It’s 5:30am and we wake to the shrieks and cries of cockatoos and magpies out our window, the fresh air seeping through the slots of the bedroom shutters emanated the sweet smell of the Brush Wedding bush and the Jacaranda tree.
As I survey the room – we still sleep on mattress on the floor like some university student or flop house junkie from HBO’s The Wire. The bedroom door is slightly ajar and outside I can see the little eyes of a cute stalking animal – ready to pounce. As we lock eyes, the animal goes into full sprint and jumps holding a small bear – its last prey….and she lets out her war cry – “WAKE UP! I WANT BREAKFAST!!!”
Two months in and the adventure continues….
Moving to Australia was a lot like watching an iceberg colliding with a ship. From what you saw above the surface on many levels – why, how etc… was only a fraction of what pushed us to embark on this adventure and as the departure date crept closer and closer – the logistical and emotional impact that it had on us was greater than we could’ve imagined.
In 2005, we moved to Düsseldorf, Germany – another adventure that happened rather quick and one that was following only a few months after Erica and I were married. We knew as soon as we left that this one was going to have a definitive end date – we were going to return to Toronto at the end of our tour; we lived to travel and had a lifetime of experiences that truly have affected us even to this day. The funny thing is that it happened over 6 years ago….we were only there for 10 months.
I always talk a good game about how moving back to Toronto was Erica’s idea. It’s true that I would’ve stayed in Europe, but ultimately I wanted to go home. This didn’t mean that I wouldn’t move again at the drop of a hat – and over the course of the years I would launch into a half backed / assed attempt to convince Erica to move again overseas and would go something like this:
Me: “What do you think about moving to (insert city here)?”
Erica: “I don’t think so babe, but nice try.”
We would debate the merits of moving to other cities, mostly involved London, New York, San Francisco, Chicago….then our friend Karen moved to Sydney.
Karen and Erica were in the same advertising class at Humber. The same one where they met my old Bishop’s roommate Jeff Webb, who introduced me to Erica and ultimately led to Karen, Erica and I to live together for a year. Last October Karen moved to Sydney and we were proud of her for taking control of her life and were envious that we could not do the same with a mortgage, kids, etc…. it would be just too difficult.
The New Year came and I kept on seeing Karen’s posts on Facebook – pictures, stories etc… Then the faithful day came when she posted an image of a $14 pint of blueberries – that was it, I needed to know more….I need to see if we can do this – and I took my shot. I remember one night in May I turned over to Erica and started the Sydney conversation. This time it the conversation went differently. I knew that Erica was now, finally, as restless as I was. As I started my speech on how it would be great, she didn’t object and she said she was ready. We talked, had a cooling off period and started exploring. Once we were told that it was going to happen quicker than our original timeline of moving in January 2012 – Erica and I sat down again to make sure and to agree to try to remain calm during the upcoming storm. We have always been a strong team – we knew that the following months of selling everything in our lives in addition to selling this idea to our families.
Unlike the Düsseldorf experience, living in Sydney is not going to be a short term experiment. It’s been too taxing of a move to only do this for 1 year or even two. We can start the application process to become permanent residents in a year, our visa is for four years. Ultimately we know that we have to settle down for us, for the kids, for sanity – but right now we are going to take this day-by-day. It’s refreshing from the lives we were mapping out in Toronto. We’ll let it happen as it happens as long as we can.
HONEYMOON
Switching gears now – let’s discuss “The Honeymoon Period”. Personally I LOVE “The Honeymoon Period” whether it be a new job, new car, restaurant, sports season … basically it’s a concept where NEW is good and OLD sucks. This application exists in everyone’s lives - we all love the new until the shine starts wearing off and you start noticing the minor deficiencies and picking them apart like Seinfeld does with the girls he dated on his show until you start to despise that thing. Of course this does not apply to my marriage – since we have been in “The Honeymoon Period” since we met – insert yak here. However Erica and I were becoming professionals in terms of picking Toronto apart because clearly this period has long since been over for us here. We picked apart everything – our jobs, our house, our car, our street our garden, our neighbours, the weather….you name it, we picked that sucker a part like a fat man eating a chicken wing.
After arriving in Sydney we quickly trumpeted the weather and lifestyle here; by the way the weather and the lifestyle = FANTASITC, just in case you didn’t see the multiple posts, tweets, e-mails etc.... The Honeymoon Period in Sydney was fantastic and in full swing. New sights, new sounds, new sides of the road to drive. We visited a totally different zoo that is on a cliff overlooking the Harbour. We visited an aquarium – had sharks and rays swimming over us. We visited a koala park and the kids got to pet kangaroos. We tried the local delicacy – vegemite – and wished we didn’t (although the kids like it now that day-care makes it properly). We were able to get a place in a day-care for both Lily & Jake, and I was able to get a job quickly and in sports marketing. Sydney, to us, had become the Bizarro Toronto (see Bizarro Superman) – up was down, left was right etc….
At first I thought this period was wearing off for us but now I would say that it’s just maturing and developing as our lives become more settled at work and on a day today. We don’t seem to be picking Sydney apart – far from it. Every day I cross the harbour bridge to get to work, and every day when I pass over it I’m still in awe that we actually live here.
We did, however, end up in a period where we began to feel very isolated. For us the only thing that we felt that was difficult to get a handle on was that we were very….very far away from our friends and our family (15,564 km / 9,672 mi – to be exact). Along with the distance we do miss the creature comforts that we had at home, from being able to walk to Loblaws, Netflix, getting a VISA card, and as my parents have just found out….I miss my Swiffer, how do they NOT have Swiffer down here!!!!
We wanted to be pushed out of our comfort zone….well, we certainly did that. Luckily Sydney is a lot like Vancouver – actually like a sub-tropical Vancouver if you threw some British quirks into the mix, and the people are fantastic – calm, nice and accommodating; and as I tell my Auzzie co-workers – the good nature of the Australians are exactly how the world perceives Canadians to be. Maybe it’s me or it’s the product of living in Toronto for a long time, but I think that we’ve become too uptight as a culture and that Canadians have become more Americanised than we thought. I know that I’m uptight….but the “No Worries Mate” attitude is starting to seep into my pores, and we are all loving “Tea Time”.
GOAL
I know that this seems a lot like a manifesto or a confessional. The goal that we have for this communication piece is to give you all a bit more of an insight of what we are going through – the good, the bad, the highs and lows. 2011 has been a whirlwind of change and we typically only get to see each other in snippets, even when we were at home we still felt that we were unable to really sit down and talk – that’s just the reality of life in this era. I have fond memories of times where, in my life, we’d go to Laval and sit in Diane’s kitchen with ample amounts of beer, wine, smoke and endless conversation (that got louder as the night wore on). As a kid you watched that and as you got older you got to join in at the table and talk about your experiences.
It’s difficult to do that half a world away – but then again I always liked one sided conversations anyway J All kidding aside – with the YouTube Channel, this blog and most of you being on Facebook, hopefully you’ll get your Kokiw’s Down Under fix.
Overall life in Oz is definitely different and a change that we needed. From here we don’t know where this adventure will take us, but hopefully it will surprise us just as much as it surprises you.
**If you have any questions, comments or want us to answer particular questions, please let us know. We will try to update more on a biweekly or monthly basis.
