The beach
Sitting in an office in summer, stifled by knotted ties and suits, has an easy solution.
Sydneysiders know they can leave work in late-afternoon sunlight and be at the beach within an hour. People travel from around the world to visit beaches we jump on a bus to visit. Backpackers living in Kombis at the beachside car park know how good it is until the council, propelled by irate residents, chases them out
Cockroaches don't make you scream
They're part and parcel of a Sydney kitchen and, on the whole, impossible to eradicate entirely. To the amazement of most international visitors, we'll simply stamp the critters with a shoe or chase their glossy antennae-waving bodies with jam jars.
Creepy crawlies
We're even less worried about spiders, having been taught from an early age to identify the funnel web's lair or the redback's bright slash of body colour. Casually catching a huntsman spider or a gecko in the living room and gently releasing it outside impresses tourists no end.
Things that make us proud
Ask a Sydneysider for a tour of the city and they'll take you to the Opera House, the Harbour Bridge and Bondi Beach. Partly because they are striking and partly because we think visitors want to see them.
After that, the tourist will be presented with some more enigmatic sights. The Coke sign in Kings Cross (it's the biggest advertising billboard in the southern hemisphere, we'll say proudly). Harry's Cafe de Wheels in Woolloomooloo. Look, we'll say between munches of a Harry's Tiger, the pie cart has framed black-and-white photographs of Frank Sinatra, Pamela Anderson, Colonel Sanders and Elton John on the outside.
Via weaving drives through suburbia, we'll present Little Italy in Leichhardt and Haberfield, Little Vietnam in Cabramatta, Little Spain in Liverpool Street and Little Portugal in Petersham.
Food
In a week we'll eat laksa, pho, pad see yew, penne arrabiata and a lamb roast.
We'll eat mangoes at Christmas, juice streaming down our chins. We know a good meat pie, an easy skill given the number of establishments in the city and its rural environs proclaiming they have the best.
We're rabid home cooks but remain appreciable samplers of the raft of cuisines at the local restaurants.
