We Made It!!!

We decided to start a blog from down under so that we never have to call any of you suckers still in America.  Just kidding, obviously.  We miss you all very much and can't wait until we're settled in more so that we can focus less on learning our way around and more on reaching out to all our friends and family back home. So, here goes a generic and unpersonalized update:

We left LA at 10:30 PM on Wednesday night and arrived 14 hours later in Sydney, where is was 6:10 AM on Friday.  We both slept pretty well on the plane, so we hit the ground running on day 1.  One of the first things that reminded us we weren't home was that the cars we're on the other (read 'wrong') side of the road.  After settling in at the serviced apartment we're staying at we had another reminder when we went to order coffee.  The barista pegged us for American's when we walked up to the counter and asked for "2 coffees."  $10 AUD later, he told us that American-style coffee is called "long black," and Aussie-style coffee is "flat white."  Sean lived on the edge, while Erin stuck with old faithful. 

We decided to walk up through Hyde Park, passed the NSW Parliament, Mint, and Sydney Medical Center to Sean's work. They were kind enough to have a mobile phone and an internet stick waiting for us.  One of his colleagues gave an extra phone to Erin so that we could set her up with pre-paid mobile service also.  Some of the sheilas gave Erin shopping tips too.  They were all so nice and helpful and we're looking forward to getting to know them all better. 

We left Sean's office through the side door to venture off to set up a bank account.  We were quickly distracted by the Harbour Bridge that was only a 1 minute walk away!!!  We had to take a break from being productive and check out the bridge and the opera house.  They're both so beautiful.  One other thing we found amazing was that we were kind of hot and sweaty in our spring sweaters, the locals were all wearing peacoats and scarves.

Back to work - We made it to the bank and we won't bore you much other than to say the very openly homosexual bloke from Portugal that helped us was quite a trip.  He raved about America and some of the finer parts of our culture (e.g. Brittany Spears and Lady Gaga).

3 hours later (Victor could talk) we were off to Bondi Beach to see if it's somewhere we want to live.  It seemed like more of a grunge area full of surf bums and backpackers.  It reminded us a lot of Venice beach or South Street, a great place to visit, but not top of the list to live.  That said, we're still considering it, which leads us to what we learned on.......

Day 2:

Australians love dogs, just not if you want to have one in a flat.  We went to one flat that had a dead cockroach on the floor, but the agent told us the owner was worried a dog would be unclean - WTF!!!  We wouldn't want our Daisy living with that cockroach anyways.   The whole process of searching for apartments is quite painful here.  Rather than an agent showing you multiple places or meeting  you on your schedule, they simply open the apartment for 15 minute inspections.  As if that weren't bad enough, all the inspections happen between 10 AM and 1 PM on Saturdays.  You can imagine how much of feat it was for Erin and I to make it to about 6 or 7 of these without a car.  This style limits you to one area per day, so we focused our efforts in Coogee, a beach town that we both liked a lot.  As we were growing quite discouraged about the lack of nice apartments or pet-friendly apartments (not to mention nice and pet-friendly apartments) we had a HUGE disappointment in the late afternoon.  We showed up a little late to see an owner-listed apartment and were inside talking to him about how he may consider our dog when the people that saw it before us came by and gave him a deposit.  We really wanted to cry (Erin did, when we got outside). 

Daisy, if you're reading this - Don't worry, we'll find you a place.

On our way home we met some nice people who are ex-pats from Ireland.  We actually ended up grabbing some dinner with them at the local mall.  They told us we should just not mention our dog and bring her into the apartment.  We're not resorting to lying just yet, but maybe if we get desperate enough.   Regardless, it's nice to have made some friends this early in the game.  The guy is actually in a recreational Rugby league and his wife is a nurse, good connections for both of us. :-)

As we said at the beginning, we miss you all very much and can't wait to start getting some visitors.

Stay tuned for more adventures.

Here are some pictures for your viewing pleasure: Facebook Album