Jews in Sydney are Pretty Nice

Shana Tovah (Jewish New Year) to all of my Jewish family and friends.  There is a reasonably big Jewish community in Sydney with roughly 40,000 Jews.  Over 90% of them live in the eastern suburbs, near where I live.  So, there are a few synagogues and temples I can take a quick bus ride to.  I found a progressive (reformed) Rosh Hashanah service being offered at a Emanuel Synagogue, so I went there on Wednesday.  

I was kind of wandering around the block because I couldn’t find the synagogue so I asked a nice older lady and two younger girls with her if they knew where Emanuel was.  It turned out that they were going to services as well and invited me to follow them.  I told them I was from America and they invited me to a dinner at their house afterward.  The older lady was the grandmother to the younger girls, Natalie and Natasha.  Nat and Tash are my age and also studying at the same university as me.  The service was really short and the building was very beautiful.  The congregation probably had about 125ish people.  

So I met them after schul and we drove over to their friend’s, the Newman’s, house. The Newman's had a really nice home and eventually after all 50 relatives and friends arrived, we started eating a delicious dinner.  I got to sit amongst 6-7 Jewish girls between 20 and 25.    I was introduced to everyone, even though I don’t remember any one’s names, and I felt very welcome at their dinner.  I sat next to Jenna who is the daughter of David and Nadine Levine, who invited me to a luncheon they were having the next day.  The family was absolutely and ridiculously nice to me.

Tash was nice enough to give me a ride halfway to the Levines’ house after I met her at Bondi Junction.  The Levines live in an area called Point Piper which is a fairly wealthy neighborhood overlooking Double Bay, (which is gorgeous).  Most of their 150ish friends and family there at the luncheon were from South Africa originally.  The South African Jewish community in Australia (supposedly around 10,000) mainly boomed in the years during the revolution in South Africa.  

Anyway, a lot of them know each other from back in South Africa and so now that their kids have grown up knowing each other, there is quite a close-knit community.  I met a lot of cool people including a family with the exact same last name as me.  I met Clyve and Brett Isenberg who are originally from South Africa.  My great grandfather lived there for several years and there is a chance some other family immigrated there that I don’t know about, so it’s possible that I’ve found some relatives!!  I will update as that situation develops…gotta love Sydney :)

Australian Election, John Butler, and Inception

The Australian public went to the polls on August 21^st to elect their representatives in their electorates to government office.  I have been learning a lot about Australian politics because I only get to watch a couple channels at home which are mostly news, and the elections have been dominating the news cycles for the past month.  They have a really different system on all levels: preferential voting, compulsory voting, constitutional monarchy (still under British rule), the queen is the executive power etc...  

What resulted from the election was a “hung parliament,” which means there is no government formed because the election has not resulted in one party having a majority of the seats.  There must be a majority to “form government” here.  Only after two weeks did the former Prime Minister (Julia Gillard) finally form a ‘minority government.’  It’s probably too hard to explain, but I wanted to mention the election because it has absolutely funny to observe and it makes me appreciate the American political system A LOT more, even though it often seems frustrating.

So I’ve been hanging out with my good buddy Kurt Nehrenz from Norman, Oklahoma for the past couple weeks.  I went to school with Kurt’s younger brother, Mark, for about 10 years.  His mom also works for my family’s dentist, so she connected us before he came over here.  Kurt moved to Sydney about a month after me because he’s been transferred here by his company.  He lives on the other side of the harbor from me.  

We went and saw INCEPTION on IMAX.  That movie was so intelligent and so thrilling that it’s now one of my favorite all-time movies.  Just the 45min ending or whatever that had like 4 different climaxes at the same time (if you haven’t seen it, you don’t understand, but you will once you see it), and I’m so happy that Hollywood was confident in the American audience being sophisticated enough to like this sort of film.  Kurt and I also saw the John Butler Trio in concert a week ago.  

John Butler is an Australian guy who started out as a ‘busker’ and has recently released a badass album.  We had awesome spots, only about 15 people back from the stage.  Here is something to hook you on the music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VAkOhXIsI0.  He played a different type of guitar on every song.  Instead of using a guitar pick, he plays with his long fingernails, which makes him insanely fast.  I’ll try and post some of the videos I took on Facebook as well.  

