It's Monday in Sydney

and I'm not working, not yet. I've been emailing my CV out but so far no calls and I'm wavering between being stressed out and relieved about it. Stressed out because I would like to get started soon. We arrived two weeks ago, and I'm scared about that arrival date receding into the past. "I've been here for two weeks sounds" a lot better to a potential employer than "I've been here for two months".

But of course I'm relieved to have this time, time to hang out with my kid and wander around Sydney. In fact, this has become something of a project for me: to get around Sydney and rediscover it. It's partly about finding out what has changed since the last time I was here, and partly about trying to get a grip on what Sydney is. When I lived overseas and people asked me about Australia it was always very difficult to explain what Sydney was like and I'm afraid I didn't paint a very positive portrait. Usually I talked about materialistic tendencies, how people weren't very friendly under the surface, and how they didn't dance much. But being back here I'm determined to put my good head on and update my views of my home city. So here goes...

Today we went for a stroll around Hyde Park park where my son is already developing his little rituals. First is to drink from the bubbler. Next is to pick up some twigs which he will later throw into the water. It started raining while we were in front of the Anzac memorial so I decided to go in and check it out. Despite living in Sydney most of my life, I'd never done this before. I mean, it's hardly "Top 20 things to do in Sydney" material, but it is one of those places that you'll walk past a thousand times without ever finding out what's inside. And it's definitely worth a look. On the walls upstairs are the names of places where Australians have served. It's a bizarre list when you look at it and consider all the far flung places that Australian forces have gone. We started checking out the museum but the little guy began shouting a lot at that point so I moved us on.

As it happens, my son and I often work at cross-purposes. While I'm trying to take him somewhere that I think would be really cool for a two-year-old, he's just as happy going up and down a set of escalators, or playing with sticks in the park. So it was a short outing today, stretching only as far as a Boost juice bar. This is one business that has exploded since the last time I was here. Where we lived before, juice was something we'd prepare at home every night. Most families did. But here it's a little trickier it seems and if you are going to do it, it'll usually be orange juice at breakfast, or maybe some fancier stuff if you've got a juicer. So I can definitely see the appeal of juice bars like these. They've really got it worked out inside too, walls papered with suggestions for what to order and a pad at the counter so you can become a member. They're not mucking around, are they?