Around the World and Back: June 2013

Wah wah... I'm kidding you guys… but only kind of. All I mean when I say my life is boring is that our 8 months in Melbourne hasn't been as adventure-packed as our 8 months of traveling New Zealand. Perhaps coming to an expensive city such as this one to "save up money for traveling" wasn't our best-laid plan. Perhaps we got it right the first time (NZ); being a bit broke for long periods of time but having the freedom to travel and be out in nature before settling in a city to work. But, what's done is done, and we're going to have to work with what we've got when we finally get back on the road again in 6ish weeks.

Although living abroad has been an amazing challenge, full of personal growth and other cliches, it hasn't been without its struggles (as you all know). Our time in Melbourne is a good representation of that sentiment, which is what inspired the title of this blog post. Life here in this city is not much different than life back at home, especially as we haven't had the time or funds to get out much. Hopefully things will come together in the next month or so for us to have a great time seeing a bit of this massive country before we get the boot on October 3! I guess what I'm trying to express is, although it's pretty cool to be living life on the other side of the world, you shouldn't be TOO jealous of our life here (in Melbourne, specifically), because it's really not much different than your life at home. That being said, hopefully the traveling segment of our year here will be something to inspire you. Until then, on with the daily grind.

However, there has been time for a bit of fun! 97% of our life here is made up of working, commuting by train and tram, budgeting, watching movies in bed, physiotherapy (for me, that is), and drinking coffee, and the other 3% of it is made up of daydreaming (me again) about Wellington. And for Brian's birthday we were able to spend a week there! In the contest for which city wins my heart, Wellington beats Melbourne by a long shot, which may seem strange to those who have been to (or lived in) both places. Melbourne seems potentially like a better city in many ways: it's waaaaaaaay bigger so technically has more to offer, has about a million cafes and restaurants with a very high standard for coffee (ahem) and cuisine, has great diversity (which is one factor where Melbourne wins in my mind), has an amazing art and music scene, and has an extensive transportation system. My two main reasons for loving Wellington? 1. The size, which for me is perfect, and allows for easy walkability all over the city, and 2. Urban hiking/BEAUTY. The restorative power of mountains, hills, water, and a wild coastline cannot be underestimated. Maybe it's just the Pacific Northwesterner in me. Whatever it is, I need more of it in my life! I'd love to be able to step outside and be on a hike within minutes, without having to sort out transportation there and back/make a whole day of it, etc. Wellington makes that all possible!

Our time in Welly was sooooooooooooo good. The weather even cooperated while we were there and we got plenty of sunny days! We ate at most of our favorite places, drank coffee at our favorite cafes (uh oh… I'm a snob now? Melbourne wins), had some nights out, walked to the top of Mt Vic, ran on Oriental Parade, walked the Southern Walkway for stellar city views, and of course caught up with great friends. Part of the reason I found myself crying all the way from WLG to MEL was because fate has brought so many of our close friends to Wellington all at once, where they are all happily living (I wanted to stay!!!). We had a Store reunion with Ian, Craig, and Amelia, who we hadn't seen for over a year, a Circa reunion with Geneva and Tim, and saw our old gang from Wellington: Mark, Jemma, Caitlin, and Sean. On our last night we had a big dinner at Siem Reap (just like our last night when we moved to Australia) and everyone came out, including some of Brian's Recovery Room co-workers. It was all just… so much joy. So much. We rented a bach at Waikanae beach on the Kapiti coast for Brian's birthday weekend, and ate lots of food, played at the beach, hiked, and relaxed. It was pretty much the best week ever.

So yeah, when we came back to Melbs I had a bit of a freak-out, along the lines of: what-am-I-doing-here-if-I'm-not-happy… but I've thought a lot about it in the last two weeks and I'm feeling better. And now that I'm back in the swing of things I remembered that I AM happy. We have great friends and co-workers, a nice apartment (even though it is infested with ants), and an exciting trip to plan for. We've started to view the next 6-7 weeks as a challenge; the end is in sight work-wise, but until then there is a lot of work to be done and some hard-core money saving. I have a personal goal to appreciate this city and take advantage of all its musical offerings as much as I can in our last time here. Better late than never! I need to debunk my myth that you can't have fun in this city on a budget, because I know the real truth is that I'm not going out and having fun because I'm lazy. So lazy! But anyway, that's what goals are for.

Oh, and for anyone who's been wondering about my arm/hand, it's recovering quite nicely. I've been going to physiotherapy 2-3 days a week and exercising it at home, and it's strong enough now to carry things and do everything almost as well as pre-accident. The best part is that my hand is a freak wax hand (still, which I kind of hope lasts forever), and turns almost completely purple when cold! Great party trick. The only thing that's still not great is that my wrist doesn't bend back barely at all, so I have quite a bit of work to do there. Oh and the asshole who doored me has FINALLY (FINALLY FINALLY) agreed to pay me a bit of money to make up for the deductible I had to pay for my medical bills. The day I finish work at Top Paddock will be the day I am finally free of all ties to this accident and my constant phone calls and monitoring by the TAC. That will be a happy day :)

What other fun things have we done since I last blogged… Oh, Top Paddock was named 'Best New Cafe' in Melbourne by The Age about a week ago... pretty crazy. I can't believe out of the bazillions of cafes in this city somehow we are working at the "best" one. Also funny because, well... it's not the best place to work, haha, ok I'll leave it at that (I won't get too Negative Nancy over here, Brian, if you're reading this). :) Our Store friend Ian came to visit for a few days, and we had a great time playing tourist with him here. We even stumbled upon a DELICIOUS hot pot place in Chinatown, which has put me back on the hunt for dan dan noodles (I'm reaching max capacity for length of time I can be away from 7 Stars Pepper). But really, most of the fun times these days are staff hang-outs after work, dinners out with friends, and our weekly coffee/trip-planning meetings that Brian and I have at one of our local cafes. It's the small things!

Are you asleep yet? I told you my life was boring! For those of you who stuck it out and read this whole post, a treat in two forms: photos, and the official announcement (if there's anyone who missed it on fb) that we'll be back home in SEATTLE on December 3, 2013. That's less than 6 months, people! Clear your schedules, please. I'll probably be heading straight for 7SP, followed by the Noc Noc for 80s night, and of course the Yen Wor for hours and hours of karaoke (lots of lost time to make up for). It's gonna be so great to see you all again! MUCH LOVE xoxo

I went on a weekend road-trip with Abbey through country Victoria to where she grew up on a farm near Mt. Beauty. It was so gorgeous out and all the fall leaves were putting on a show.