We live at The Motto. It’s been our home since we arrived in Sydney 6 weeks ago.

The Motto is a year-and-a-half-old development of modern and spacious condominiums and townhomes in the suburb of Erskineville, part of Sydney’s Inner West.

Our condominium is roomy by Sydney standards. All of the cupboards close and nothing needs fixing. As we’ve been told (and seen for ourselves), that’s a rare find in the Sydney rental market.

The condo is furnished. We have bowls and plates to eat on, a sofa to sit on, and a coffee table to spread our many books, brochures, and City Walk cards on.

Our unit faces the complex’s green space where all of the Motto dogs play. There is Merlin, a spaniel-looking puppy with large floppy ears and feet, and Roxie, an energetic dachshund that can roll around with the best of them, to name a few.

From our balcony at night, you can see the moon and stars and every now and then, a flying fox winging by. It’s quiet here, in spite of the somewhat industrial nature of the neighborhood, and for that we are grateful.

Our neighbors and newfound friends, Cynthia and Kim, live here at the Motto. Accounting for approximately 50 percent of our friends here in Sydney, we are fortunate to have them both so close by. Our favorite puppy, Tilly, is also here and despite the appearance that an evening or so a week we are keeping her company, it’s really the other way around.

I walk to work from the Motto. It’s a 35 minute zig-zag through Erskineville and Newtown, along both quiet streets and busy, through a few well-manicured city parks, and nearly always accentuated by a wall of well-done graffiti.

Gina walks too, heading out on her daily explorations from one of the three train stations or multitude of bus stops within a 10 to 15 minute stroll from our unit. Our feet ache from the daily pavement-pounding, but the proximity of public transport and my office has saved us from plunging into the used car market before we’ve become comfortable making those split-second determinations of which direction that speeding oncoming car might be coming from, not to mention parallel-parking in reverse.

So what comes next, beyond the Motto?

Well, we are very happy to report that our persistence has paid off. The daily scouring of real estate rental websites, the hoofing it by bus, boat and train to neighborhood after neighborhood with dumpy rental after dumpy rental, and the emotional discussions and decisions (and maybe an outburst or two) have led us to a furnished, renovated, art deco, 2 bedroom, 1 bath unit over near Bondi Beach. And when I say near, I mean near – for anyone counting, it’s only 2 blocks from the sand and surf. We move this coming Saturday.

We couldn’t be happier about the new location – it screams to us “I’m in Sydney!” – and yet it is also bittersweet to leave our Motto home. We’ve enjoyed – whether always consciously or not – the security of outside companionship here, of knowing that a friendly face is just down the hall. If we could pick the Motto up and move it near the beach, we would stay here indefinitely with our friends Cynthia and Kim, with Tilly and Merlin and Roxie, with the flying foxes and closing cupboards and worn out soles.

But we can’t move mountains and we can’t ignore the bigger picture of why we came here – to explore a new continent and hemisphere, to soak up all that Sydney and surrounds has to offer, and to live this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity with the attitude that we will not pass this way again, so let’s make the most of it while we’re here. For us right now, that means changing neighborhoods.

But that doesn’t mean that living at the Motto has been anything less than a great start, with the friendships we’ve begun building during our stay and the many laughs (and bottles of wine) we have shared on these warm, autumn evenings when we’ve felt so far from home. We hope (and intend) to bring those friendships with us to our new neighborhood to make it a home as well.