Moving Day

SYD > AKL > SFO. Farewell, Sydney. We'll miss you!

Countdown

19 days until the movers arrive; 38 days until we leave for the USA.

Feeling sad about Mackenzie

Our date to say goodbye to Mackenzie is just over a month away. :(  It's been a wonderful experience fostering him, and I'll miss him so much.  

He's so cute, sweet and smart. If Matthew gets out of bed before me, he'll let Mackenzie outside and give him breakfast. Sometimes after Mac's finished eating, he'll sit at the bottom of the stairs and wait for me to come down. It's so sweet and makes me smile every time!

xoxo

Moving Internationally 2010 - How it went down

Now that we'll be doing the international move in reverse, I thought I'd review my old blog posts to see how it really happened to refresh my memory. The moving company did a pretty good job of explaining everything, but not everything went down as planned.

The ship with our container didn't go directly from Seattle to Sydney as scheduled. For some reason, it stopped in Singapore and everything was delayed for three weeks while awaiting a connecting vessel. That meant we went from being without our stuff for 7 weeks to being without our stuff for 10 weeks.

Below is the move timeline, and at the bottom is a little "Lessons Learned" section! :)

30 September 2010
Shipment delivered to our apartment; first night sleeping in our own bed in 2.5 months.

15 September 2010
Our container arrived at Sydney Port on 15 September, and  the Port set the date of 18 September for Crown Relocation to collect the container in preparation for Quarantine inspection.

9 September 2010
Rental furniture delivered. The relocation company provided us with "furniture hire" because our shipment was inexplicably delayed by 3 weeks. They dropped off a bed with sheets and pillows, a loveseat, a coffee table, a few lamps, and box of kitchen goods. After I unpacked the boxes with the linens and kitchen stuff, I realized they forgot to give us the bath towels and all they included in the kitchen box was dishes - they didn't provide the basic kitchen supplies set with pots and pans, etc. So, still more eating out for us for a few more days!

8 September 2010
Picked up keys to our new apartment.

3 September 2010
Signed the lease on our new apartment.

25 August 2010
We inquired about our shipping container with all our worldly possessions, which was to have arrived in Sydney on 21 August. We were advised today that it is still in Singapore, awaiting a connecting vessel. (It was never supposed to go to Singapore, it was originally scheduled to go directly from Seattle to Sydney.)
Its revised estimated arrival date in Sydney is 13 September, making it 3 weeks late. Add onto that another 10 to 14 business days for our shipment to clear Australian Customs and Quarantine, and we may not be seeing our furniture and the rest of our clothes, etc until 27 September.
Our furnished corporate apartment only lasts 30 days, and the lease on any housing we've been looking at may not be able to be held off until the last week of September.

Tue 17 August 2010
We arrived safely at about 6:05 am. Going through Australian Customs and Quarantine was pretty quick - we were done by about 6:45 am.
Our wonderful friends Mark and Jennifer picked us up at the airport with a van for all our luggage, and drove us to our our hotel/furnished apartment in the CBD.

Sunday 15 August 2010
Woke up, deflated our Aerobed, and began the process of cramming all our clothes and things into our suitcases and small footlocker. It was stressful, but we got it all in!

12:30 pm: Our wonderful friends Tamara and Andy arrived in 2 cars to take us and our luggage to the airport. We checked 5 bags (including the footlocker), and had 2 carry-on items each. Luckily, M was Premier Executive with United Airlines, so we didn't have to pay any fees for that amount of luggage.

2:50 pm: flight from Portland to L.A.

5:00 pm: arrive LAX and had lunch/dinner before settling into the United Red Carpet Club lounge in LAX.

6:30ish: 2 comfy chairs, 2 laptops, 1 Ipod with a headphones splitter so we could share the music. We were provided only 1 complimentary wifi connection for the lounge, but M figured out how to share because he's smart and brought a network cable.

10:30pm departure for 14.5 hour flight from LAX to Sydney! We leave the USA at 10:30 on Sunday night and arrive in Sydney at 6:10 am on Tuesday!

Saturday 14 August 2010
Bon Voyage party at Weir Haus.

Sunday 1 August 2010
Moving Sale - got rid of almost all electric devices, except computery stuff that can switch voltages.

July 28 2010
We were notified that our 457 visas for Australia were approved, and we were finally able to book our flight! We leave for Sydney on August 15.

