Settling into Sydney

On the whole, I have to say our move has gone as smoothly as one could possibly hope. The cynical part of me keeps waiting for the other shoe to drop, but so far it's been all good.

The information packet that G received from the school informed us that the best thing to do was to look for a place once we'd arrived. Being of an American mindset in terms of wanting to have everything as planned out and set up as possible, I was rather skeptical. However, everything else we read and everyone we spoke to said the same. So I booked a room for one week at a lodge recommended in the information packet for the two of us and our roommates, Kate and Dayton.

Meet the roomies: Dayton, Kate, and G, of course

We all arrived in Sydney early in the morning, and made our way to the Sinclair's at Bondi. Sinclair's is a place where students come and can stay for extended periods of time while they come to study at one of the universities for a semester or while they learn English. Other travelers-- such as ourselves-- looking for cheap and simple accommodations that also happen to be clean and safe, stop here for shorter stays as well. In essence it is a boarding house- a type of place I'd only read of existing in the US in books like Little Women -- i.e in times long by. It seems to me that places like it abound though, as do hostels of course, indicating to me that this is a culture that likes to travel and welcomes travelers in turn.

The Sinclair's is located on a very residential street in an area called Bondi Junction. It blends right in with the other houses around it, with the exception of a small sign that tells us we've arrived at the right place. The lodge manager, Otto, comes out to greet us and before he's even introduced himself, he is teasing us about the amount the luggage we've all brought. It didn't seem all that bad when we left.

We had 2 large suitcases each, plus carry ons. At home this seemed a reasonable amount for 4 months, but Otto declares right away that this is most luggage any group has ever arrived with. Sure enough, once we get it all to our room, the bags do occupy most of the space.

One room, 4 people, 1,000 bags = MESS

Once all the luggage is out of the way, Otto gives us a tour of the place. He is a self proclaimed Cambridge educated gentleman, full of opinions and information that he readily shares. He is quite the jokester and full of stories of his accomplishments and professions --- some that may have been in the gray areas of white collar legality. In short, a wonderful character and he makes us feel welcome right away. On Wednesday nights he prepares a big dinner for any of the lodgers who might want to attend (for a small fee to help cover the expenses.) Alcohol is byo. We join him for the spicy thai-style stew he prepares on our second night in Sydney. Also in attendance are a couple of Swedish boys who have come to study and improve their English and who have also just arrived in the city, and an older Australian couple from Adelaide who have come to town to visit their daughter and new grandson. It might seem like a odd mix, but soon enough everyone is engaged in lively conversations and having a great time. This might have been aided by the fact that everyone had brought several bottles, and the vino flowed increasingly more freely as the night progressed. In an clear demonstration of stereotypes, we are clearly the loud Americans. We banter and laugh louder -- and perhaps more obnoxiously -- than anyone else. This is a trend that will continue pretty much anywhere we go. This night, however, this fact also seems to have been smoothed over by that freely flowing vino and by the end of the night, everyone at the the table was great friends.

Meet Otto

Our first couple of days are spent dealing with setting ourselves up. First order of business is phones, as we'll need these to call places about apartments. This meant spending a lot of time hopping around cell phone vendors at the mall of all places -- not exactly where I expected to spend my first days in a new country. Moreover it's a Westfield. These shopping centers blanket Southern California, but it's an Australian company, so many of the shopping centers are Westfield here as well. And hopping from cell phone vendor to vendor is the best way to gather info on the various plans, so that's what we do. Cell phone plans are calculated differently, so it takes us all a while to navigate the ins and outs, but we're set up with pre-paid phones from Vodaphone pretty quickly. We get the most inexpensive phones we can get. This means my phone is a cheap piece of crap that gets poor reception and every text takes me a half hour to type. Spoiled girl that I am, I really miss my iPhone. The cheap piece of crap will serve though and it only has to last 4 months after all.

