Revisiting the City

Moving between Elizabeth St and George St (central thoroughfares in Sydney), I noticed that a Korean café I once visited with my friend appeared to have closed. I looked for other points of interest, so as not to dwell on disappointment. Across the street, a café by the name of Golden Brown seemed promising, but a police squad were right in front of it, hovering over a man on the ground. I kept walking. 

 

Closer to the George St side, a new area for dining had opened up with Japanese and Chinese restaurants in the most prominent locations. A text full of hanzi (Chinese characters) had been painted on the wall on a faint blue background, along with fluffy white clouds. Entering the World Square shopping complex, to which it was connected, these were more familiar grounds, and didn't have much to offer, except to whisk me into George St.

Catching a glimpse of something very colourful, at first I thought I was looking at a sculpture for the Chinese New Year, but the tell-tale outlines and patterns of a tuk-tuk soon made themselves known. The body of the vehicle was stark in red and blue, and attached to the rear was a fountain of large, red and golden cards. Getting close to the opaque cards, I admired the raindrops glistening on them. On top of the structure was a big bowl of popular Thai fruit, bringing pinks, yellows and oranges into the pallette. I noticed the wheel leading the tuk-tuk was a shade of purple, and the sign at the top marked the area as Thai Town. A celebration of the community.

I reached my destination when I ascended to the highest accessible floor of Central Park Mall. You can't miss the Japan Foundation once the lift delivers you there. Toyo Ito was the man (it's usually a man) of the hour: a respected architect since the 1970s, this exhibition showcased three of his large-scale public buildings. All three were in regional cities, and encouraged the people moving within them to relax. Ito believes that when people leave behind nature to enter a man-made structure, they take on a degree of tension. Whether through rounded forms, innovative cooling/heating, subtle asymmetry or as few walls as possible, his goal was to create attractive spaces people would adopt as their own. He appeared happy that many visitors felt at home in his public buildings. 

Like me, Toyo Ito doesn't care for the abundant modernist architecture of Japan. However, I can't help but notice that his work, as highlighted in this exhibition, is not that radical a departure from the style he seeks to differentiate himself from. I can see the box shape in the frame of each building - at first glance it appears to have more in common with the status quo than Zaha Hadid or BIG. But it's true that, the more you look, the more irregularities you can see. The subversion is there. It may be more modest than I would ideally like, but it was fun to wrap my brain around something new. I would like to move through some of these buildings, finding variety in their multi-faceted lighting, furniture and textures. 

The city stimulates through many moving parts, not all of them good, but when there's a lot to please me, it's well worth the journey. 

To feel one’s feelings

Previously I discussed being reminded of European cultures at every turn. From my current position, in my room, my gaze tends to rest upon the vivid yet intricate commercial art of my Pylones bags. They are a world one can immerse oneself in. I do.

If I redirect my gaze, I catch sight of another artwork, this time a rainbow-splattered Berlin skyline. I’ve had it since 2016, and I feel ambiguously about it, but I like it enough to keep it. It reminds me of: serendipity (meeting a fellow traveller who helped guide me to the market’s location), the grit of the urban centre meeting the vibrancy and innovation of its people, previous infatuations with cityscapes, a romance which morphed into an enduring friendship, and a multitude of other things. 

Pylones is also many things, including: a charming aesthetic, a reminder of Paris and also Lyon (where I first wandered into one of its shops), my adventures in learning French (including confusing my Parisian summer fling when I claimed the word ‘apparate’ existed in English, and my sense of pride when I bought two pâtisseries using only this foreign language and received friendly smiles from the elderly Lyonnais behind the counter)…

There are other things I associate with Germany and France, too.

As part of my French language study, I downloaded a 19th century novella called Ourika, first in French, and, failing to make much progress down this avenue, then in English translation. The overwhelming negation of the presence of a Black woman in the white aristocracy of the time was evoked with powerful, disturbing imagery. Ourika was analysed in a subsequent book which made an even bigger impact on me, Robin Mitchell’s Vénus Noire: Black women and colonial fantasies in 19th-century France. It brings to life the immense cruelty and sadism that was a frequent part of the picture. It was written by an African-American woman who travelled to Paris for her research, and I got the impression she was horrified by the whole experience.

One doesn’t have to look very far to find examples of German racism. The current Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said he had a problem with the ‘Stadtbild’ (city image), and you should ask ‘our daughters’ what he meant. It’s obvious he dislikes the presence of men of colour in everyday life, and sees them, collectively, as rapacious towards white women. Protests followed, but he remains in the nation’s most powerful position.

The enchanting and the atrocious co-exist in Europe. There are no easy answers to the question of: How do I make space for all of the feelings they generate in me? The wonder and the disgust. The curiosity and the suspicion. The emboldenment and the intimidation. It’s an ongoing process, and there is some hard-won maturity too, but I have yet more to do.

