The Five Environments

I read a blog post about The Five Environments that I really enjoyed, as much for the pictures as the topic.  The blogger reprinted a comment from a commencement speech about the five environments, and determining how they impact your well-being (the five environments, per this dude, are Mountains, Plains, Desert, Beach, and City – I would argeu an incomplete and odd list.  But whatever, I can get with the program.)   He then examined his own former cities of habitation to see in which environment they fit, and how he felt there, and whether or not there was a pattern.  Anyway, it was a neat exercise, and I thought I’d do it here, but more with the purpose of introducing you to a few cool towns, rather than extensive navel-gazing (of which I have been doing far too much, lately.)  Also, I’m having a hard time fitting my chosen locales into the five neat categories.  So whatever.  Here’s a list of place I’ve lived with some pretty pictures. 

 *Edited to add – doing all the places at once was proving more than my schedule could handle.  So I’ll do one at a time, til the series loses steam!  I’m starting with my most interesting locales-de-casa.  I made that up.

**Edited again to add – I found all of these photos online.  Just FYI, I do not have the camera skillz to take these fabulous shots, and anyway back when I went to Australia I did not have a digital.  I’m not sure they really existed in the mainstream in 2000.  Did they?

 

Sydney, Australia

City

 

 

Yes, it really is this amazing.  No, you never tire of seeing it.

 

In Sydney I felt . . . at home.  Safe, real, and exciting but without the dangerous, aggressive edge of New York or London.

 

I lived in Curl Curl, a two minute walk from Curl Curl Beach.  I didn’t go to the beach nearly often enough – I worked 6-7 days a week at this time, supporting myself and the laziest man alive who I eventually did kick to the curb.

 

Curl Curl is just north of Manly Beach.  I worked in Manly at a coffee bar on the Corso (the main shopping square), and took the bus or walked to and from home every day.

 

 

Every once in a while I would take the Manly ferry to the city.  Sometimes I wandered Darling Harbor.  Sometimes with the laziest man alive in tow, sometimes on my own.

 

 

I remember buying meat pies from a vendor in Circular Quay.  They were hot, they burned the tongue.  I miss meat pies.

 

 

I lived in and around this super place during the Olympics, so I really saw the city at its best.  And its best was something special.