a trip? Browse Viator’s tours and things to do in Sydney, including one of Jodi’s old favorites — a Sydney Harbour cruise.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 8th, 2007 at 3:51 pm and is filed under Australia & Pacific, Destinations, The Art of Travel, Travel Inspiration, Travel Wishlists. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Get articles like this one delivered to your favorite RSS feed reader.
Subscribe to Viator Travel Blog now.