nicolette kaponis

A terrain of dusty mountain tops, lush greenery speckled with brilliant yellow flowers, and rain. Lashings and lashings of rain. You’d be forgiven for thinking I’m describing the view from a train whizzing through the English countryside, but I’m not. What I’m describing is the view from my uncle’s car as he and my aunty show me Greece. Mainland Greece. Authentic Greece. We’re not on the islands anymore.   A ghost town (ie Greece when it rains) Our destination? Well, we’ve already had a quick drive by Corinth (while Coolio’s ‘Gangster’s Paradise’ was playing on the radio in the background – one of the more jarring experiences of my life), and visited the beautiful coastal city of Nafplio (a personal favourite), but today, we’re visiting Greece’s winter ski village. Bet you didn’t think one of those existed in a country more known for beach bars, crystal blue waters and ice-cold Mythos beer, hey? (But, legit, it’s all about Fix beer now.)  Nafplio, my favourite

Yep, I'm in Greece but I promise a new blog post is just around the corner. In the meantime, why not read about London's free galleries and museums in a  post from last year. Enjoy!

London’s postcodes. Three-to-six characters that say so much. If you’re lucky, have called London home for many years, perhaps you’ve found your perfect postcode. The right combination of letters and numbers that makes you feel at home, among your tribe, surrounded by landmarks, cafes and restaurants as if designed especially for you. If you’re like the rest of us, though, you’ve probably settled in your third-best postcode choice and, while you’re happy enough, every so often you’ll accidentally visit your first choice and remember why it was top of the pile. It’s always best not to drag out these visits lest you get all mopey over what could have been.  N16, Stokey to some, Stoke Newington to others, has been a good home to me. I like to think of it as the Carlton North of London and because of this, it was instantly familiar. It’s (mostly) filled with my tribe, there are enough ‘hot-spot’ restaurants and cafes to keep me sated for five years at least (especially considering how

My life as a Melburnian was filled to bursting with the comfortable flourishes you’d expect from the life of a thirty-something woman with a privileged background, a well-paid(-ish) job, supportive family and lovely friends. It was these same comfortable flourishes, however, that I vowed would not follow me to London. As I’ve mentioned in previous blog posts, my northern hemisphere life was to be about new challenges, different experiences, wider boundaries. This blog has, hopefully, shown evidence of how I’ve embraced this new life adventure, without too much of a backwards glance. Nine months later, or 238 days away from home, and I must admit that the thought of my comfortable flourishes started to tug at my heartstrings, warming me at my core. A little something of Melbourne would be nice thing to have, I mused to myself. And then, with the passing of Easter, I became acutely aware of how far home was. Home, and family. Not only that, I was about to say goodbye to my first sta