Towards Love

In the aftermath of the traumatic events at Bondi Beach in December, I was feeling heavy feelings and a whole lot of irritability. I wanted to write about something which would take my mind off the topic, and process some of the disillusionment I was carrying towards Germany, in particular, and developed Europe, in general. Some of those heavy and irritable feelings crossed over into the subject matter, perhaps creating unnecessary negativity. 

I intend to return to Germany every year, there being a lot to draw me back. I feel like I can relax there, enjoy quality company, and find deeper insights into an interesting culture. 

I only criticise because I care. 

The disillusionment comes from having placed Germany on a pedestal. I wanted to escape from reality, and I spent a lot of time idealising Northern Europe.

When I look at myself now, I feel a little lost. 

From the fridge magnets of numerous European tourist attractions, to the postcard that reminds me of my German ex-partner, to the T-shirts and caps I wear every day which usually have some sort of European signifier... I've built my life around the wish to be somewhere else, a type of unrequited love. 

I used to think that I had left unrequited love behind a long time ago, but it continued in an existential form... Who am I, then, when pining is pointless? When yearning for a geographical locale no longer makes sense?

Radical acceptance is needed. 

Deep forgiveness, too. 

And a lot of self-love. 

*

Thankfully, I have quality company in Sydney as well. 

Wherever I go, there I am. I have a lot of experiences. Abundant wisdom.

I help my family, friends, and community. I am helped by them. 

The love is not only from within, but external sources. 

Some thoughts on guided tours

We all love to think of ourselves as different - better! - than other travellers, and I do not buck this trend. You're invited to indulge me as I complain about one particular traveller...

I attended a karaoke meet-up for Childfree Women (in Sydney), where I encountered a good-looking, curvy person with a lot of confidence. I decided to contact them via facebook afterwards, to see if we connected well. 

We established some shared interests, such as Human Rights activism and reading. So far, so good... it then turned out that we were part of the same facebook group, 'Backpacking Europe', so naturally we began to discuss that. 

It turned out that Simone (not their real name) had taken a Top Deck guided tour of Europe while they were still under the age of 40, and referred to it as "the trip of a lifetime." They was interested in taking another guided tour, this time to Croatia and some surrounding Balkan countries, in the near future. They cited a wonderful experience while sailing the Croatian coast, and had had positive experiences with the locals: '"Eat, eat!" they say.'

I looked up the itinerary of their tour to find a 6-week, fast-paced hop around Europe, starting in London ("I don't remember much"), encompassing major tourist centres like Paris and Berlin, but also some lesser known destinations such as Carcassonne, Dresden and Zadar. Could I learn anything about Zadar from them, a city barely on my radar, but which obviously had something going for it? "I don't really remember [what it was like]," they admitted. 

Simone seemed to recollect some of the basics on Carcassonne ("The castle city!"), and when I shared that I was planning to go to Berlin next (omitting to mention I'd spent considerable time there) declared "Berlin is essential." They had had 2 days there, taking in a museum called 'The Topography of Terror' and another sight, quite possibly the Berlin Wall. Very well, but how much can you learn about the spirit of a place in such a short time period? Something was very off here. 

Clearly, I will not be going on an organised tour of Europe, or anywhere in the Global North, anytime soon. Personally, it seems tiring, expensive and mostly a waste of time. When all the information you need for independent travel is instantly accessible on the internet, transport (both intercity and intra-city) is easy to navigate, and anything you don't know you can ask a local about (because most people speak English), what could possibly be the point?

I do see the use of an organised tour to India or some places in South America - places where solo women and non-binary travellers could attract unwanted attention or even outright violence. Some women and non-binary people do travel to these places by themselves anyway, finding that the benefits of exploring freely (and on their own terms) outweigh the risks, which are often hyped up by the Anglosphere's media. But even if I were to take one of these in the future, I would miss the feeling of having the whole day to spend to myself, the opportunity to get into a memorable conversation with a local, or get lost in an alluring environment. 

 

A lesson to take into 2026

In 2025 I had the privilege of being proven wrong on something important. Paradigm shifts were required, and some of them are still ongoing. Ultimately it's changed my life for the better, but it was a difficult journey, and the change in values it led to is something I'm still managing. 

What was I wrong about? Living like a local in Northern Europe. 

I always imagined it would be an incomparable improvement on living in Sydney, Australia. (I spent most of my 30s yearning to live in Sweden. And if it wasn't Sweden, it was somewhere nearby.) 

When I actually had the great luck to live in Hannover, Germany, for 6 weeks this year, I went through a process of discovering that, no, actually, I'm better off staying in Australia and making the most of it. People always warned me that "the grass is greener on the other side" and that I was taking Sydney for granted. But I refused to believe it.  

