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We're in Oz!!! At last!
We got here on Sunday night, our flight was fine, a bit rough at the start but apparently that was because we were going over the Andes, less scary when you know why! Qantas were great, we even got ice-cream and champagne, and you just pick whenever you want to watch films. It was the first double decker plane I've been on, v strange. We left BA at 2.30pm on Saturday, then a 14 hour flight to Sydney, and a 13 hour time difference, so we got in at 5.30pm Oz time. We went to our hostel in Bondi (one block from the famous Bondi Beach). We were nervous about the place because of the cockroach mentions in online reviews, but it seemed clean enough, if v basic. Jay passed out pretty much straight away, so I went for a wander and brought back dinner to the room - King Noodles, very classy for our welcome meal to Oz! We slept pretty much straight through, and went for a wander along the beach the next morning. It's a gorgeous beach, Bondi is really touristy, there were so many Irish and English around. We had a big fry-up for breakfast, first one since Christmas!!
We were really lucky to find a girl online before we left BA that was going away from Monday to Saturday, so we have her room in Surry Hills, which is a really nice area and handy to everything. Massive relief we didn't have to stay in the hostel for a week! We moved in here on Monday morning, and the girl whose room we have gave us loads of info on house hunting, the places to avoid, etc. We met up with our friends Katja and Ben from London then, they moved over before Christmas, so we went to see their place, they've a lovely little studio right in the middle of a park in Edgecliff. So nice to see them again, and they had loads of advice for us. We can't get over how much green space there is here, even thought it's a massive city, it never feels built up as there's parks and even little nature reserves everywhere. There's tennis courts everywhere, and loads of people out running/walking/blading.
We had said we weren't going to worry about house hunting until Tuesday, but we had a quick look online and saw a place in Bondi, so we went to see that before we met up with my friend Nikki for dinner that night, just to get an idea of what's around, but it wasn't really what we wanted. Then we went to a restaurant called Nick's right down on the beach, where they do a seafood and steak buffet for $25. Nikki's boyf Scott was visiting her, so he was there, and five of her friends, so nice to meet loads of people on our first night out! Dinner turned into a lot of cheap sparking wine in a bar nearby, which turned out to be a late one, we didn't get home until five. I hadn't seen Nikki since she left to travel and live in Oz a year and a half ago, but it was literally like I'd seen her the day before, weird!
Tuesday was meant to be a super productive day for us to get our bank accounts, phones, etc sorted, but we were both wrecked. We managed to line up three viewings (6, 6.30 and 7) for that night, which we were super proud to achieve!! Katja and Ben were really good and brought us out to the airport to pick up our Oz Box, some stuff we had shipped over before we left, but DHL helpfully didn't tell us we needed to go to Customs too, and they'd closed by the time we got there, aaagh!! We had a quick dip in their apartment block pool, looking out over the park with beautiful tropical birds flitting about (oh the life!!), before we hit the road for our viewings.
We'd concentrated on Edgecliff that night, which has really good rail links and is right by the water - not the beach, but two fancy bays - and has parks around. The first two places were short-term lets for our own places, so we figured that would be good until we decide where we we'll be working and if we like the area, and the third was a longer term house share. We really liked the first one, so we were thrilled that we'd probably found somewhere, but then we really really liked the second one, and we LOVED the third one.... We told them all we'd ring in the morning once we'd 'had a think' but we rang the third place five mins after we left to say we wanted it, and the guy we'd be sharing with said yes to us.
Sooooo, we have a home!!!! We're really really chuffed, as we were setting ourselves up for at least two weeks of searching and having to move back to the crappy hostel again from Saturday, and all the travelling and stress that comes with househunting, as that seemed to be the average time it's taken everyone we've talked to. Just amazing to not have to worry now and we can enjoy the sights!!
It's on the top floor of a new apartment building, snazzy swiper thing to get in, and we have a carspace. It's a triplex, so the bottom floor is a huge open plan kitchen/living room, and a balcony looking out over the city. Then the next floor up is our room, a wall of mirrored built in wardrobes (gaah, a whole wall of mirrors!!) and our own balcony. The main bathroom is on the same floor, which is basically ours, as our new roomie Mario has an ensuite. His room is up again, with a balcony as well. He's an Italian guy and is just lovely - he made Jay lie down on the bed to check it was long enough for him!! We're one block from the train station, and loads of shops, supermarkets, etc, and only one stop on the train to Nikki and two to the city - perfect for job hunting.
We were supposed to move in on Sunday, but the couple moving out are having trouble getting a place, so it's been pushed back to Wednesday. We were pretty disappointed as we're just dying to get in there and settle in, but we're thinking now that rather than pay for accomodation for four nights in Sydney that we'll rent a car and see a bit of what's around Sydney while we have the chance, before we're tied to a Mon-Fri routine. Car rental's super cheap here.
Anyway, enough of raving about our new gaff!! We went out for dinner with Katja and Ben to celebrate, to a dinky Thai place behind a pub, where we had amazing laksa and pitchers of beer. It was just fab going to sleep that night knowing we didn't have to househunt anymore!
Yesterday, Wednesday, we rented a car to go back out to the airport. DHL is in the worst location, and then you have to drive between the international and domestic airports to Customs, then back to DHL again... mission! We finally got our Oz Box, so it feels like we have loads of clothes. Michael, thanks for wrapping it so well, it was perfect!
Katja and Ben brought us snorkelling that afternoon, at Clovelly Beach. It's actually a concrete beach, but it's really popular for the clear water and the amount of fish it has. It also has shark nets... There's been two shark attacks in the last week here, which is making massive news. It was my first time snorkelling, absolutely loved it. The water was crystal clear, and there were some huge grouper fish down there. Apparently there was one massive one that was really friendly for years, probably like an Aussie Fungi, but then some idiot of a tourist speared him...
We met up with Nikki and Scott again last night, for his last night here, in Newtown. Four of Nikki's friends were there too, who were all just lovely. We had massive steaks (as in big enough to rival the ones in Argentina), Jay has snapper, which was enough for three people. It was BYOB (bring your own booze), which a lot of places here seem to be, so it's really affordable to eat out even in expensive restaurants. We went back for drinks in her friends Luke and Dan's amazing apartment afterwards, and we dropped Nikki and Scott back to theirs. Sad saying goodbye to Scott, we only got to have two nights with him and Nikki, but he's promised to move over soon...
Knackered again today, but we had to get up early to drop the car back. Pretty cold and showery today, so we were going to come home again, but it started to brighten up so we got to see some of the city and wandered around Chinatown. Very chic around there, not like the London Chinatown at all! Jay's gone to play tennis with Ben, so I'm catching up on emails, then we're calling over to our friends Roisin and Dave, who are actually just around the corner from us!
This has been a gigantic blog entry, dear God...
Hope everyone's really well. Mam, happy happy happy birthday again!!
PS: our new contact stuff:
Me mobile - +61 41 568 7198
Jay mobile - +61 41 568 7157
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