Ask a Kiwi or Aussie expat what they miss about home and you'll get one answer instantly: the food. The flat whites. The meat pies. The Tim Tams they've been hoarding since their last trip back.
But spend a bit more time with them — over a meal, over a drink, somewhere they feel comfortable enough to be honest — and the answer changes.
It's not the food. It's the ease of it all.
It's walking into a room and not having to explain yourself. The shared references — the rugby scores, the summer Christmases, the particular way Kiwis and Aussies take the piss out of each other and mean nothing but love by it. The comfort of being around people who just get it without you having to translate.
The things that are hard to name
Expats are good at talking about the obvious stuff. The coffee is terrible here (mostly). Sunscreen isn't taken seriously enough. Nobody understands cricket. These are easy to say.
What's harder to name is the subtle exhaustion of being permanently slightly foreign. Of softening your accent without meaning to. Of explaining where you're from at every dinner party. Of laughing a half-second later than everyone else because the cultural reference didn't land in time.
That's the thing nobody warns you about before you move. It's not loneliness, exactly. It's something quieter. A kind of background hum.
What actually helps
The expats who seem to do best aren't the ones who've found the best flat white in the city (though that helps). They're the ones who've found people. A group, a dinner, a table where they can stop performing and just be.
That's what Franzus Social is built around. Not nostalgia — you can't live there. But the relief of being with people who share your shorthand. Who don't need things explained. Who get the joke before you've finished telling it.
The food's a good excuse to show up. The people are the reason you come back.