Apartment Update

Just a few pics from the apartment - our artwork collection is now up in the living room, and the dining table and chairs we got from eBay.

Photos from 15 October

I'm a little late posting pics from the show we went to at The Basement on Friday, 15 October - Mulatu Astatke with the Black Jesus Experience. I didn't get many pics, but it was a really fun show.

Considered the father of Ethio-jazz, check out Mulatu Astatke's music on the Ethiopiques compliations and the soundtrack of Jim Jarmusch's 2005 movie Broken Flowers.

The rest of the photos can be seen here.

Driving in Oz for the First Time

This week Matthew joined GoGet, the local car share company, and today we went driving for the first time in Australia!

This morning we got a Ute from GoGet so we could pick up the linen chest and the dining chairs from the two eBay auctions we won. A ute is basically a car-truck, like an El Camino. This one was a little more heavy duty; it had a tray back for hauling.

I forgot to take a photo of the car share one; here's a photo similar to the one M drove today.

Photo from www.used-cars-adelaide.com.au

So, we woke up early and it was raining really heavily! Not ideal, but we'd already made arrangements with the sellers, and the car was reserved, so oh well! First stop before even picking up the Ute, we went to K-Mart and bought a tarp and some tie-downs. Then we picked up the Ute nearby and went for our first drive on the wrong side of the road!

So, first time out, and it's raining, but Matthew was a champ! We allowed plenty of time and arrived about 30 minutes early to the first stop to pick up the cedar chest. Thank goodness we had the tarp to keep our stuff dry, and we only had to stop once to readjust to keep it from flying away. Then we arrived right on time to pick up the dining chairs from seller #2. Finally, we drove back home, unloaded everything at our apartment, and drove the Ute back to its parking spot. Unfortunately, someone had illegally parked in the spot reserved for the car share. So, we had to find somewhere else to park, and then call the car share company to tell them where we had to leave it. A minor annoyance to end the odyssey.

However, overall it was quite a success. It was strange for us that everything was backwards, but Matthew did a great job driving!

And, it's wonderful to have a dining table and chairs now! For the past month, we've been eating all our meals on our laps while sitting on the futon, so it's quite a luxury to sit at the table. ;) Will try to post some pics, once we get everything arranged.

Getting Closer to Fully Furnished

We're getting closer to having the apartment fully furnished! I've been scouring eBay and Gumtree (sorta like Oz's version of Craigslist) like an obsessed madwoman for the past several weeks. We've also gone into lots of vintage shops, but they're generally over our budget.

Soo, we've finally won 3 eBay auctions, in our price range! Missed out on the cool bookcases, but we were successful on the cedar-lined linen chest (Lane brand - came from the United States!), a 1960s square dining table (had to be square to fit into our small space), and a set of teak and black vinyl dining chairs.

The linen chest/blanket box will go by the front door to store our winter coats and also give us something to sit on while we take our shoes off. We've decided to roll Japanese-style and not wear shoes in the apartment. However, we both dislike wobbling on one leg right inside the door, so we're getting something to sit on while we Mr. Rogers it from our outside shoes into our slippers. I may even have to get Matthew a shoe horn on a stick so he can more truly emulate an old Japanese man.

The table is being delivered tomorrow, and we have to rent a truck to go pick up the linen chest and the chairs on Sunday. Yikes, our first time driving on the opposite side of the road!

Hopefully soon we'll have some new pics of the apartment.

P.S. Hours of trolling eBay has convinced me that the most overused and misused descriptors on eBay.com.au are: Eames, Parker, Kartell and Danish. A few Aussies use "mid-century modern", but thankfully not as many as Americans, who seem to tack on MCM to every single auction, even if if it doesn't apply in the least.

Dear Amanda’s Sinuses + Sydney’s Allergens - Can’t We All Just Get Along?

We’ve officially been in Sydney for 2 months and 3 days!

During most of that time, I’ve been having nasal issues. My nose has been irritated, congested or constantly running! My difficulty breathing has even made it into my dreams – I’ve had two separate dreams where I’ve pulled things out of my nose (one dream was mini-marshmallows, and the other was seed pods from some sort of plant!).

Recently, the gunk that’s been draining is irritating my throat and giving me a sore throat and now the itchy, watery eyes have started in, too.

Apparently, there’s something in the Sydney air that doesn’t agree with me, and it’s getting really old. I would like to breathe normally for once!

A Small Success!

Sometimes it's the little things... The shower in our apartment had no shower curtain rod, just a small glass half-wall, as if that's all the previous occupants us ever needed to keep water from going everywhere when they took a shower.

Well, I don't think Matthew and I are particularly splashy, but a lot of water was ending up on the floor, so we wanted to put up the shower curtain we brought with us.

We had to go to 4 different places to find a shower curtain rod. Finally, we took the train to a suburban hardware store, Bunnings, which is about as big as a Home Depot, and there we finally found a rod so we could put up our shower curtain.

Success!

Sometimes it really is the little things (both that drive one crazy, and that make one happy).

Afternoon Tea

Yesterday Alison and I had afternoon tea at The Tea Room on the top floor of the Queen Victoria Building. I hadn't ever had fancy afternoon tea before. It was really fun, and a lovely way to spend an afternoon -- just leisurely drinking tea, talking and eating!

I didn't get very good photos, but here are a few:

Ahhhh, a large cup of coffee!

I'm enjoying my first cup of French press coffee in two months! It's "Obama Blend" coffee from Campos Coffee, made at home in our French press.

I've missed "regular" coffee. Australians seem to only have freeze-dried instant coffee, or else espresso. They seem to disdain brewed coffee, as if everything non-espresso is automatically bad.*

However, espresso drinks were always more of a treat for me than an everyday thing. I really like having a large mug of coffee in the mornings!


*It's funny that there's a coffee siphon on Campos Coffee's website right now, because I get the feeling that most Aussies would think it a crazy contraption, incapable of making "good" coffee.