"You can't hail a cab unless you know where you're going!"

So we arrived in Sydney on November 1st. Teneal and Layne picked us up from the airport (I think they were completely horrified by our amount of luggage) and took us straight to do some sight seeing. We had lunch at Coogee Beach. Coogee is where Kerr and I initially wanted to live when we got here but more about apartment hunting later.
We drove up and down the coast that day, it was gorgeous!
The following day we did all the touristy things – walked around Sydney, saw the opera house, the bridge, took the ferry to Watson’s Bay (we saw Nicole Kidman’s house) and then we took the ferry to Darling Harbour. It was a great great day – we are lucky to have such awesome tour guides.
By the end of the first week, we had done all the touristy things – went to the Blue Mountains, ate meat pies, had schooners of Aussie beers at some famous pubs, etc.
We’ve been staying in this place called Mt. Annan with our wonderful hosts. Its about 2 hours by bus and train to the city. Its been a bit hard to try to find a place to live being so far away so we decided to come stay in a hostel for a week. When we first got to the hostel, we were completely horrified by it. But after being here a couple days, we don’t mind it so much. All we have to do is make sure we aren’t touching anything other than the sheet we each have. We’re pretty sure that there is a monkey living right outside our window – and our window doesn’t close. The hostel is in the middle of the city so its been convenient to get around. Its also been the BEST place to people watch. Here are a couple of the more funny stories.

• One guy was coming out of an “adult toy store” carrying 2 huge shopping bags and wearing a bicycle helmet. As if that’s not embarrassing enough, he set of the store alarm. We were highly amused by this. And also wondering how he was going to be able to ride his bike with all his new purchases.


• We saw an exhibitionist while waiting for a train. This lady was terrifying – and it was like 2pm on Sunday afternoon.


• When we first arrived to the city, we weren’t exactly sure where the hostel was so we hailed a cab. The cabdriver put our suitcases in the trunk and asked where we wanted to go. Kerry replied that she wasn’t exactly sure but it was on a street named “Barncleuth” near Elizabeth Bay. This did not go over well with the taxi driver, he then proceeded to throw our bags out of the cab and tell us that we should not take taxis if we didn’t know where we were going! We ended up walking about a block to the hostel.


• We woke up on Sunday morning to some really loud techno music. When we went to a café for some lattes, we realized that people here were still partying at 10:30 in the morning, from the night before. We had been asleep by 12 that night, clearly we don’t fit in.

So here’s the deal with the apartment hunting. Its nearly impossible to rent a place here – especially because we’re unemployed and without any prior Australian rental history. We’ve spent a good deal of time forging rental ledgers and signatures. We have spent many days walking all over city going to places, only to have our application be “unsuccessful”. At least we’re getting to be professionals at the public transit system.
So keep your fingers crossed for us – we need it!
Lastly, I had a second round interview today as an OT consultant. The interview was by far the most stressful interview I’ve ever had. Last week I had my initial interview and got lost coming out of the building, somehow locked myself in the basement and had to go through the fire exit to get out – sounding off the alarm. So I was pleased that I was even called back for a second interview! Today I had two people interviewing me. They went through all those hypothetical type questions that catch you off guard. But I just got a call back saying they thought I was ‘intelligent and personable’ – clearly they were impressed by my accent and pleased that today I didn’t set off the fire alarm. The thing that worries me the most about this job (apart from the fact that its nothing like my job in America and I don’t have a clue what I’d be doing) is that I would have to drive here. Crossing the street has been enough of a challenge!
I will try to be more diligent about updating my “b”-log so that I can remember some of the funnier moments :)