At one time or another I have romanticised the notion of moving somewhere different and starting afresh. What an exciting adventure. But what happens when that notion becomes a reality?During the Graduate Program recruitment process last year, my boyfriend Tom applied for many positions. Most were based in Melbourne, but for a few, he selected Melbourne and Sydney. We briefly discussed how it would be fun to move to Sydney, but both hoped that he would land a Melbourne role. As the title of this post suggests, he did not. He successfully landed himself his dream job… in Sydney.
We found out a few months in advance, giving us time to plan, pack and prepare. However, having all of this time in advance just made the move seem very surreal. I had planned to find a job well before we left Melbourne (that didn’t happen). We were going to get a rental well in advance (we left it a tad late), but the one thing we did do that we had set out to, was see our friends heaps and have a really amazing last few months in Melbourne.
As moving day drew closer, it started to sink in a little more; “Holy sh** this is actually happening. We’re actually moving interstate”.
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We decided to drive up to Sydney via the coastal route to really make more of an experience out of the entire trip. We stopped off a couple of times along them way and experienced some of the most picturesque landscape during our journey. When you cross the boarder from Victoria into New South Wales, it sounds really strange, but the landscape instantly changes. I kept saying that I felt like we were in the Shire!
Eventually driving into Sydney, going to our property manager to collect the keys and finally seeing our apartment was so exciting. We had applied for the apartment through a relocation agent, so we hadn’t actually seen the place in real life before applying and being accepted! We naturally expected the worst so that we didn’t get our hopes up, but we were pleasantly surprised. Not only is our apartment way bigger than expected, the location is amazing. Just shy of 2km down the road is some amazing coastline along the Coogee to Bondi coastal walk. We’re situated just near Clovelly beach, which is probably my favourite place.
The first week, Tom and I were both off work, so we spent the time exploring and trying to set up our apartment with limited furniture, as the delivery drivers didn’t bring all our things at once.
After Tom started his Grad Program, I started my job searching more seriously. The first week was really tough as I felt like I was having no luck with jobs, didn’t really know anyone in Sydney and was just generally feeling down. Thankfully the following week I was fortunate enough to score interviews with three different companies, as well as about four different recruiters! It wasn’t long after that I scored an amazing role with a marketing agency, which I’m now two weeks into.
Having been in Sydney for five weeks now, I can honestly say that this was the best accidental decision that we ever made. Sydney is amazing and way more than I ever expected. How lucky am I that I can walk to the end of my street and be treated with such views?
For anyone that is considering the big move interstate, overseas, or even to the country (which I also did): Go for it. At the end of the day, if you absolutely hate it, you can always go back home.
For me, I am home.
