This week has been a blur of flights, apartment hunting and catch up with friends – busy but exciting! Next week will be just as full of last-minute catch ups, but with most of our apartment stuff sorted, I’ll have time for travel blog posts – so that this doesn’t start looking more like a diary than a travel blog!

Melbourne

My boyfriend and I went on a whirlwind trip to Melbourne to find an apartment for our move in a couple of weeks (!).While David popped into his new office when we got into town, I recharged with a flat white at The Fair Trader on Exhibition St, which could be my new regular haunt when I move. It’s so nice to find a good coffee in a café with a bit of personality – a rarity in the Brisbane CBD.

We stayed with my uncles in St Kilda, in their newly renovated guest bedroom which made me itch to decorate my own place. My uncle’s extended family from Switzerland were in town, so we went to Harro’s for dinner, which dishes up one of the Aussie classics – parmigianas. Parmas just aren’t my thing, I didn’t really ever have them growing up, but luckily Harro’s also specialises in pizza!

We got dessert at Yo Chi in Balaclava on the way home. When we visited around a year ago it was full of tweens, but now it’s teeming with groups of artsy twenty-somethings. I couldn’t resist trying some of the Persian Fairy Floss flavour, which tasted like fairy floss and Turkish Delight. Frozen yoghurt bars have been trending for around a year and a half now, and as with most food trends, it started in Melbourne but after a while Brisbane caught on. There are so many frozen yoghurt bars in Melbourne now, I gotta wonder what happens with the Fro Yo bubble bursts.

The next day we visited apartments in the city, Southbank, Richmond, East Melbourne and Docklands. We saw some amazing places (and some not so amazing, haha!) but our favourite was in Southbank.

We celebrated our find with a cider at Ponyfish Island, a bar that sits in the middle of the Yarra and is named after the mythical creature that is supposed to live in the river.

We ate an early pre-flight dinner at Red Silks, a small rooftop Asian restaurant on Bourke Street. David had been raving about for it’s cheap & delicious meals all year, and it did not disappoint! In fact, I was surpised by how sweet the set up was, as I was expecting a dingy back room. The sweet and sour pork was some of the best I’ve had and for two huge meals it cost us just $21!

And now we wait…

It was less than a 48-hour turnaround, but once we submitted the application I had knots in my stomach right up until I got the email from our real estate agent telling us we’d been approved for the apartment.

I can’t begin to describe how ecstatic I am about securing the apartment & my soon-to-be new neighbourhood. Within walking distance of the South Melbourne Markets, a few cafes and specialty coffee shops that I’ve been hearing rave reviews about for months, gardens and even a couple of nightclubs, I think I’m going to love living in the city – and in a flat, walkable one at that!

Going away BBQ

My boyfriend and I had our going away BBQ yesterday, which makes the upcoming move feel even more real. I had a great night with my friends and I can’t wait for them to visit me in Melbourne!  

Eats in Brisbane

One of the things I’ll miss most about Brisbane is Paddington. The main thoroughfares of Latrobe and Given Tce are lined with some of my favourite cafes, restaurants, antique shops and boutiques in Brisbane. This week I ate at two of my Paddington favourites, Shouk and Kathmandu.

I caught up with Claire for dinner at Kathmandu, a small Nepalese restaurant and the next morning I finally got my Shouk fix with Leah.

Shouk is my favourite café in Brisbane, and despite only opening in last year it’s already one of Brisbane’s most popular cafes – it’s one of the very few with a queue at the door on a Saturday morning (preparing me for Melbourne!). The cuisine is Israeli meets Modern Australian and while I was tempted by some of the more artistic inventions on their new menu, I finally tried their version of the Smashed Avocado – delicious.

Take me back

To the million shades of blue blurring into one on Green Island, just off the coast of Cairns. As I sit here sweating over my keyboard, there’s nowhere I’d rather be than in these crystal clear waters.

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