Surfer's Paradise

So we got a week off from school like spring break back home in the US, except my professors decided to cancel their classes the week before as well.  I had scheduled a concert, a weekend class, moving my stuff, and Rosh Hashanah going on during the week off, so I decided to book a trip during the week with canceled classes.  I booked a hostel and plane tickets on Friday for a 4-day trip to the Gold Coast the next week.  I had an essay over the “Genocide Convention” due on Monday but my flight was leaving at 11:40am……so I pulled an all-nighter at my friend’s apartment near campus (probably would have happened anyway) to turn in the essay to the office at 9:30am (400 words over the required!).   I took a bus home, called a taxi, packed, and left home at 10:35.  The cab driver was Armenian so we talked a little bit about a portion of my essay where I wrote about his heritage hahaha (The Ottomans killed off hundreds of thousands of Armenians in the early 1900’s).  It’s very fulfilling to be able to apply what I’m learning in school. 

I met Pete and Liz on the flight up to the Gold Coast.  Pete is studying law at Bond University and from Toronto.  I had applied to Bond as my second choice to the school I’m at now.  Liz is from Chicago, and graduated from Madison so for any of you who know me, I had a lot of commonalities with them haha.  We became fast friends and they gave me a ride to my hostel: Sleeping Inn Backpackers.  I ended up staying in a room with Korean guy who didn’t speak much English.  HOWEVER, he had about every episode of LOST (how he learned most of his English), which is one of my favorite shows…so we watched 2 episodes before his computer died.  Good to find that when English fails, I can find common ground with American television.

I stayed in an area called Surfer’s Paradise, and you can probably guess the origin of the name.  I started the first full day by hitting up the theme parks in the area.  I bought a pass that gives access to 3 parks because they are owned by the same company.  I started at Wet ‘N Wild which is a pretty cool water park.  I was pretty excited to be in a swimsuit and flip-flops because I’ve been living through 2 months of windy, rainy winter in Sydney.  One lessoned I learned by going to this area in the off-peak season is that the parks plan constructions for this time of year. So, there were three or four rides closed for revamping.  It wasn’t so bad because there were plenty of other rides at my disposal. Off-peak season also means that there are basically no lines so that was the upside.  My favorite was the “Mach 5” which has 5 different slides you can go down at fairly high speeds at different angles.  Note: It is important that you cross your legs when going down them or else you will get the most uncomfortable wedgie you’ve ever had in your life—worse than rock-climbing. 

After a couple hours of nearly empty queues, I moved on to Movie World.  They had a couple cool rollercoasters: Superman and Lethal Weapon.  Superman goes 0-60mph in 2 seconds and hen has a straight drop down which was badass.  Lethal Weapon was a hanging rollercoaster that kinda left me with some whiplash going around the corkscrews but it was worth it.  There was a park I didn’t get to that had electronic queuing so that you could sign up and go ride something else while you’re waiting.  That’s something Six Flags should look into ;)  

I went to Sea World the next day just because I already paid for it with the pass I bought.  I saw a polar bear doing some flips in the water but not much other cool stuff.  I spent most of the second day hanging around the beach and central shopping/hang out area.  That night I went on a pub crawl organized by the hostel.  We paid $30 and got on a bus with 2 other hostels, basically 50 obnoxious 20-something’s, and went around to a couple bars/dance clubs.  I was surprised that the bars were pretty full for being the middle of the week and they had some pretty good layouts too. 

The last day a Swedish girl (Romanian heritage), Lidia, moved into my dorm room in the hostel.  We had lunch together at an Irish pub/restaurant that overlooked the beach.  She’s stopping by on her way to live up north in Whitsundays, which is a string of islands.  I’m hoping to visit while she’s up there.  I never saw Pete and Liz again but I have some friends in that area now, which is pretty cool.  A lot of the businesses had names like “Hats in Paradise” or “Hamburgers in Paradise” or “Paradise Lost” because of the area’s name ya know.  …I thought it was funny.  I met a lot of people who are travelling here from other countries like me.  Australia is a backpacker haven, especially up and down the eastern coasts. 

First Couple Weeks in OZ

I arrived in OZ on July 12th 2010.  I've been here for over a month now so I'll try to catch you up on everything that's been going on in my life.  I'll try to get better at this as I go...

I was supposed to get in on the 11th so I could watch the world cup final but because of some yucky weather in Dallas, I ended up staying overnight in LA and didn't in til one hour after the final ended.  So I missed the biggest game in sports that only comes around every 4 years...no biggie.

I arranged for a homestay through a company called Global Experiences.  A homestay is where students live in a house or apartment with a local family, ranging from a single woman or a large family with 4 kids and 5 pets.  You can ask for a homestay which provides cooked meals for you--usually 7 breakfasts and 7 dinners.  My family has 4 people living in the house with 3 dogs. 