22 July 2010
The movers were at our house Thursday July 22 to pack and load everything we were taking to Australia into the 20-foot shipping container. Four guys arrived at 8:30 am, and they were all done by 4 pm! In the end, the container was only half-full, and it only took them one day. (They'd allowed for packing on Thu & Fri, but only needed Thursday.)
The shipping container AKA "the can" then goes from Portland to Seattle, and leaves on a ship out of the Port of Seattle on 31 July. It will arrive in Sydney on 21 August and then has to clear Australia Customs & Quarantine. We won't see our stuff until at least 9 September.
Note: we were sleeping on an Aerobed from 22 July until our departure on 15 August.

A Few Lessons Learned
Make the night before and day of departure easier for yourself.
It wasn't our greatest idea to have the going away party the night before we flew out. Waking up with a hangover and trying to cram everything into our suitcases was slightly unpleasant, but oh well! :P

Also in retrospect, I wouldn't have slept on the Aerobed in our house the night before we flew out. Would have been better to spring for a hotel room to reduce the stress of having to clear out every last item from the house before we flew out that day.

Don't leave lots of rubbish, and cleaning out the fridge, until right before you leave. 
How did we end up with so many condiments, and why did we leave cleaning out our fridge until the day before (or maybe it was the day before the day before) we left? I have a memory of standing at the kitchen sink dumping ketchup etc and frantically washing out the containers for the recycling, all while thinking of 100 other things I needed to be doing instead! I think we thought we would still be cooking at home til the end, but in reality, we were so tired from endless errands, house painting, etc, and having last dinners out with friends, that we didn't cook much that last week anyway.

Also, by the time we left, our garbage and recycling bins were overflowing. We should have been getting rid of more of our trash and recycling in the few weeks before our departure.

Don't be afraid to ask for help.
I remember the task list was endless. So many errands, so little time. One day, I sent out a frantic email to friends asking them to please help us by dropping stuff off at the Post Office, yet another trip to Goodwill, yet another trip to the Dump. Our lovely friends responded, and we were so grateful.

Don't allow clutter to accumulate in your basement.
How did we end up with a basement so full of styrofoam blocks and old packing peanuts? We had original boxes with styrofoam inside for appliances we hadn't owned in years! It took us half a day just to load up almost an entire van's worth and then drive out to the recycling center on the far side of town (as curbside recycling wouldn't take styrofoam). I'm glad we did it rather than chuck it all in the trash (and it wouldn't have all fit in our trash anyway), but that certainly took heaps longer than we expected!

Returning to the USA!

It's official -- after almost three years abroad, we're returning to the USA!

Matthew has signed a contract to relocate to the Mountain View, CA office, starting in October.

Our current plan is to leave Sydney at the end of August, and have the month of September for vacation time and moving (probably New Zealand and visiting family in various states). Then, he'll start at Mountain View office on 1 October.

We are, of course, sad that our Australian adventure is coming to an end, and excited and nervous about another big move. We're definitely looking forward being closer to family and friends in the States.

Unpacking

Unpacking is going a bit slowly. I may have eaten my lunch and dinner off a serving tray because I haven't unearthed any regular dishes. You may well think that, but I couldn't possibly comment.

Our New House!

Yesterday we moved into our new house, which is wonderful!

It's a 3-bedroom terrace house, still in our same Inner West suburb of Newtown. The owners recently renovated to add a master bedroom and ensuite bathroom upstairs. Here's the album with all of our pics:

New House

One Year Ago

One year ago today we left Portland for Sydney! Here we are with all our luggage in the arrivals area of Sydney airport.

Our first year has had its ups and downs, but we're glad to have had this experience. We're looking forward to another visit back to the States in a few weeks. Then, in about 3 months, we'll be moving into a new place (a small house with a guest room!), which will be lovely.

Our Shipment Has Been Delivered!

The contents of our shipping container was delivered today - hurrah!! The apartment is strewn with boxes, and the US packers appear to have misplaced the screws for our futon. Since we can't put the futon together yet (it was meant to be our sofa for now), we still don't have anywhere to sit in the living room. However, we will be sleeping in our own bed for the first time in two months! Matthew and I said to each other this evening, "I love you and I love this bed." ;)

Our Shipping Container Has Arrived!

Hurrah! Our container arrived at Sydney Port on 15 September, and the port has set the date of 18 September for Crown Relocation to collect the container in preparation for Quarantine inspection.

Let's hope things go smoothly and that we get our stuff soon!

Internet Access

Just FYI, we haven't gotten our internet connection set up in our new apartment yet, so our internet access from home will be limited for the next week or so. We have (limited) internet on our mobile phones, but that's it for now.

