Our new, furnished, 2 bedroom home here in Sydney is in this 1920s brick apartment block, located two blocks from Bondi Beach.

We’re on the third floor, the top of the building, reached by two flights of stairs (no lift).

The common areas are decorated in floral print carpeting and darkness, although there are funky old light switches on the walls that when pressed, give you about 10 seconds to get to the next one on the next floor up before you’re cast into complete darkness again. I believe that’s called charm, and surprisingly, it doesn’t bother us as much as one might expect.

Below is our entryway and one of the first things we liked about the apartment layout – that it has a slightly more open floor plan that is somewhat atypical for this age of building. The antique console table is perfect for Gina, drawers with dividers to neatly separate each tiny pile of belongings into its rightful category, and shelves upon which to stack each individual pile of papers, awaiting its entry into a spreadsheet. The big mirror is also a winner, not only reminding us of home but also adding depth to our interior, shared wall.

This is our kitchen. It has three countertops – three! – another rarity in the Sydney rental market, where smaller spaces typically dictate a two-countertop home. And perhaps even more endangered – the refrigerator, which actually came with the place. Sounds like an odd statement, but here in Australia, one is expected to bring their own fridge. Even new construction like The Motto, our prior home, doesn’t come with a built-in fridge. We can’t quite figure this out, why Australians would be hauling their refrigerators around from one home to the next, but that’s just the way they do it here.

This is our living room, or “lounge” as they call it here. When I think of a lounge, I think of pleather swivel seats, rickety faux-wood tables, the smell of ancient, stale smoke, and a waitress named Flo (a hint of Alice’s restaurant, if you will, only darker, like our hallways). Fortunately, our lounge came with none of that.

The dining table seats two but the sofa seats six (anyone planning on visiting should start practicing the lap-plate balancing act now). The television is brand new and quite mesmerizing, really, for those of us unaccustomed to TV technology from this century.

This is our toilet and we don’t say that to be crude but rather to be Aussie authentic. It is not called a bathroom or washroom or loo but simply a toilet, despite the fact that it includes a shower and a sink. Like the TV, it’s updated and brand spankin’ new and for that, we are eternally grateful, for 90 year old toilets are really not our thing.

The rain shower is handy when missing Seattle weather, and the trinkets decorating the shelves have provided a lesson in biology – I call this one “The Stomach”:

This is our deck.

We plan to pretty it up over the next few months with low-maintenance plants, a couple of stools that one can actually sit on, and a cover for the cushion on the end, which, in keeping with the theme of Bondi, may be nothing more than a couple of off-season, on-sale beach towels. From this built-in seat, we can see one large orange building and one bright blue sea:

Maybe not the same view as we had at the Beach House, but overall, we’re pretty darn pleased with the place. The timber floors, high ceilings, crown molding, accent walls, light fixtures, large windows, and updated kitchen and bath give it an old world charm less the old world grime – something we weren’t entirely confident we could find in a price range we could afford here in Sydney. Maybe it was luck or maybe it was perseverance or most likely, a little bit of both that landed us here. Regardless of what it was, we’re grateful to be settling in and settling down and when that emotional rollercoaster starts making us crazy again, to enjoy the convenience of a two block walk to the South Pacific, the warm waters calming our craze for another day.