The past 7 weeks or so have been a rollercoaster ride – some days really great, and some just so frustratingly bad, where I’ve missed home more than I can handle. As things move forwards though, I find the good days and times out weighing the bad, and enjoy myself more and more.

It didn’t help moving over while the weather was still technically like winter. I was so freezing cold, like I’ve never been before. I don’t know how I will cope next year in the proper winter if I was struggling to deal with March.

We now have an apartment in Brooklyn – a  cute little two-bedroom place on Smith St. It’s really convenient to Manhattan, as well as a lot of cafes, restaurants and shops. I’ve been frantically furnishing the apartment the last 2 weeks, and we are finally at the point where it is feeling like home, yay!

Spring really and truly arrived in the past week. There are cherry blossoms in bloom all over the city. It went from being so very grim and grey to bursting with new life and colour – it really lifts my spirits walking around the streets on a sunny day now.

One of my favourite things about New York is how much is going on all the time, especially movies and TV shows being filmed everywhere! A movie called New Years’ Eve was filming on our street week before last – literally right outside our apartment – on Alec’s birthday! It was so surreal. We walked up and down past the filming a few times and saw actor Josh Duhamel filming his scenes. I’ve also wandered into the set of a movie called Arbitrage (on 61st st).

I miss things about Australia that I hadn’t realised I could possibly miss – tiny things like good museli and yoghurt, grass on the sidewalk, having a car, grocery stores stocking a huge variety of everything, having a cheap, fantastic cleaner and my amazing doctors. I’m loving things that I didn’t expect as well – like the ease of catching the subway everywhere and not having to worry about parking a car, the variety of restaurants and cafes, shops open late, spring flowers like tulips and daffodils blooming all over the city,  dogs EVERYWHERE.