We've moved in!

Ahhh. Finally, we're starting to settle in. We've just moved into a lovely place with lovely young lady named Sarah, and a lovely fat cat named Alvin. We really like Alvin. We think he likes us; already, he has treated us to the kind of cat-hilarity we never tire of.

Here's the story: on Sunday night, we went to the IKEA to purchase furniture and sundries. We bought this clever little laundry hamper that has a cloth fold-over top (to hide my dirty undies, of course). So we had set up the hamper, and we're waiting on the larger furniture to be delivered. Alvin comes into our room last night, starts sniffing at our stuff. He's playing with our suitcases and crawling under the bed--really cute. Then he decides to jump onto our hamper. Naturally, he jumps up, the cloth cover gives way, and Alvin falls (flump!) into our hamper and onto our dirty clothes. He freaks, jumps out of the hamper and leaves the room in a flurry of white and black. Comedy genius.
















More reasons Australians are not like us (this might become an ongoing segment of the blog and one day, podcast)...

1. Their houses almost never have built-in closets. They just build square rooms, and then you have to buy wardrobes to store your clothes in. Built-in closets are a new-fangled thing here, I think they even call them American-style closets. WTF??

2. They don't have comforters here. They have thin blankets made of velour or cotton or wool, but if you want a thick blanket, you have to buy a quilt. Like a wool quilt. And then you have to buy a separate cover for it. They have polyester ones, but they're not as warm and just as expensive, so you basically have to buy wool. At least it'll biodegrade, I guess. The thing is, a cheap bed-in-a-bag in the States would cost you about $50, and you'd get a fairly warm comforter in it. But they just don't have those here. So you have to drop about $109 on a quilt that will last your whole life.

3. They have crazy birds. That walk around like they are totally normal birds. In the street.
















Some things are really hard here, and take a lot of figuring out. We're kind of wearing ourselves thin, just with the small stuff. Purchasing a space heater is really hard. First off, we have no idea where to get a decent one, and then once we figure out where to get one, we can't find the place, and then we find another place and of course by then it's 5:30pm and everything has closed for the night. Try again later.

I've started applying for jobs, mostly part-time. I want to work at the food co-op, it seems like a great way to get connected to the community. Craig has started going to weekly meetings with his team, and doing a lot of orientations to various labs and equipment. I've started researching Master's programs in Media and Communications.

Oh! Right! We took a Harbor Cruise yesterday, with the International Student Services. We went from Darling Point around the harbor and back to Circular Quay. It was really beautiful and freezing cold, and I've put a ton of pictures up on the Picasa page. It seems every picture of the Opera House I've ever seen has been only from one or two angles...in the public interest, I've put up as many different views of the big, beautiful, floating structure as I can get.
















Update on the blog title suggestions:

From our long-lost buddy Jonny, who didn't even realize we'd moved away until this very weekend:

"just remember, socialists do it from the bottom up, and you guys are down near the bottom. so do it. from the bottom up. i'll come up with a good name soon for your blogcast. that's my thing that i do. wait a minute, maybe i just did. from the bottom up."

I think that's it for now, friends...