Monday 10 October 2011

The first week

Hello!

Today is my first day completely on my own! James started work at 7.30 am this morning, I got up with him like a good girlfriend and made him his coffee and toast while he ironed his shirt. My first taste of co-habiting in suburbia. We'll see how long the getting up at 6am thing lasts.

Anyway, here I am in an internet cafe, finally with time to tell you about the last week...

We landed in Brisbane at 6am on Tuesday morning and were met by my cousin Sean and his beautiful daughter Madeline. I hadn't seen Sean for 14 years and hadn't met Madeline before so this was quite a big moment for me. As we walked out of the airport the first thing that hit me was the fresh smell of the eucalyptus and palm trees. We drove back to Sean's house to rest for a little bit before venturing into Brisbane to get the final part of James' medical registration sorted.

Although we said we wouldn't, we fell asleep for a bit and here started the jet lag. After finally dragging our tired selves out of bed we taxied into Brisbane to get some stuff sorted, re-buy my cosmetics after the Dubai fiasco and have a wander. Later that night my other cousins Dean and Mike came over for our first Oz meal - a BBQ of course. It was also great to catch up with Sean's wife Jodi and their kids Alec and Madeline. It was lovely to be together and talk about our Mums and Nana, although I hadn't seen them for years it didn't feel that way at all. All we needed was for my sister to be there to complete the 5 cousins!

After a strange sleep James and I drove up to Nambour the next day. We're borrowing my Aunt's old car, its a beast = a Honda Accord 2.4 Automatic. No part of that description is familiar to me. For those of you that know me well, you'll know driving isn't the most natural thing to me. I drove it for the first time today, to come here to write this blog and to look for jobs, and lets just say it was a challenge and I had several small heart attacks. Think I'll let James drive where possible!

Anyways, When we got to Nambour we had temporary accommodation in Motel, complete with a library of VHS tapes. Old school. Nambour itself is also very 'old school'. It reminds me of small town America. Lots of stone washed jeans (not in a good way) and 80s hair (also not in a good way).

We battled the jet lag for a few more days but have done a lot. We've found the shopping mall at Marochydoor, James found an Aldi (his face LIT up), we went to the Beach in Noosa Heads, we got mobile phones, we explored Alex Heads and Mooloolaba.

On the apartment hunting front, we had a full day of looking on Friday and managed to rule out what we didn't want, we decided 'resort style living' just isn't right when you're there for a year, we don't want to be in a building where the neighbours use their balcony as a dumping ground for crap, we don't want a place with rusty appliances. But we decided that we DID want to be in Mooloolaba - it really is the most beautiful place. SO we went to every real estate agent and got their rental lists, when reviewing them on Saturday morning with renewed energy we found a few to go back and look at. And the first was a real find, 2 bed, brand new appliances, great furniture, one road back from the beach. We put in an application and find out tomorrow if it's ours - fingers crossed!

I think that's about it for now, I will try to blog more regularly in the future so its not so much of an essay!

I'm off to hand out 'resumes' (not CVs). Think good employment and apartment thoughts for me!

xoxo

4 comments:

  1. In a small dreary office in Soho, with Winter closing in this made my morning. Glad you are settling in so well. Please do keep the blogs coming to warm up the cold mornings!

    Love Will

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  2. So glad you've settled in ok...and the 6am thing won't last. I tried it when mark used to get up for work, it lasted approximately 2 days, and on the 2nd I went back to bed.

    Lots of love as always,
    Emma xxx

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  3. that was Michael not me !!! Hope you get the appartment in Mooloolaba can't wait to visit.

    Love to both of you

    Debbi

    xxx

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