Well, I'm now taking comfort in my surroundings, knowing that immigrating to Germany wouldn't solve my problems... it would simply give me new ones. 

At the end of my 6-week stay, I had developed a new conflictual relationship with a Global North culture. I felt stifled by the rules and conformity, but I tried to persist with the German way of doing things to the best of my ability. This meant using my German language skills, observing verbal and non-verbal codes of conduct, and navigating the city with as much goodwill as possible. Put simply, I tried.

Sure, the people were more feminist. But they were also more racist, which meant that the people who shared my values around antiracism were few and far in between. This led to me feeling lonely, and that the wider society not only had unrelatable views on People of Colour, but also me, specifically, as a Slavic person and as a "foreigner." 

Whereas the society of Sydney feels largely unrelatable due to what feels like a lower status for women (and non-binary people) cultivated there (in comparison with Germany), I have found people here who are either feminists or share my main values on women's rights to befriend, which makes Sydney feel workable. 

In Germany, I would estimate that 95%+ of the population has anti-immigrant sentiment. I'm not just thinking of the neo-Nazi Alternative für Deutschland, but almost everyone to the left of them, including the Greens ("We're sorry about this, but we have to concur that there is too much immigration," they would say) and even a few socialists. That is strongly off-putting. 

It hurts, when you're trying to communicate with customer service staff in a language you are not fluent in, and you're trying to stay friendly and polite, but you are given the outsider treatment. I have felt people casually bonding over excluding me in bakeries and supermarkets. I couldn't understand all of the words they used to affirm their xenophobic values, but I felt it in the way they turned towards each other and away from me.  

I see, in the eyes of Black, brown and other People of Colour, suspicion and fear when they meet my gaze. Am I going to be as white supremacist as the rest?, I imagine they are thinking. It saddens me to see immigrants and people who don't have the typical German features be treated with aggression and dehumanisation. That is a reality I encountered in Hannover every day, because I experienced it first-hand, but I also witness it happening to certain people who are classed as different. 

As an immigrant from Bulgaria to Australia, there are far fewer barriers to "Australianness" for me. There are more immigrants and more PoC here than in Northern Europe, and exposure to each other brings more of the good things: cohesion, harmony, belonging. Curiosity, openness, sharing. Learning. The tendency towards greater equalising of human worth. Inclusion of more people into more social circles. "Celebrating Diversity," that oft-seen Australian phrase. The safety and resilience of the community. Participating in such a society is something I can be proud of. Is it perfect? No, it has a long way to go to reach full racial equality. In the bigger picture, though, only Canada can say they do it better than us (out of all the rich, democratic, multicultural countries of the world), and that is a remarkable achievement.

This post has become lengthier than usual, so I may be back to write about this issue.

For now, I have found a way to "be" as a Sydneysider. I focus on the city's strengths. My values have been shaped by Australia, more than any other country, and, with this lesson from 2025, I can better appreciate the quality of my education, the free and easy access to the best healthcare in the Global North, all the people who are fighting for my rights as a woman, a member of the LGBTIQ community, an immigrant, a Slav, and the other minority groups I am part of. I value and respect the multitude of people who have reached out to me over the years (since 1990), to offer me kindness, empathy and build mutual understanding. 

I am a global citizen: not despite living in Sydney, but because of living in Sydney. It has been my gateway into the world, and I thank it for all the opportunities it has given me. When I come back, I feel comfortable, and that familiarity is a privilege. I find 'home' in my friends, family, and various kindly acquaintances across the community. 'Home' may notoriously be a tricky, unresolvable concept for an immigrant (if you know, you know), so this lesson brings an element of peace and resolution. 

 

In pursuit of meaning

A wise soul, Jeffrey Marsh, once wrote that it's alright if you don't have a purpose in life. I think that I live life well without a purpose. I just 'am', and that's enough. In my life I've mostly just found things interesting, moving from one meaningful moment to another.  

The things that I find meaningful today are in some ways quite different from what they were in the past. I no longer turn to astrology to give shape to my personality and manage my interpersonal relationships. Where I once sought to discuss postmodernism early on in conversations, I now rarely bring it up. My interest in science is stronger than it has ever been. If you had told me I would be paying attention to personal finance ten years ago, I would have considered that off-putting. Yet here I am. 

So I suppose you could say that it's fine to have a sense of purpose which shifts over time, sometimes pivoting to meet new life stages. That's fine, and if it's working for you, great. But I don't need a purpose to motivate me. There is something at my core which makes meaning just from being alive. I get fulfilment from the people I pay attention to. I am driven by being interconnected with the world, having my small sphere of influence, and trying to share my knowledge with the people who are interested. 

Poem

Dust me off with your mere presence

I've been languishing, my stories untold.

Search for me in your daily adventures

Let the joy of connection unfold.