Back to Reality

Is it seriously October already? Have three weeks really gone by since I've last blogged? I swear that the house we were sitting was really some type of time warp, sucking the present-tense into an infinite black hole of doom and despair.

Really.

But now we're back to reality, and though reality is not quite as luxurious and comfortable as the time-warp days were (Oh! Audi convertible, how I miss thee and thy opulence!), it is nice to be back to our tiny apartment in our little corner of South Yarra. I really missed being able to step out my door and find hundreds of cafes, restaurants, parks, and shops within a five-minute walk--a perk that the suburbs just can't give you.

Not that living in the suburbs wasn't a nice break from the "Australian dream," a term I coined to describe the scaled-back, minimalist lifestyle that we have adopted since moving to this fair continent (contrary to how it may sound, it has nothing to do with the real Australian dream, which I imagine would be quite different). These past few weeks Will and I spent many an evening eating dinner on our [borrowed] deck, reminiscing about our own townhome so many thousands of miles away, recalling the good memories of dinners with friends, neighbors that yelled at us (and had our gas turned off), and the overall feeling of permanence and stability that it gave us (goes to show you that feelings of permanence and stability shouldn't always be believed!). And don't get me started on the cars-- it was so nice to be able to drive everywhere we wanted to go again, and leave the city on weekends, and have a way to transport your dog that doesn't involve her clawing your eyes out because she happens to be scared of trains.

It was a well-deserved time out.

But I'm also glad that this is not how we decided to experience Australia. I love the nitty-grittiness of roaming the streets of Melbourne by foot, which sometimes leads to the discovery of a funky new cafe or a second-hand bookshop, and riding the train, which gives you an insight into all sorts of lifestyles. Cars can be rented, houses are waiting for us upon our trip home, but our current corner of the world, and the lifestyle we have adopted, still has much more to offer us.

And that's my take on house-sitting.

P.S. Darcy is working on her own version of her Pascoe Vale experience with her friend Tofu. She'll be able to give you a better account than I ever could.