November 2018 - Katie Regan

Preconceived Notions is a feature I do before traveling to a new place. I think it will be interesting to see how my impressions of a place change once I get to know it. Disclaimer: the whole point of this exercise is to expose my ignorance, please don’t @ me telling me how wrong I am. That is the point. Thank you.

The very first house sit I set up when I conceived of this mission was to take place in Australia. More than six months prior, I agreed to head down under to take care of two Russian Blue kitties just outside of Melbourne.

I’d been to Australia before, but while I was studying abroad I never made it down to Melbourne, let alone to the Melbourne suburbs. As it is a very large country, I think it is fair enough to not expect to know what one area is like having experienced a few others.

Before arriving to my house sit in Geelong, I was honestly not expecting anything too extraordinary. When I first arrived in Australia in 2004, my immediate impression on the shuttle from the airport to our dorms was, “Ah, it’s like if Canada and Florida had a baby.”

Unlike that journey, this trip will not be in the tropics. Geelong is a large suburb outside of Melbourne, so I was imagining a pretty normal place, maybe even painfully so, such as Highlands Ranch (Colorado), or Stamford (Connecticut), or Quincy (Massachusetts), etc.

Kangaroo — Obviously, I’d see a lot of these bad boys

Having done this flight before, one thing I was really dreading was the exceptionally long journey across the Pacific. When I flew from L.A. to Sydney in 2004, I didn’t have the best time. I am not the best sleeper even in the coziest of circumstances, so sleeping on a plane certainly doesn’t come easily. For the flight, I decided to take a bunch of NyQuil, have a couple of glasses of wine and pass out.

NyQuil, it turns out, is for babies, and was not at all strong enough to take me down. So, instead of sleeping, at all, I was awake the whole flight but was really, really exhausted the whole time. It was torture. After learning this lesson on the way there, I resigned to stay up the full 15 hours on the way back, and it was much better.

Going into this house sit, I basically was just imagining super friendly people, tasty, slightly weird food (Tim Tams PLEASE), döner kebabs for me to munch on, inexpensive shopping, etc.

Since I wasn’t able to come to this part of the country during my last trip down under, I intended to go see the Great Ocean Road (did I make it?! Only those who don’t follow my social media don’t know). I was also planning to take a couple of train rides into Melbourne proper and explore the city. I also thought I would ideally take advantage of the lack of language barrier and do some more comedy. All in all, I expected to meet some more folks, chill out, and get some writing done.

Stay tuned to see if my expectations were spot on.

A perfect three-week August house sit in Brooklyn

This view is not actually from Brooklyn, but IS from my friends’ apartment on the Lower East Side

Originally, my plan was to leave August mostly free. I figured I might like the time to bop around and see friends and family and just bask in my freedom. As my France house sit drew to a close, however, I began to realize that not having a home base would actually feel like the opposite of freedom.

It turns out when I’m not in a place I can call my own (even temporarily), I feel unseated. Wherever I am staying, regardless of how welcoming and accommodating the hosts are, I feel a little out of place, like I’m stepping on toes and have to make myself smaller than I am. I also tend to spend way more money, which is likely a combination of not having free reign of a kitchen in which to cook my own food, and being in proximity to people who I want to catch up and socialize with, which often involves going out and spending money on drinks, food, or transport.

Getting help with my work…

So, come the end of July, I started looking for an August house sit and I found this wonderful opportunity in Brooklyn. Brooklyn was perfect because it had me close to home, which was my intent anyway for that period, but I would still maintain my own space. It also so happened to be for the perfect amount of time, leaving me a few days buffer at my mom’s in Connecticut on either side.

The Neighborhood

Having grown up in what is technically a New York City suburb, I’m familiar with the city, I have friends in the city, I’m fairly comfortable there. Having never lived there myself, however, means I don’t really KNOW the city. I don’t know the ins and outs of the neighborhoods or all the little spots to go. For the past decade plus, usually when in the city, I would be with a pal who lived there so they would take the reins and I would just follow along.

Beautiful church in the neighborhood

This meant that I when I read, “Clinton Hill, Brooklyn” I didn’t really know what the neighborhood was about. The ladies wanted me to stop by before they left so they could give me the keys, show me around, and ultimately meet the stranger who was about to stay in their home. The Saturday before the sit, I was in the Bronx for a very long, crazy day that revolved around a Yankees game. As we waited for the night game to start, I hopped on the subway and headed down to Brooklyn to rendezvous with one of the homeowners.

When I got off the stop in Clinton Hill, my eyes went wide. This neighborhood was BEAUTIFUL. Impeccable brownstones, tree-lined streets, it was seriously gorgeous. Let’s be clear that as it stands I couldn’t afford an apartment anywhere in the five boroughs at this juncture, but this neighborhood would likely be beyond my reach even if I had a full-time job in my field with an NYC salary.

Impressions

A bodega breakfast sandwich will cure any overhangs…

The first few days of my sit, I was really digging city life. I just love being able to walk out my door and access the things I need. From the beginning, I was struggling with how expensive everything was, however. I know New York has a reputation for being expensive, but it’s always been my experience that the inexpensive food and drink establishments are discoverable. This time was different. Every beer I encountered cost $5 and over (usually more like $8-10), and every meal was between $12 and $20 (bodega breakfast sandwiches notwithstanding).

One of my favorite things about being in a large city, however, is that there are endless routes for walking. I love the diversity of the people. I love that there’s always something going on. These things all energized me on the daily.

Concerts at the Prospect Park Bandshell include sweet light art

I have noticed in recent years that I’ve become very neighborhood loyal. This was true in Denver, and it continues to be true in the new cities I sample. I may thrive on travel on a large scale, but I hate leaving my neighborhood. Despite the ease of getting around in New York, I found myself more likely to stick in my hood than to travel far distances.

At the end of the day, it was great to be in this beautiful apartment in this wonderful neighborhood with these super cuddly kitties. I also really appreciated the opportunity to catch up with some local pals. By the end, however, I was definitely fatigued by all the money I was spending. My productivity suffered a little as I finally started earning money but let my passion projects fall to the wayside in the struggle to balance my priorities (this continues to be true as I post a blog post about my August house sit in November…). I’m sure the gorgeous TV setup with the access to Netflix and Hulu didn’t help on that front either…

Missing Photos

Brooklyn Masonic Temple

Most of the photos I ended up taking while in Brooklyn were of the cats. I did get a few nice photos while walking around, but I always tried to do this on the sly. Since I grew up near New York, I have this weird, internalized fear of appearing like a tourist. This makes me hesitant to stop in the streets and take photos, even though there are a lot of really beautiful streets and brownstones and lovely, lovely sights. Because of this handicap, I’m missing out on some good shots (and by extension, so are you). It’s so funny the weird things that are ingrained in us.

Friend-Crushes

Most of the time, the days that I overlap with the hosts can be a little awkward. It’s always slightly uncomfortable to be taking up space in someone else’s home, and this feeling is amplified when you don’t know the people. This time, we didn’t have any overlap, but I did find myself wishing I had the opportunity to get to know these ladies a little better. I was immediately drawn to the books and DVDs they had around the apartment (hello, they had “Troll 2” on DVD!), plus I can definitely relate to grown women with multiple video game systems. I definitely left this house sit with two substantial friend-crushes.

All in all, this was a lovely sit in a lovely neighborhood, even if my wallet wasn’t quite as happy about it as I was.

Month: November 2018

Preconceived Notions: Geelong, Australia

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August in Brooklyn