Hello, Hello!

It’s been so long since I’ve updated this blog. It now has a new domain name—welcome to Cozy Wanderlust! (Goodbye Cozy New York City, probably for good).

Life has been an absolute whirlwind for our little family as we welcomed our daughter into the world now a year and a half ago! For the first year of her life, it was just my husband & I caring for her around the clock with little to no help while my husband also worked a very demanding full time job (village, what village?) You really can’t imagine how much a child changes your life until you experience it for yourself. Of course—in many ways, for the better! The joy is ineffable. However, in that year, I had sparse little time for myself, let alone time to pursue any ventures outside of putting all of my energy into caring for my daughter and trying to stay sane throughout the first year of motherhood.

We Moved!

But this post isn’t about the trials & tribulations of being first time parents, but rather about another big life change. We were feeling quite unhappy with our quality of life in New York so we decided to move away. After considering lots of options all across the country, we realized that nothing really seemed appealing (or affordable, for that matter) and instead, started looking for options abroad. During our research we came across Medellín, Colombia—a heaven for American expats. The weather in Medellín is consistently wonderful throughout the year; it is a beautiful city adorned by the Andes mountains, full of blooming trees and plants, aesthetic coffee shops and sprawling modern shopping malls. The city is also walkable and extremely affordable. So we came to visit in July of last year, fell in love and the rest was history!

(One day I will write a post about how we packed our entire house into storage in the span of two weeks with a sick baby, about how we almost didn’t make our flight & the airline wouldn’t let our cat board because, and I quote, “he is too tall”, about how we found our apartment, and include all the other wild details of our International move.)

We’ve now been living here for about 5 months. We have a lovely apartment in a great neighborhood (Laureles). We have amazing childcare here and our daughter loves it. She goes to the park, to the pool, and plays outside every day. On the weekends we go out of the city and explore the nearby countryside which is stunningly lush. Our favorite region is Santa Elena just an hour or so outside of Medellín. It is a gorgeous mountainous region with parks and nature preserves, and cottage coffee shops.

Weekend Adventures

Just last weekend we there on a nature walk in Reserva natural San Rafael. It’s a little wildlife sanctuary managed by a family. It was an enchanting and peaceful experience and I highly recommend it if you’re in the area (note that the sanctuary is only open on Saturdays and you must make the arrangement to visit via their Facebook Page).

I told my husband that I really miss doing photography (prior to our move I was a wedding photographer) and so we grabbed the only camera we brought with us to taka a few photos during our outing. Of course, I have been taking plenty photos (& videos!) on my iPhone and I post quite a bit on my Instagram, but there is something special about taking photos with a real physical camera. I do long for my camera gear that we’ve had to leave behind in the US as it was simply impossible to fit everything we needed to move abroad (trust me, I did try to pack out entire house in two suitcases, but that proved futile).

Here are some of the photos from the sanctuary,

Some more photos I took that day, this time at La Rufina—our favorite place to get brunch in all of Medellín. The restaurant/bar/coffee shop/outdoor bbq & live music venue is located 25 minutes outside of the city & is wholly immersed in nature. Your table is a casita situated in a meadow. You can make a bonfire while listening to a band or DJ. The food & coffee are incredible!

Thank you for reading & until next time.