Our place!

We moved into our place in Mosman yesterday! Really pleased to get in and i'm happy that Adam likes it as it was only me who saw the place! We ordered beds and a mattress to arrive yesterday, but the shop we ordered from, Harvey Norman, managed to mess it all up. Eventually, after numerous irate phonecalls to them, the warehouse manager brought us round half of the delivery at about 9pm. At least we had something to sleep on!

Got woken up around 5am by the cockatoos and other loud birds, but I don't mind too much yet! I went to a local yoga class which was hard work, but relaxing at the same time.

Today was really sunny, but we had to do more shopping for furniture. Managed to get a patio set, but still no fridge freezer which is going to make food shopping a bit annoying. Doesn't really matter though, as we've just put the patio set together and had the first beer out on the balcony! Watching the birds and the boats in the habour is really lovely. Here's a pic of a kookaburra sitting in next door's garden.Looking forward to heading off for a dinner in our local pub in a bit, it's about 20 minutes walk to get to the main area but not a bad evening for it :-)

Manly fish and chips

It was a pretty sunny day so we went back to Manly. Sat on the beach for a bit and watched
the surfers on the massive waves!

Then we went to the pub across the road for fish and chips. The best fish and chips I've
ever had I think. The fish was john dory, yum!

A place to live!

We have just put down a deposit on a flat! Hurrah!

It has been quite difficult with the rental market here and not really knowing what or where we wanted.

Today I saw 3 in Mosman, a big 2 bed with view of the harbour bridge in a block of 4 flats near the ferries, a smaller 2 bed in an older block but with a pool, and a bigger semi-detached further in-land near the shops.

We decided against the semi since we wanted to live nearer the water. The first 2 were difficult to decide between though... in the end we thought that although the pool would be great in the summer the finishing and the size of the other one and the view won it! And our relocation agent told us that Manly is only a 10 minute drive away from Mosman anyway so we can easily get to the beach to cool off in summer.

It is the top left part of this photo (yep Adam wasn't too keen on the colour at first, but I quite like it!), it has 2 bedrooms, seperate living and kitchen, new looking bathroom, seperate 'sun-room' (like a conservatory), and a balcony for barbecues. Also a shared garden area out the back.

Very excited! We are moving in on 29th. Can't wait to move out of this hotel room and get settled.

Celeb spotting

I went to the Museum of Contemporary Art this afternoon in an attempt to get a bit of culture. I saw some Australian artists and an exhibition by Yinka Shonibare, a British Nigerian artist.

He "explores issues of race and class through a range of media that includes sculpture, painting, photography, and installation art" it was actually pretty cool if a bit 'shocking' in places, the african style fabrics he creates are amazingly detailed and all symbolic and stuff.

But, I have to admit I was more excited by what I realised was going on downstairs. The cast and crew of the new Baz Lurhmann film, Australia (inc Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman), were doing a press conference in one of the rooms, and then came outside to have their photos taken in front of the opera house. Can't wait to see the film now!

Employment!

I'm really please to have gotten a job! Sounds like a good opportunity and am very happy to have a job with all the news about job cuts in Sydney at the moment.

Thanks so much to Carl and Kyle for providing references for me. I know it was very difficult with the timezones, so really really appreciate it!!

I still have to get the Tax Reference Number through, for anyone else coming to Aus I would recommend getting that sorted as soon as you have a visa as mine seems to be taking a while and you get taxed 45% unless you present it within 28 days. You can get it online here.

Starting work on 24th, so I have a few days to keep looking for a place to live.

Sydney Wildlife World

On Sunday we thought we should take advantage of our central accommodation so went over to Sydney Wildlife World, a small zoo just by Darling Harbour.

I've never seen Koalas before so was very excited to see them. We saw loads of cute Aussie wildlife: wombats, kangaroos, birds, and the Koalas! Also some not so cute reptiles and spiders - good to know what to look out for!

Sleepy koala!

Bondi again!

I went over to Bondi again, this time it was sunny and I really fell in love with it. The sea was such an amazing colour and everyone seemed really relaxed.


So we thought we'd try to look for places to live around here. The commute would be about 35 minutes into Central and another 10 minutes for Adam to get to Pyrmont. So not too bad...

We went back on Saturday for the official 'inspections'. This was pretty crazy. You get 20 to 30 people all turning up at the same time, there's just not enough property available at the moment. Bit annoying as London was completely the other way round when we were trying to rent out our place! You have to be there ready to make a decision on the spot and be the first to get to the agent with all the forms filled out, references, proof of previous addresses, identification and a deposit. Most of them will have gone by Monday morning.

We were ready to do all of that but unfortunately it seems you pay a big premium for the beach. We were looking at properties higher than our initial budget, but none of them were all that great. And hardly any had air con, which I think we really need for the summer.

We went over to see some friends in Mosman Saturday evening, had a lovely time with them and fantastic barbeque! They told us where the shops and things are in Mosman, so we like the idea of that a bit more now. Might have a look at that area again instead.