I am still amazed. Or yet again. Everybody is so incredibly sociable hereabouts! You meet someone you have never met before through a friend in a bar and get invited to their dinner party the next night. People are delighted if you turn up surprisingly at their barbecue or birthday party without knowing anybody just because someone else decided to take you along. People I barely got to know offer me their spare bedroom for a week or two, should I need a place to stay... Just like that. All very natural. Has all happened several times to me.

I just came home from a party of a friend of a friend where repeatedly some drunk strangers from the party in the apartment above (an underwear-party) would walk in (in full clothes, though). The immediate reaction of the hosts: "Hello, how are you? What's your name. Good to meet you. Would you like a beer?" And then they would of course introduce Mike or Tim or Whatshisname to everybody at the party.

Also someone at the party strongly suggested I should consider a career change - nannies would be in high demand and she reckoned I could easily get sponsorship (that's someone being willing to sign up for you and take all responsibility for all your deeds towards the Australian government) and residency and a job in Sydney. As long as I was not a pedophile all should be easy. She reckoned also my qualifications and previous work experience as a physicist and engineer would be totally sufficient. Now you've got me thinking... (As it turned out she runs a nanny agency.)

Due to this "Sydney effect" I am having a very busy weekend right now. I will unfortunately even have to skip a brunch invitation tomorrow, that's just too much - since I am also invited to a dinner party of a girl who works as a designer and photographer, which I just got to know last night. So I will not even really know anyone there, but that's just the fun of it! And that way I also get to see a few different neighbourhoods of Sydney where I certainly would never go as a tourist.

Thanks to a few people here, my initial contacts - my friends Kat and Justin with whom I am staying, Anna whom I had met somewhere in Patagonia, and Jamie whom I met in Buenos Aires in the language school - I got to know so incredibly many nice, funny, and interesting people. So within a mere four weeks in total in this city I feel I already have a big social network of fabulous folks. And all that being just the transient traveller I am...