I love this city...well that one actually.

We went to Sydney for the weekend and it was amazing. It was my birthday the week prior and the trip really just happened to coincide with that event. While the trip was a much needed getaway, we said it was my birthday celebration.

So last Friday morning, I managed to get onto a plane without hyperventilating and flew to Sydney. Shortly after disembarking we jumped on the underground train and headed into town.

I hadn’t been to Sydney for pleasure for about a year. I’ve been for work a couple of times, but that doesn’t count since all I do is hop into a cab, go to an office, hop into a hotel bedroom to order room service and talking to LSH on the phone.

As I exited the train, the cool Antarctic winds chilled the otherwise scorching 30 degree day. The people moved fast, the city buzzed with life around me. I felt like I was back amongst it again, like I was alive.

I did live in Sydney for a while after I returned from a stint in London, only I hated it then. I thought it a poor cousin to the vastly more interesting, fabulous and fantastic London. I worked for a branch of the company I had worked for in the UK. The people in the satellite office were dramatically different from those in London and we just didn’t click. These people were sour, rude and a little bit wanky. All the while the people in London had been really welcoming and fun. So I left, came back to Brisbane, where I figured I would spend the rest of my days. Now, I’ve been here for so long that going to Sydney seems so appetising, so tantalising and so much like the big smoke that I almost wonder if I now look like a backwater local to the city’s residents

It took a few months to learn the “well ‘ard” face of a Londoner, not sure how long it takes to master the stern, determined face of a Sydney-sider. I am sure I didn’t pick it up over the weekend, although I did try to look pensive with furrowed brows, ducking out from under my sunglasses.

There are so many things to love. I love that there are tourists filling the city, pouring out of every orifice, yet there’s a professional purpose to the city too, people walking officiously about with headset to ear, talking in bullsh*t bingo buzzwords that mean nothing really, except to their own sense of self importance.  I love that the city is caressed by brilliant blue water, I love that there’s an enormous bridge that takes my breath away. I love the old dodgy looking opera house that everyone raves about. I love the recently revamped suburbs that were once home to drug dens and prostitutes, but are now filled with incredibly wealthy yet tortured, arty types.  I love that things are old and there are architecturally interesting buildings. I even love the merchandising in the stores, I especially love the great expanse of brands, I love the choice. I love the variety of people, products, music, food, sounds and smells. I also love driving out of town for 30 minutes and sitting on a the back deck of our dear friends' house listening to the kookaburras that rest in their yard of paperbark trees. I love it all.

It seems that I have managed to properly fall in love with Sydney, this time. And just like a new crush or lover, I can’t stop wondering when we’ll next see each other.

Soon my dearest, soon.