Shopping Centre

Yesterday I sat on the floor of our new apartment waiting for the rental furniture to be delivered. The relocation company is providing us with "furniture hire" because our shipment was inexplicably delayed by 3 weeks.

Finally they arrived and dropped off a bed with sheets and pillows, a love seat, a coffee table, a few lamps, and box of kitchen goods. After I unpacked the boxes with the linens and kitchen stuff, I realized they forgot to give us the bath towels and all they included in the kitchen box was dishes - they didn't provide the basic kitchen supplies set with pots and pans, etc. So, still more eating out for us for a few more days!

After I made the bed, I decided to walk to the giant shopping centre to buy cleaning supplies. I emptied a small wheeled suitcase and took that with me to haul my stuff back in, since it's 3.4 km round trip.

Who'd have thought finding the right store to buy cleaning supplies would be hard? First I went into Target. It has the same logo as the American one, but apparently it's not the same company - they settled a lawsuit and the Aussie one can still use the red and white target logo, even though they're a different company.

This Aussie Target had some clothes, toys, bedding, some things for the bathroom like shower curtains, kitchen stuff like dishes, toasters, etc and that was about it. They didn't have any cleaning stuff at all, and I don't think they had anything like a Health and Beauty section, either. So, they don't stock as many types of items as American Target.

Next stop, K-Mart. Again, the logo looks the same, but according to this article from Discount Store News, the American company sold its interest in K-Mart Australia in 1978 to Coles, an Aussie grocery store chain.

Sidenote, the grocery store market in Australia, or at least New South Wales, is basically a duopoly. There are a few smaller stores, but by far the majority of one's options for nearby supermarkets are either Coles or Woolworths, generally known as Woolies.

Back to K-Mart, it stocks a larger selection of types of items than Target - they also sell automotive supplies, camping gear, make up, some snack food, etc. However, the cleaning aisle only had laundry detergent (aka washing powder) and bleach. There were no garbage bags, no Windex type cleaners, no regular kitchen sponges (although there were a few scrubber items near the mops and brooms). What the ef?

So, off to Coles. Previously, I'd only been to the Coles Express in the CBD (Central Business District - aka downtown), and I'd never seen any cleaning supplies there. This was the big Coles, though, and they had a whole aisle with tons of different scrubbie sponges, garbage bags, floor cleaners, Windex, dishwasher detergent, etc.

Hooray, I finally found everything I needed. It only took me several hours and having to go to 3 different stores. And then walking 1.7 km home while wheeling a suitcase full of stuff! (Thank goodness all 3 stores were in the same giant shopping centre!)

Our new apartment

Last Friday we signed the lease, and today we picked up the keys to our new apartment! It's a one-bedroom loft apartment in Newtown, a suburb in Sydney's Inner West. It's about a 10 minute walk to the train station and about a 10 minute train ride to the city.

Our shipping container (with all our furniture, the rest of our clothes, etc) is delayed 3 weeks, so the relocation company is getting us some rental furniture for a few weeks. Our temporary accommodation in the Central Business District was nice, but thank goodness we'll be in our own apartment and can stop eating out every night!

Here's the exterior of our building. Our balcony is the one on the top left.


The kitchen is to the right of the front door. Luckily the owner wanted to leave the fridge and the washer and dryer - usually apartments don't come with those and you have to buy your own.


View of the living room from the front door.


View of the living room and balcony from the kitchen.


View from our balcony. The Royal Prince Alfred Hospital is right across the street, so should either of us ever need medical attention (knock on wood), we can limp there.


Looking down the stairs.


The loft bedroom and the bathroom.


Future guests, as you can see, there's not a separate guest bedroom. We tried to look for a 2-bedroom, but the ones in our budget just weren't very nice. So, we'll put you up in the living room. The high ceilings make the apartment seem larger than it is!

Here are the rest of the pics of our new apartment.

Moving Setback?

I just got back from looking 3 different houses today. The first 2 were dark and unmentionable. The last was the best one - cute, clean, but tiny one bedroom house in a desirable location. It did not have a single closet in the entire place. I can't store my camping gear in the bathroom, and I doubt an Aerobed would fit in the tiny front sitting room.

Also, we inquired about our shipping container with all our worldly possessions, which was to have arrived in Sydney on 21 August. We were advised today that it is still in Singapore, awaiting a connecting vessel. Its revised estimated arrival date in Sydney is 13 September, making it 3 weeks late. Add onto that another 10 to 14 business days for our shipment to clear Australian Customs and Quarantine, and we may not be seeing our furniture and the rest of our clothes, etc until 27 September.

