Boomerang Place

What’s the most stereotypical street name in Australia?  I do believe it’s Boomerang Place.  How perfectly Australian is that?  And you know what’s even more perfect?

I live there now!!!  Woohoo!!!

Effective last week, my friend and co-worker – the lovely Clinton – and I moved into a new flat on Boomerang Place.  My first thought:  the Americans are gonna freak!  I mean, not only do I live in Australia, but I live in Australia on Boomerang Place!  Could it get any more Aussie?  Ok, maybe Kangaroo Court or Vegemite Way would be more Aussie, but Boomerang Place is right up there with it.

As if it couldn’t get any better:  we now live in the suburb of Woolloomooloo!  Try pronouncing that!  I had to hear it a few times before I could get it down right.  My friend Jenny in Houston pretty much had it right via e-mail to me earlier this week.  She said it sounds like Kalamazoo, right?  Indeed it does!  As an alternative, we were told to say “sheep, toilet, cow, toilet” – get it?  (Wool = sheep, loo = toilet, moo = cow, loo = toilet again)

Our building – and it’s a large one with approximately 150 units – is actually the only building on Boomerang Place.  The name of the road is actually Yurong Parkway, but for one little strip of it – the strip where my building sits – it briefly becomes Boomerang Place.  I bet the people who originally lived here petitioned the city on purpose just for shits and giggles.  And you know what?  I love it!

The building is super fancy and it makes me feel rich that I live here (but the rent actually isn’t all that bad for what it is!)  We have a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom, 2 balcony unit on the fourth floor overlooking a big parkland.  It comes with all of the amenities that we want, including all appliances, garbage disposal, screens on the windows, a parking spot (now all I need is a car!), and more of the little things in life that make me happy.  Outside of our unit, the building has a swimming pool, saunas, BBQ area, and garbage chutes.  You know you’re living the high life when your building has garbage chutes!

And you know what else our building has?

Mormons.

Seriously.  Mormons.  The Mormon church has an apartment in our building – maybe more than 1 – which they use for their Mormon missionaries.  At first I was like “Bleh!  Mormons are awful and they should all be shot!” because you know, Mormons are awful and they should all be shot.  But then I was like “Oooo – it could be like the porn I saw once”- you know, the one with the Mormon missionaries knocking on the door and they’re all hot and you invite them in and they think they’re going to talk about Jesus but then they end up… oh wait.  I’m going to stop there.  So, yeah, that was my second thought.  Then, I saw two of the missionaries the other day walking out of the building.  They were ugly.  Super ugly.  So now I’m back to “Bleh!” again, but I’ll keep an eye out because there have to be at least two more and they could be totally hot and secretly eager for a kosher dill…

Pickle that is.  You know – the ones in the jars?  Right.

Anyway, moving on.  The building tenants also include an old Orthodox Jewish man who proudly displays his Lexus car key around his neck, various other old people, and a lady from Davie, Florida who totally freaked when she found out that I grew up in Coral Springs.  It’s like 15 minutes away.  How random is that?  Also, she was super excited to tell us about two other guys on the third floor (gays we presume) and that we need to keep an eye out for them by the pool because we’ll love them (we presume that means they are hot).  And I’m pretty sure our immediate neighbours smoke weed or something because the always have a towel down under their door.  Strange.

Now, what’s even better than garbage chutes, hot gays, and potential Mormon flings?  Location!  It’s all about location, location, location, right?  Well, our apartment sits a very comfortable 8 minute walk from work!  Now I can be late without any excuse whatsoever!  And we sit adjacent to big parklands which give us a nice, green, leafy view with the skyscrapers of the city visible between the branches.  Pretty sweet.  Unfortunately, there’s always a downside to everything a well.   We’re also right on top of St. Mary’s Cathedral – the largest church in Australia.  As it is Christmas time, the church plays music and such to accompany their tacky nativity scene and pitiful excuse for a Christmas tree out front.  This music runs until midnight.  With nothing but the park between us and the church, the sound carries right into our windows.  Just when I thought the Catholic Church couldn’t piss me off any more… ugh!

The brothel across from my old apartment never made any noise like that.  If prostitutes can keep it down while getting it up for their clients, I think nuns shouldn’t have too hard of a time turning down the damn volume on the speakers.