Wow, a lot has happened in the last month. We’ve actually set ourselves up in Brisbane after all. Nik & I have two jobs each & are attempting to recollect our domestic life. We’re back living in the valley, in our old building even. A small but still quite empty apartment looking over the hustle & bustle of town, rusty rooftops & dingy alleyways. The traffic’s constant hum & crowd cheers coming from the nightclubs below, a reminder how far I am from the forests & deserts of only a couple of months ago. It’s still quite disorientating.

I’ve found myself working in a kitchen again after many years, in a deli in the western suburbs. The work keeps me interested, still learning recipes & new techniques. The other job is just supermarket work; mundane but well-paying. It’s funding this never-ending shopping spree of homewares, furniture & fun things to fill our apartment. I’m also saving for a motorcycle/moped at the moment, so it’s really a fun time in a way, shopping for all this stuff & starting again. Everything’s so new & fresh. A little retail therapy has been good after living rough on the road.  A new camera is pretty high on my shopping list, so hopefully this site will come back to life with some colour.

I’ll try to stop by more often. Sorry for the awkward pauses in the chatter. We have internet in the apartment now so I’ll be a little more net-active. Btw I tried the Wordpress app for the iPhone numerous times but it crashed on uploading every time; excuses, excuses.

So, it’s already been 2 weeks here in Brisbane! Wow, time is going fast.

It seems we’re gonna be staying here a few more weeks at least; our wallets prevent us from going any further south at this stage, so I’ve been doing the whole job-seeking thing & attending job interviews. So not fun.

On the fun-side though, we’ve already caught up with a lot of our friends & fam, eaten a lot of sushi & curry, caught up with cinema & even managed to attempt a spot of camping at Somerset dam with our friend Jeremy the other day. It’s been quite a busy 14 days.

Brisbane has grown up in a few ways & stayed stagnant in many ways too. The skyline has changed shape in the last 6 years, the stores shuffle about & there are new roadways everywhere, but in many ways Brisbane still feels like a country town. There aren’t many 24hr stores or services & some areas feel quite run-down these days.

Fortitude valley (my ol’ hometown, kinda like the downtown end of the city) has changed in a disappointing way. It’s now generic & mainstream & lost a lot of it’s culture & alternative vibe. It’s sad to see a place change for the worse & it leaves me feeling a little uprooted & foreign. Brisbane just doesn’t really feel like home in a lot of ways now.

There’s not a lot holding us here anymore & we’re keen to move on as soon as our bank accounts allow. Brisbane is still the town I grew up in but without sounding smug I almost feel like I grew OUT of it, all the same. Coming “home” after 6 years has actually made me feel further away from home somehow. Quite homeless & disorientating. I’m not sure if there’s anywhere I’ll feel at peace anymore. The world is big & small at the same time & right now I crave the feeling of being settled, but without knowing where to set.

So I sign off with a favourite quote of mine “Not all who wander are lost” … but some of us are, maybe just a little.

Well, it’s only a few days until we fly outta here & I can only imagine our first few weeks in Australia will be a little hectic, to say the least. My posts may become a little sporadic as we’re settling in & moving from city to city.

The plan so far is to start off in Brisbane, my hometown. As I mentioned in previous posts, it’s been a long time since I spent good time with my fam so I’d like to spend a couple of weeks getting to know them all again & catching up with friends. Also, we have a lot of belongings in storage there which we’ll need to sort through & arrange to truck down south.

The next stop is Sydney. That’s where we’re going to be catching up with Nik’s family & trying to fatten our wallets once again with some steady work. Wallets restored, the last stop will probably be Melbourne, where we intend to set up “home”. It seems all our Brisbane friends have ended up in Melbourne, down there in the drizzly, artsy town & while I haven’t even been there I can understand why. It seems to be the cultural centre of Australia & a little more bohemian or cosmopolitan than our hometown Brisbane. I’m looking forward to exploring Melbourne & experiencing something new & the familiar combined. I’m excited to be going home to Australia, but finding home in a new city.

2 more days in Arizona, 5 more days in the US, then it’s hello to the southern hemisphere.

So long America. Thanks for the memories.

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