The mother, Debra Honeyman, has been really nice to me so far.  She's the one who cooks me dinner while I make breakfast and buy lunch every day.  Debra is a full time housewife so she stays around the house most of the day.  Every single day we eat dinner at 6pm, which conflicts with my 3 night classes, so I end up eating at different times every day.  

Greg, the father has a lively personality and will always start a conversation with me when I run into him.  He is a car technician for a company like AAA back in the US.  He usually works long and periodic shifts, but I usually seem him every day.  He took me to a 'club' a couple weeks ago, which is like a bar and mini casino with  raffle.  I met some of his childhood friend and their families there. 

Greg and Debra have four kids altogether.  Melissa and Clint(I think) are in their mid-30's and have their own places.  Skye is 31 and still lives here with us, but she is moving into her own apartment in a year.  She works in a pharmacy during the day.  Blake is 19 and lives here too.  He currently works at a mechanic shop, but he applied last week to be a bartender at a hotel.  Both Skye and Blake and Skye are really shy and don't talk very much to me.  Whenever we pass in the house, we'll say hi but that's it.

There are three little dogs.  One is 7ish named Jay and he is pretty lazy, but well-tempered.  Barney is 1 and half ish and has a lot of energy.  He is very friendly but I think he has ADD or something because he'll be happy to sit next to me, but then 5 minutes later get up and go check something else out.  Tad is 2ish and in between the others' personalities.  Tad and Barney playfight all day, but usually greet me when I come home so they're pretty good dogs.

The house is two stories and located in a pretty good neighborhood.  To go to the university campus, I walk about 3min to a busstop and then catch the bus for a 25min ish ride.  It's only a pain when the bus leaves early or decides not to come altogether...which has happened several times....c'est la vie


I've really been enjoying my classes so far.  I'm taking 'Principles of International Law', 'Politics of International Law', 'Politics of the Middle East', and 'International Law and the Use of Force'.  My professors seem to know what they're talking about, which helps me respect the material as well as understand it.  I find myself discussing the topics outside of class, which tells me I'm doing something I really enjoy. I gave  presentation last week over Arab regimes and regime change in the Middle East and did pretty well, so I'm confident about comprehending the material.  I'm only worried about the law classes because the material is extremely dense.

Last week I ran in an event called "City2Surf" which is a 14km fundraising event in downtown Sydney.  It starts in park in the CBD and goes mostly along the bay, with some gorgeous views.  Halfway through is the 2km "heartbreak hill" which seems to go forever.  The race finishes at Bondi Beach, the most famous beach in Sydney, and one of the most gorgeous as well.  My friend Cesar, who I met during college, came up from Melbourne with several of his mates from work.  He ran in the race but he started in a group ahead of me so I didn't see him 'til the end.  This year there were over 80,000 entrants.  I finished in 34,194th place out of 67,000 finishers with a time of 1:37 hrs. 

Later that day I hung out with Cesar and his friends at the birthday party for the winner of the Australian Apprentice.  He was a funny guy.  He had a masseuse near the entrance giving massages throughout the party.   Later that night we went out to King's Cross, a popular area of bars in Sydney but deemed Sydney's "red district" due to drug/prostitute problems which used to dominate the area.  For the first time in my life I got thrown out of a bar because I was 'too drunk'.  I wasn't belligerent, breaking anything, bothering anybody, or doing anything possible for them to have grounds to throw me out.  But they did, and I wish I had done something worthy of being thrown out.  Stupid Maori ginormous bouncers.

Last week I slipped on my driveway and managed to break my laptop.  To fully repair it would cost a little less than buying a new laptop...so another laptop has been ordered and is on the way.  Over the past several weeks I've been setting stuff up like overseas health insurance, Aussie bank account, and getting a student visa.  The visa has been a pain in the ass because I had to get medical testing done.  My Dad sent me a check 3 weeks ago that I need to cash and pay my tuition but the banks still haven't cleared it.  Lesson: next time we will arrange some kind of electronic transaction.

I have gotten to see some of my old friend who I worked with at Amnesty International last year.  I definitely missed my in-depth conversations with Rebekah, Alice, and Tara.  We had dumplings at this amazing Chinese place really close to my university.  The four of us went to an Australian Rules Football game (if you've never seen it, youtube it. NOW) with the Sydney Swans at the Olympic Stadium.  It wasn't quite full but I love watching that game--I wish the US had it in some way.  This coming weekend we are all meeting at Rebekah's place for an Australian movie night where they will introduce me to the amazingness of Aussie film.

That's a lot and definitely enough for now...