Our furnished corporate apartment only lasts 30 days, and the lease on any housing we've been looking at may not be able to be held off until the last week of September.

I'm drinking a cup of tea and eating lots of Tim Tams to fortify my strength.

Photos from 17 August, First Day in Sydney

I'm a little late in getting the pictures off of M's camera to post photos from 17 August, our first day in Sydney. Here's a link to our photos from that day.

17 August 2010

Week 1 Update

It's hard to believe we've been in Sydney one week as of today! It still doesn't feel quite real that we're living here, it still feels like vacation (or holiday, as they say here).

It's technically still winter here, but you can tell it will be spring soon. The mornings and evenings have been chilly, but in the afternoon when the sun is out, it's almost short sleeves weather. There have been a few cloudy days, but mostly it's been pretty blue skies and sun, which is lovely.

There are lots of varieties of food available here - Turkish, Thai, Indonesian, Maylay, Indian, etc etc. We still need to go out for dim sum, which here is called yum cha.

On Saturday, we met up with the real estate agent, who drove us around to look at available housing. Real estate in Sydney is very expensive, and it was a little disappointing to see what our budget gets you here. Pretty quickly we changed our minds from needing a full 2-bedroom to a 1-bedroom with a study, just so we can get something a little nicer in our price range.

Saturday was also Election Day here. Voting is compulsory in Australia - you vote or you get a heavy fine. On Saturday night, friends of our friends had an election party, so we went along and everyone was keen to try to explain Aussie politics to us ("Liberal" is conservative here, and the liberal Labor party is red, while the conservative Liberal party is blue). When we left, the election for Prime Minister was too close to call and it's still undecided. This is the first hung Parliament since 1940 - ABC News explains in this article.

On Sunday, we went to the Art Gallery of New South Wales, which is free and has a nice collection of art, and then we took the train to our friends' house, where we borrowed bicycles and rode around their neighborhood and the nearby areas a bit. It was weird to be cycling on the left side of the road!

Yesterday was Matthew's first day at work. I'll let him tell about it, I'll just add that new Google employees really are called Nooglers!

We've arrived down under

Hello from the Southern Hemisphere! We arrived safely at about 6:05 am Tuesday 18 August. Going through Australian Customs and Quarantine was pretty quick - we were done by about 6:45 am.

Our wonderful friends Mark and Jennifer picked us up at the airport with a van for all our luggage, and we're checked into our hotel/furnished apartment in Darling Harbour.

More later - our friends are waiting in the lobby to take us to coffee!

We're on our way!

We had a great time at our Bon Voyage party last night! This morning, we deflated our Aerobed, and began the process of cramming all our clothes and things into our suitcases and small footlocker. It was stressful, but we got it all in!

12:30 pm: Tamara and Andy arrive in 2 cars to take us and our luggage to the airport (thank you, you deserve that iPad!). We checked 5 bags (including the footlocker), and had 2 carry-on items each. Luckily, M is Premier Exec with United, so we didn't have to pay any fees for that amount of luggage.

2:50 pm: flight from Portland to L.A.

5:00 pm: arrive LAX and have lunch/dinner before settling into the United lounge.

6:30ish: we have 2 comfy chairs, 2 laptops, 1 ipod with a headphones splitter so we can share the music. We were provided only 1 complimentary wifi connection for the lounge, but mtw has figured out how to share because he's smart and brought a network cable.

double laptops and ipod at United Red Carpet Club in LAX

Still to come: 10:30pm departure for 14.5 hour flight from LAX to Sydney! We leave the USA at 10:30 on Sunday night and arrive in Sydney at 6:10 am on Tuesday!

We leave the day after tomorrow!

We're getting soo close to our departure date! Our two cars are sold and the house is rented.

Lots of other things on the To Do List, but we'll make it.

Getting the house ready for renters

We're renting out our house while we're overseas, and have been doing a lot to get it spiffed up for renters:
simple landscaping for front, side and back yards
repair back porch
power-wash and re-seal front porch
re-caulk upstairs shower
new sinks and faucets in upstairs bathroom
new doors and drawer fronts for kitchen cabinets
replace floor transition from kitchen to dining room
lots, and lots of painting!

I've spent more than 12 hours in the past few days painting trim in the stairs and upstairs landing/hallway.

We're finally done with the stairs, two windows and the annoying railing in the upstairs landing. Thank freaking goodness I'm done with that! I never want to see a can of white trim paint ever again! ;)