You know you live in Sydney when...

Approaching Luna Park on the ferry

Just following up on my week of Sydney posts, here's something to chuckle over this weekend. An e-mail on this topic did the rounds some years ago which I've updated and altered, based on our experiences. Some of it is my promised 'what I don't miss about Sydney' list but there are also some things I do miss. Enjoy!

You know you live in Sydney when:

1.    You make over $100,000 a year and still can't afford a house.

2.   You never bother looking at the train timetable because you know the drivers haven't seen it.

3.    You spend more money on your coffee machine than on your washing machine. 

4.    If you stay in a job for more than two years, you're considered unambitious or lazy.

5.    You contemplate calling a taxi from your home to where you managed to park the car the night before.

6.    You slip over on the jacaranda flowers littering the footpath in summer.

A common summer sight

7.    You spend 30 minutes in a traffic jam next to a car with more power to its speakers than its wheels.

8.    You smell the sweet scent of jasmine and know that summer has arrived.

9.    Your taxi driver was a micro-surgeon before he moved to Australia.

10.   A really great parking space in the city can move you to tears.

11.   'Going to the shops' means a 30 minute drive and that seems close.

12.   You have to arrange a 'casual' catchup with friends two months in advance (because they're booked out until then).

13.   You spend $50 on a bunch of flowers which only lasts two days due to the humidity.

14.   Your 13 km bus trip in the 'bus lane' to get to work in the city can take 1 ½ hours.

What a misnomer - it's filled with four wheel drives carrying only the driver. Oh, and the occasional bus.

15.    It costs $26 to park for one hour in a city carpark.

16.    You go to Centennial Park on Mother's Day for a spontaneous picnic and find half of Sydney has had the same idea.

17.    Letting your friends into the queue in front of you can result in threats to your person by the person behind you. Repeated ones.

18.   You wonder why so many people have dead trees in their gardens and then when summer arrives, you realise they are actually frangipani trees.

Just glorious

19.   You attend an auction and the house is sold for at least $100,000 more than the advertised reserve price. On a good day.

20.   Enrolling your newly conceived child at daycare (under 'Name: to be advised') still doesn't guarantee them a place.  By the time they turn two.

21.   You arrive to collect your child at daycare at 6.05 pm and have to pay $10 before your child will be released to you.

22.   Only after paying a non-refundable fee of at least $3,000 can your child be guaranteed a place at a private school. In 2018.

23.   Once your child starts at that private school in 2018, it will cost you at least $20,000 a year (in today's dollars). That's before you add the cost of uniforms and other activities. Per child. In after tax dollars. Don't forget to make a donation to the building fund, either.

St Ignatius College, Riverview

24.   You overhear a mother on the Lane Cove bus telling someone that her son attends boarding school in the next suburb (see Riverview above) and enjoys his visits 'home' on the weekend (here I was thinking that boarding houses were for country children).

25.   You actually consider converting to Catholicism to get a place at a good school for your child.

26.    You rent in the catchment area of a school in order to get your child a place there.

27.    Buying your own house is only possible if you have won Lotto, inherited family money, are a 'colourful Sydney identity' or work at Macquarie Bank.

A Hunters Hill waterfront mansion. What's not to like?

28.    Announcing you are having a third child results in people saying a. "You've very brave. We couldn't afford it." or b. "Haven't you heard about contraception?".

29.    You decide to go away for a holiday on the long weekend and spend one day getting there, one day there and one day returning.

30.     Your return trip home on the Pacific Highway includes a 20 km traffic jam starting at Bulahdelah. With small children and no food or drink. Or clean nappies.

31.     Your elective caesarean date moves according to the obstetrician's children's school holidays or golfing commitments.

32.     Your parking fine costs as much as a week's groceries.

33.     Buying an unrenovated three bedroom house on a small block in an insalubrious area and near a major arterial road costs at least $750,000 - if you're really lucky.

34.     You get honked at for waiting at the traffic lights when the light only turned green a fraction of a second ago.

I swear, it only turned green half a second ago!

 35.     You realise that 'water glimpses of Sydney Harbour' in a real estate advertisement really means that if you stand on the toilet seat in high heels, you'll see a flash of blue in the distance.

36.     You can't believe a government announcement about a new infrastructure project as a. it's already been announced three times before or b. the government never fulfils its promises so it probably won't happen.

37.    You have girlfriends who are in their 30s, attractive, have lots of life experience, have travelled, earn at least $100,000 a year and still can't find boyfriends.

38.     Your only unmarried friends who could be possible partners for those girlfriends are gay.

39.     You have to make 19 phone calls before you can find a private obstetrician to deliver your first child. It happened to a friend of mine. Really.    

40.     A train breakdown on the Sydney Harbour Bridge causes a five hour public transport meltdown across the whole network as the trains grind to a halt. With the passengers trapped inside.

Just pray you're never in the train which breaks down on the Harbour Bridge

41.      The next day the responsible Minister blames the breakdown on a possum getting into a fuse box. And doesn't apologise to the public for the inconvenience.

42.       You decide to drive down to the Eastern Suburbs to watch the start of the Sydney-Hobart yacht race and by the time you arrive, 'Nokia' is crossing the finish line in Hobart. Okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration but it is likely that you'll be stuck in traffic when the starting gun fires.

43.       You realise that the car parked with hazard lights doesn't require assistance - the owner has just ducked into the shop to buy some milk.

44.       You sit under Mrs Macquarie's Chair at the Open Air Cinema on a balmy summer evening to watch a film and thank your lucky stars you live in Sydney.

The ultimate summer thrill

45.       You take a long cut via the North Shore and the Gladesville Bridge rather than pay the $4 Harbour Bridge toll.

46.       The only time Sydneysiders seem to notice the presence of the Sydney Swans is if they're playing in the Grand Final. Then everyone's an expert.

The famous 2005 victory

47.       The first question you're asked when people meet you is "Where do you live?". Based on that information, they will probably make quick assumptions about your income level, political leanings and whether it's worth getting to know you.

48.       You find out more about your friends on Facebook status updates than you do in real life as you're too busy to meet up with each other that often.

49.      You forget to ask the waiter for tap water and end up being charged $20 for a bottle of French still water. That really happened to us once.

50.      You have to move interstate to buy a reasonable house, find places at inexpensive private schools and babysitters who don't charge $20 an hour. Okay, well, that was just us!

I'm sure there are plenty more you could think up. Why don't you join in the fun and add some as comments? Let's see who can come up with the funniest one!

* Rewound on Weekend Rewind  at Life in a Pink Fibro on 26 November 2010.