#2019| Jemma for Airbnb: Sydney Warehouse Livin

Sydney, Australia
Airbnb/jemmaYet another one to add to my list of interesting slash unique Airbnb finds.

Last September I was in Sydney, technically for Mercedes Benz Fashion Festival, but in reality I’d flown seven hours to spend some precious hours with dear friends that I hadn’t seen in ages. The great thing about globalisation, I suppose, is that opportunities to live and work abroad are aplenty in the modern day and age, the bad thing about it is when these opportunities happen to the friends around me. I kid, I kid. (Or do I?) Selfish reasons aside, I’m genuinely grateful to be privileged enough to be able to fly over for reunions when I can, and September was, well, lovely.

And of course every travel opportunity is an opportunity to stay somewhere new, somewhere unique, a little pocket of experience that I find myself privy to without having to commit to the whole lifestyle: think about it, the ability to live in an igloo for a week without having to commit to the eskimo lifestyle! And so on. This is airbnb.

In September I found myself doing my favourite thing, which is essentially scrolling through endless pages of airbnb listings which feed my voyeuristic side, and I finally settled on this incredible converted warehouse in Alexandria, as in, the Grounds of Alexandria, you know? Instagram speak. Pfft. But seriously – this place was a huge expanse of space by city standards, a double storied place with the bedroom upstairs, loft style. Open concept living. And if I lived in a city that allowed me to convert my warehouse or garage into my own bachelorette’s pad, you’d bet I’d do it.

Said Grounds of Alexandria, which was in the same neighbourhood as my Airbnb padBachelorette’s pad it was. Nellie and Isabel crashed with me when they were in Sydney, and the kitchen that bled into the living room and lounge area meant that we could always chat across the space no matter what we were doing, and it felt incredibly cozy despite being such a large space. During the second half of my trip, I had Jenna and Bert come crash as well, and only in retrospect did i identify what this was – a giant slumber party in my rustic converted warehouse.

It fit so seamlessly into Sydney for me, and although I know the word is passé, I really dont know how else to describe the place besides resorting to the word ‘cool’. I mean, living in a warehouse! It was my artist’s co-living space dreams come true. If I ever had the opportunity to move to a big city to work on my writing, it’s exactly what I’d imagine myself to do – share a converted living space with other similar types: musicians, artists, writers – and of course, here I am assuming that they’d want to live with me. Ha. (But – and I do try to be objective – I’d like to clarify that I’m a pretty damned good housemate to have.)

One more thing – and the cherry on top of the cake, really. The lady who owned the place must have been mad close to her neighbours, because they knocked a tiny hole in between their apartments to create a tunnel where their cats could freely roam between the houses. I was told about this beforehand, of course, but it didn’t do anything to stave off my delight when a couple of tabby cats rolled into my living room one evening when I was minding my own business. Another morning I woke up, and a cat was napping on my feet. If you know anything about me at all, you’ll know that this is my idea of perfection.

with one of the tabbycatsMy one regret was that i only had a very brief brush with Kylie, my host – I generally try to dedicate some time to hanging out with my airbnb hosts to try and get to know them and the city via them a little better, but it just so happened that Kylie was out of town when I came to visit, and so she left self-check in instructions, and I pretty much just slipped myself in. What that did do, however, was assist me in operating under the illusion that I was living, you know, alone, in a new city, by myself, independent and all. Ha! Look at me, playing at being all grown up. If you must know, it was fun.

Experience refurbished warehouse living here as well.