Apartment Search

Wednesday began the painful, annoying, depressing and frustrating apartment search (adjectives used based on my prior experiences in new york). We had a “relocation consultant” who was charged with helping us get a place and she had a number of places lined up to show us on Thursday but wanted me to go to a few on Wednesday that we wouldn’t be able to see Thursday. First place I saw was quite nice, on a street with a bunch of bars and restaurants, good sized on the 9th floor (level 9 as they say) with a huge balcony with a view of the whole neighborhood. The kind of place that in new york would be well out of my budget. Everyone had talked about how the rental market in Sydney is extremely tight and there are multiple applications for the same apartment so it ultimately comes down to who is most qualified financially and who the agent likes the best. So hunting for an apartment is somewhat like a job interview: you’re supposed to dress up a little bit and supposed to schmooze the agent and try to impress him/her so that he/she will pick you to get the place. So I did my best at that even though it seemed extremely silly but I didn’t want to miss out on this place because I didn’t laugh hard enough at this woman’s joke or something idiotic like that. So with an application in for that place (which I’ll call the original apartment) and looking promising we went out the next day with our consultant who showed us a number of places that were nice but overall none that competed with the original apartment until we got to the last place of the day. It was on a quiet street right off a bustling area of restaurants/bars/etc and was similarly sized to the original one. The balcony at this last place was definitely smaller, but still big enough for a grill, a table and a couple chairs (which lets be honest, is probably all we’ll need it for…I don’t see us having a huge party on our balcony given we still know about 2 other people on the entire continent). This balcony overlooked the apartment’s private sculptured courtyard with lawns and fountains and a large pool that overlooks the neighborhood below. To make a long story short, it was this courtyard and pool that put this place over the top for us…it’s the kind of place that if you saw in New York you’d think “what could that person possibly do to be able to afford this ridiculous apartment” because it would be WELL outside of affordable. But here in Sydney that apartment is slightly less than what we paid for our shoe-box sized place on Christopher St. Finally something about Sydney is actually cheaper than NYC! So we should be signing the lease in the next couple days and unless something goes catastrophically wrong the place will be ours (knock on wood). When we move from our hotel to our new place, we will get to live there essentially furniture free for 6 weeks before our stuff arrives on the ship. We plan on buying a grill, table for the balcony and two chairs (which we can use inside while we have no other furniture), a blowup mattress (that we will have for all of you, the readers, to use when you come and visit us) and a refrigerator (which unfortunately is not something that comes with most aussie apartments). So we’re thinking of it as urban-camping in our virtually empty apartment for 6 weeks…should be amusing. Our new mailing address, since I’m sure everyone has things piled up that you’re waiting to send us, is:

801/20 Pelican Street
Darlinghurst NSW 2010
Australia

(its somewhat unclear whether we’re in Darlinghurst or Surry Hills. I think technically we’re in Surry Hills but a lot of the paperwork I’ve seen has said Darlinghurst so I’m going with that)

(The 801 is the apartment number and putting it first is just another thing these crazy aussies do differently from us in the states)

In other goings on of the last few days, we went on a little harbour cruise and to the aquarium. The aquarium was awesome, with huge displays from various parts of the country. The shark tank you could walk in tubes that basically went directly through so you kind of felt like you were in there with them. And all the tropical north/barrier reef stuff was gorgeous and made us really excited to get up there and go scuba diving!

Today, Sunday, we took the ferry up to Manly up on the north harbour. We did a little hike from town up onto the cliffs and out to the north head. It was a gorgeous day and the views were pretty awesome. We got the ferry back to the city right near sunset time so we walked over to Mrs. Macquarie’s Point to watch the sunset over the opera house and bridge. A few photos are below and a link for a whole bunch more also. I’m starting back at work tomorrow…it feels so long since I’ve been at work, I’m a little nervous I’ve forgotten what its like to not be completely free to make my own schedule on a given day. I’m sure I’ll remember very very quickly.

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bqmhkbd.7j55uc9x&x=0&y=-5isqaa&localeid=en_US