Eileen Nicholls — Loving Los Angeles

Where do you live and how long have you lived there?

We have lived in the LA area for 1 1/2 years (time flies!)

How would you describe your suburb?

Beau­ti­ful. La Canada is a city of large old Cal­i­for­nia Oak trees. The homes have quite a bit of char­ac­ter and the neigh­bors are super friendly and engag­ing! La Canada is sit­u­ated very close to the stu­dios, shop­ping, restau­rants and all sorts of inter­est­ing places, yet it feels like we live in the country—a great mix!

You spent a few years liv­ing in Aus­tralia — what do you love about being back on home turf?

Every­thing!!! I remem­ber the first week we returned—who returns to LA? (it is my 3rd time actually!)—I was walk­ing on the streets of Old Town Pasadena, thinking—I fit here, and it feels so good! I could go on and on, but to put it in a nutshell—it is great to be back in my own culture—where I am under­stood and under­stand others—sense of humor etc…! I came back really appre­ci­at­ing Amer­ica (too many of us Amer­i­cans don’t!)—the same as if an Aus­tralian were to move away and return home … you real­ize you live in a great coun­try so why immi­grate!  Although I am very happy to be “home”, liv­ing in Aus­tralia for 4 years was a real gift, one that our fam­ily treasures.

How dif­fi­cult has it been to re-adjust?

It hasn’t been dif­fi­cult at all. I didn’t have expec­ta­tions of recon­nect­ing into an old life and got on with the new. It was great recon­nect­ing with old friends, but we have also made a lot of new ones.

How do you find the cost of liv­ing com­pared to Australia?

I found the cost of liv­ing to be very high in Aus­tralia. I remem­ber lit­er­ally cry­ing the first few times walk­ing out of Woolies—I couldn’t believe how much it cost to feed our lit­tle fam­ily! Food costs are on the rise, but still not as expen­sive as Aus­tralia. Cloth­ing — and almost any­thing you buy and use daily is much less expensive.

You’re study­ing for your realtor’s licence — what is the prop­erty mar­ket doing over there? Is the eco­nomic down­turn in the US as bad as reported?

Hmmm … study­ing has been a bit of a chal­lenge since school hol­i­days have started. I think a real­tor will have a lot more chal­lenges then they had pre­vi­ously … I think the short sale and fore­clo­sure sit­u­a­tion is going to increase over the next year, espe­cially in Cal­i­for­nia where home prices went crazy in a very short period of time. That being said, the coastal neigh­bor­hoods, and the “good” neigh­bor­hoods are still hold­ing strong and I think you’d find that through­out the country.

What is a typ­i­cal day?

I think I’m way too spoiled to admit this!!!  Dur­ing the school year I drop the kids off at school—and ‘net­work’ thereafter—let’s just call it that!!

What do you love about Amer­ica? Dislike?

What I love about Amer­ica is that it is stun­ningly beau­ti­ful, with vastly dif­fer­ent land­scapes within hours of each other… there are many, many places to visit and inves­ti­gate… I’ve done a lot so far, but will not get to see all of it in my life­time I’m sure! What I love mainly about Amer­ica is—believe it or not… ‘Amer­i­cans’. To gen­er­al­ize in a huge way we are open, giv­ing, hos­pitable and opti­mistic. It’s funny because all that I love about Amer­i­cans is also what I dislike—in that we are sooo open, giv­ing, hos­pitable and opti­mistic that it may be our down­fall. You should inter­view my husband—he is a South African who loves America…

What is your favourite restaurant/cafe and why?

Coy­ote Grill - a lit­tle mex­i­can restau­rant on the Pacific Coast High­way in Laguna Beach—best food and best margaritas!

What do you and your fam­ily love to do on week­ends? Hobbies?

Dur­ing the school year we race around going to soc­cer games, base­ball games, birth­day parties—and that’s for two—typical for fam­i­lies with young chil­dren. Dur­ing the sum­mer (which is now) we try to steal every free moment to get to the beach. I body­surf, read and walk and the kids are boo­gie board­ing and learn­ing to surf with their dad. We also enjoy camp­ing and often hike in the moun­tain foothills close to our home dur­ing the cooler months.