When I lived in Australia for the first 38 years of my life, I moved frequently – sometimes every few weeks – to escape the lunatic I call my ex. Then, in 2010, I made one of the biggest moves of my life, across to the other side of the world to be with my husband. At the time, I thought it impossible, but with him by my side, we actually did the impossible and moved me and our three cats out of Australia.
The weird thing is that even after seven years of marriage, six of which have been in a country surrounded by other countries, I am still not used to it. Every single time an Australian visits another country, they say they are “going overseas,” due to the fact that we do not share borders with any other country. We literally have to cross the seas and oceans to go outside of Australia, and the saying “going overseas” is a habit which is very hard to get rid of. Each time we have visited a different part of Europe and people ask where we went, my European family get annoyed when I say that we “went overseas.” We didn’t go overseas… we just went to a neighbouring country.
Things are about to get even more complicated in a week, as we change address (yet again), but this time to the border of the country where we live. Our new address will be bordering with three other countries which, to me, is pure insanity. With Finland, Sweden, Norway and Russia all meeting at our new home, I will have to try even harder not to say that I am going overseas. Why? Because driving down the road to buy a carton of milk from Russia is not going overseas. Checking out the local beach at the other end of the road in Sweden is also not going overseas. They are neighbouring countries, and I am an Aussie who just can’t process it. Maybe if the countries were aligned a little different, I wouldn’t have picked up such a bad habit.
When we moved from Australia to Northern Europe, we did so when it was winter in Australia and summer in Finland. We figured that the temperatures would be about the same in both countries, but the changing climates fully kicked our butts, with one of the coldest winters and one of the hottest summers greeting us on either side of the globe. I swore to my husband that we would never again move in summer.
So here we are, moving again in summer, but at least we are moving where the temperatures are cooler, the Aurora Borealis smiles down at us, the snow forces us to build tunnels in order to visit the much-needed Sauna, and we can go ice-swimming, should I ever grow enough balls to do so.
*packs summer heat into a box and sends it back to Australia where it belongs*
Take care, all, and stay safe. Get stuck into those books and escape to another world filled with action, adventure, humour, fantasy or any other genre that tickles your taste buds.
Rosie xx
Rosie Malezer 
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