A Place to Live

Well, it has been such a fiasco trying to find a place to live. Since arriving in Manly, we have spent nearly 3 weeks trying to secure an apartment. We have applied for numerous studios, one bedders, and even spent a week looking for a 2 bedder which we had arranged to share with another Canadian couple (who backed out on us).

Today, Jeff and I went back to one of the first studios that we saw (seriously, I think we saw it on our first day of looking). Supposedly they had decided to let the apartment go under a 6 month lease rather than the 12 months they had originally demanded.

The place had really been cleaned up (the last tenants, whom were living there during our last viewing were slobs). We waited around until the other apartment viewer had left before talking to the realtor, Brad, about what we now had to offer on our application (local references, bank statements, jobs, previous residence references, etc.)

Basically he asked us when we wanted to move in. It was painfully simple.

So, now we finally have a place to live!
Jeff's parents are transferring money from our account to Australia (we can't take out large amounts from the machines), and we're moving in sometime in the next few days!

It seems kind of surreal.

Pictures. Finally.

This one is my personal favorite, Jeff's horrible sun burn. We were both out for the same amount of time, but I just got tanned. Although both of our backs are still pretty white.

One of the great things about Sydney, is that you can buy mixed drinks in bottles. Such as this delicious Southern Comfort and Cola.

This is my terrible Jellyfish sting.

Here is Jeff on the Ferry going to Manly for the first time. Neither of us had bad jet-leg so it was quite the pleasant trip.
This is the back of my head, and the Harbor Bridge. The opera house is right behind the boat also, but we'll get some pictures of that later. It's nice that I get to cruise past it everyday that I go to the city campus of UTS.
This is Jeff on Manly beach. There are huge pine trees all along with beach walk, which is where Jeff is sitting.

More pictures to come later!
Miss you all.
xxo

Manly Beach

This is our lovely Manly beach. It's usually not this busy, only on weekends.
Things are looking up in regards to finding a place, we've figured out where some of our previous applications have gone wrong, and are hoping that we'll have some luck this week.

Pros and Cons

Things I like about Australia;

- "no shirt, no shoes, no service." doesn't exist
- Tia who is deathly afraid of jellyfish got stung by one (a bluebottle/portugese manowar) on her first time in the ocean ("ït hurt a lot")
- it's warm
- mixed drinks come in canned form (Southern Comfort and cola, CC and cola, etc.)
- the money is waterproof and funny colours, so it reminds me of home, except the waterproof part
- you can go surfing pretty much every day
- there are lots of dogs here
- it's easy to get a suntan

Things I don't like about Australia

- finding an apartment is something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy
- surfing is harder than it looks
- we can't bring any drinks back to our hostel (even though we are responsible and promise not to barf on anything)
- they don't really serve pitchers at bars
- we miss our doggy


So the pros outweigh the cons (I'm glad I'm not in Ottawa freezing my butt off) and the only major suggestion I would offer the Australian populace is to reform their property rental laws.

Wish you were here
Jeff (and Tia even though she thinks I'm being negative, which I'm not.)

Apartment Hunting

Finding a place is proving to be tougher than we thought.
Right now it seems like we are going to be living with 2 other Canadians from the university of Ottawa. We haven't met them yet, but if they can help with the rent, we'll get along fine.

Only... we don't usually have much luck with roomies.

We're hoping to be at Bondi tomorrow learning how to surf!

Jeff says: ''I'm sweaty''

We've made it to Australia

Well, we're finally updating from Australia. We flew in on the first, which was 10pm Thursday night (the 2nd) here in Australia. The flight itself was really long. We were slightly stupid and forgot that there were time zones between Detroit and Las Vegas so about an hour into the flight we thought that we should be landing. In any case we caught all of our connections fine. At LAX we had to take a shuttle down the road to another terminal, but we had plenty of time for it was fine. The BIG flight to Sydney was on Quantas. Although 14 hours seems intense, they try really hard to keep you busy. Each seat had it's own tv with a multitude of channels and movies, and you could even play a few video games. We were pretty cramped, but we both made sure to get up as often as possible to stretch. The food was ok. Jeff got an icecream bar and oreos and some other stuff that I couldn't eat, but there were free drinks and plenty of vegan snacks.
When we finally landed in Sydney, neither of us had slept very much, but we recharged on excitement and headed off to see if our luggage had arrived and get through customs. Fortunately both of our bags made it, except for jeff's beloved pillow which was probably recognized for its obvious value and stolen by a bag thrower or something. Customs was also a breeze. I think we were one of the last flights of the night (yes, Sydney International closes for the night) so everyone we looking forward to getting us all through as quickly as possible. I had to declare my wooden purse, but was actually through before Jeff. Additionally, Jeff got his passport stamped with his working visa condition.
That night we took a cab downtown and stayed at a nice hotel. The light switches are very low down on the walls. In the morning we took a walk and got some breakfast. After checking out we headed down to the wharf to take a ferry up to Manly. The ferry ride was pretty quick and was actually a nice way to see the opera house and the big fancy bridge.
Arriving in Manly we hiked up to our Hostel and spent the rest of the day walking around Manly and checking out our new home. The beach is very long and only a two blocks from where we're staying. Today Jeff and I (as it is Sunday and everything is closed) sat on the beach trying to build up some sort of a tan. Although Jeff's layer of hair hides his Canadian pastiness, I was probably the whitest one on the beach. No matter though.

No luck yet on our own place, although we've applied for a few. We spent all day yesterday walking around looking and attending viewings. Hopefully we'll have all of that worked out early next week.

The waves here are beautiful. We are extremely excited about heading down to Bondi in the next while to use the surfing lessons that we got from my Mom for Christmas.

We already miss Ohia. Hope that he's behaving well.
Sending love.