Once we're set up with phones, it's time to get to work looking for an apartment. We have less than a week, so we really have to focus. The four of us scour the Australian real estate rental sites - domain.com.au and gumtree.com.au were the most helpful to us . We make loads of phone calls over about 2 days. We're told that finding a decently priced furnished 3-bedroom apartment is difficult, and for a little while I got a little worried. However, we book as many as "inspections" as we can over about at day and half and we quickly see a couple of apartments that would work pretty well. The fourth apartment we see is PERFECT. It's a townhouse actually, with rooms distributed exactly as we want so that we can divide the rent in a way that works for everyone -- one tiny one for Day, a slightly bigger one for Kate, and a "master" for G and I. Bonus, it has an amazing kitchen and a small yard. It's in an area called Kensington which is right next to UNSW, where the other three are studying. For myself alone, I would have of course preferred to be slightly closer to the beach, but this is actually a pretty central neighborhood making it easier to get to other areas of town. It is also clearly convenient for G, Day, and Kate, and it is otherwise completely perfect for our purposes. We were all in complete agreement right away and took it on the spot.

With our apartment hunt cut short, we cancelled the rest of our inspection and now a good amount of free time before us. We celebrated by heading down to Sydney proper. We walked around Circular Quay downtown in the Central Business District, and we caught our first glimpse of the opera house.

We took advantage of Bondi over the next couple of days and got in a couple of good beach days. The weekend weather was gorgeous and warm. There been have a lot of chilly days since we arrived. (In my excited for another spring/summer, I kind of forgot that it's actually still the tail end of winter here, a detail I'd nearly overlooked. Luckily, G looked at the weather a couple of days before we left, and I packed a couple of sweaters, which I've been very thankful for. ) However,that first weekend the sun was out and it was perfect weather for reading and lounging on the sand.

Our first week here we were still adjusting to the time change. I was waking up most mornings at around 6-6:30, the others just a little after, so by the evening we'd be pretty tired. Still, Kate and I made it out to a dive bar one night and played some pool with some crazy Irish blokes.

At this point in the evening, Kate things we're going to hustle people for beers. Little does she know how bad I am. Her plan results in me buying other people drinks. ;-)

Tuesday was move-in day and we were all pretty excited. I have to say that all the roommates seem to get along pretty well. We shared one room between the four of for a week and we didn't kill each other -- I think that's saying a lot. Nonetheless, we still obviously couldn't wait to have our own rooms and space to spread out in and so we arrived at our new digs early in the morning.

Actually, before we moved in I really thought this place was too good to be true. It was available for move in on the exact day we needed to move from Sinclair's. We paid cash for the deposit on the spot, but our landlord, Corey, didn't have a the proper paperwork on him as he did not expect to have takers so quickly. Moreover, he actually showed us his grandma's place on the same property, as it is nearly identical, and the previous tenants had not moved out yet. Which brings me to the point, his grandma, who everyone actually calls grandma, is this adorable older woman with a dog named Zuzu, who offered us candy on our first visit. Part of me thought that this was all too perfect, obviously a scam, and surely, when we arrived with all of our gear, we'd certainly find we'd been taken for a ride and have no place to stay.

Luckily, that wasn't the case, and the place was in fact here and open for us when we arrived. Corey is not a grifter ready to take our money and run. He's actually a pretty nice guy. The worst I can say is that he can be a little flaky and things don't always happen when he tells us they will. On the other hand, Grandma has come by a couple of times to give us things she thought we might need and Corey does seem to try to help us with stuff whenever he can. He even had his brother drive us to some stores so we could but stuff we needed and get it back here.

Shots of our new digs before most of our furniture came in.

So at this point we're pretty set up. This past week the other three started classes and spent all the rest of our time running around getting the home basics that were missing. The last step is getting internet we can use in the house. They calculate this differently here as well, so that's taken a bit of time. Plans here go by gigs, rather than the flat rates we have in the states -- so you pay for however much you think you'll use. I have no idea what we use on a regular basis, so we're taking a guess. In any case, that should be good to go within the next couple of days.

With the home base set up, we can turn our attention to the important stuff -- exploring Sydney and having adventures.

That's right Sydney, we've arrived! Watch Out!