Binarynomad

Well after much stressing (mostly on Kristens part 🙂 ) it looks like we’re getting the place.  We still have a bit of waiting until the rental agents can contact the current residents and workout a exit/entry time.  We really are hoping everything can happen this Monday, that way Kristen can relax and get ready for her orientation on Tuesday and Wednesday.  We also need to extend the car rental so we can run around and furnish during the week.  We hope to get our own car after the house is delt with.

On the other hand, to kill time today we drove around to look at some alternatives (some were REALLY nice), we drove out the the Spit (a break between the bay and the ocean) where I’ve heard there’s some really nice fish reefs, then we headed over to Surfers Paradise for the first time to actually see the beach…….OMG….I want to move here!  It was beautiful, unlimited beach (miles and miles and miles) of pure powder sand, deep blue ocean and the best surfing waves I’ve seen.  I no longer worry about possibly being bored.  Infact, the only worries I forsee are sharks and sunburn :). ( I cant wait until we have a place so I can have my scuba gear sent from the states)

Kristen was looking at the weather in Alameda (it was something in the low 40’s F) but I think we both are slowly getting used to the temp (28-30C).  Rightnow I’m looking at a totally useless bunch of clothes that we thought we might need (jeans, windbreakers, etc).  Maybe the winter might help.  We also found out that this is the raining season, which is kinda cool, wet but warm rain is fun to play in, especially when it dries out about 20min after the clouds clear.  There have been a few nights now that I’ve woken to a complete downpour that seemed to come out of nowhere.  I figure another 2 weeks and we’ll be acclimated.

So I’ve got (hopeful) good news and bad news. 

The good news is that we’ve found the apartment we want.  It has lots of room, two bathrooms, nice kitchen, partially furnished (including sofas and beds) security parking (even for guests) a LARGE porch, a pool just outside our door, on a major street, and near a major bus line (goes to the uni and the beach).

The bad news is that we don’t know if we have it yet (cross your fingers), and that it is only a 2 bedroom place, so visitors will have to either take the sofa bed or crash with us.

I was mistaken on what number to drop when calling me from the states, you have to drop the 0 infront of the 4. (NOT the zero in front of the 1)

My mobile number is:

(04) 0173 0508

From the states, you dial (011) to get international, (61) for australia, and then the number:

011 61 (4) 0173 0508

BTW: Pricing on cellphones just got nicer, it turns out that all inbound calls (even international ones) are free.

So we are off to start the second round of house hunting.  We have an appointment for one place that is next to the university, on a major bus route (that goes through town and down to Surfers Paradise, woot) and it is fully furnished.  We also notice a few other listings that we didn’t notice before so we hope to hit them in the morning.

Everything here is rated by weekly payments, so all the listings are ($250/week), ($320/week) etc.  Yesterday, Kristen fell in love with this one apartment unit, wide open spaces, nice kitchen, 2 pools, hot tub, etc, all for ($320/week), the only problem was that it was unfurnished.  We are talking WIDE OPEN SPACES.  Here in Australia, refridgerators are NOT included with the house, you need to supply your own.  This place needed, furnature (beds, tables, tv, etc) and also needed all the kitchen stuff (fridge, knives, forks, etc) Which all put it out of our range. 🙁

It is amazing how varied the prices are here, they go from $200 – $900 depending on how close you are to the coast.  The area size is like that of East Bay.  So a 3 bedroom (with garage, fully furnished) in Downdown Oakland is $350/week, but a 2 bedroom apartment in Alameda is $500/week.

 

 

Sorry if anyone has been sending me email that I haven’t responded to yet.  While we are at the hostel the rate is ($2/20 min) and on a internet kiosk.  I cannot hook up my laptop to their network and we haven’t found a wireless network that is open.  I figure I’ll just wait until we get our own place (which should be by the end of the week).  At that point we get to start relaxing and doing the fun stuff.  I’ll also work on getting my photo gallery up and running for everyone to see. 

BTW: I have my own phone here now (04 0173 0508), inbound calls are free, so you can call anytime,just remember to figure out what time it is add -6h to your own time and push us ahead a day (3pm Tuesday California = 9am Wednesday Brisbane).  When calling from the states, I think you dial (011 61 4 0173 0508).

 

They’ve got some wierd costs on things:

• CELL PHONES: These are EXPENSIVE! People in the states need to be thankful, I’m currently paying (.37c per 30 seconds) and that is after the (0.37 connect fee).  There are some deals, like pay $30 and get $120 credit, or pay $30, get $30 credit, but then mobile to mobile is free.
• INTERNET: Something like $99 setup, $59/month for (512k down, 128k up, 15gig max)
• ELECTRICITY: One person told us that the bills are due every 3 months, she has a 3 bedroom house and runs the A/C constantly…..she paid $200 (AUSD) total.
• CAR INSURANCE: full coverage on a car with 3rd party coverage (comprehensive) and everything else is around $800/year.

What a morning, first I got to help surpirse Kristen, when she got out back from her shower, there was a valentines card, calling card, and roses, all from Bryan sitting on her bed.

After breakfast we headed out to start finding places to live, the first stop was over to Surfers Paradise where we rented a car.  We ended up with a nice Kia for ($270/6 days), so I got to multitask:

1. Driving on the left (wrong!) side of the road
2. Learning the general area and main streets
3. Looking for an house/apartment
4. Learing how do deal with round-abouts (which I have not made great strides with 🙂

(the really should put those student driver cones on top of cars for international drivers)

 

After about 20h+ of traveling, we finally made it. (ugh!)

Getting out of SFO was an interesting experience for me:

1. Pack your bags to weight, otherwise you’re either going to have to pay $$$ (10lbs overweight almost hit me for $130.)
2. SFO has a box shop (much to my happiness) that let me split up my check-on bag so I wasn’t charged anything when I headed back to the check-in desk. 
3. I personally don’t believe in their “Random Selection” for searches.  Kristen and I were heading into the security area, she went first, then I.  The lady checking the passports let her through but then saw mine, she quickly looked up and then called Kristen back to double check her passport before letting her go again.  You see, I was born in Lebanon Beriut (middle east) so I got the full treatment (except for the body search thank god!), chemical scans, equipment wipe downs, etc.

Once we got on the plane things were much better, unfortunately we were assigned different seats due to my baggage snafu, but the flight attendents were nice enough to help juggle some people around so we both ended up with aisle seats across from each other.  Finally the plane took off, and we were underway.  It was a long trip, but luckly we were able to take full advantage of the on demand TV/Movies (Oh how I love Air New Zealand, both of us started with Simpsons episodes :).

We arrived in Aukland around 515am to a dark sky and lots of fog, if we didn’t know better it almost felt like we’d been circling SFO for the past (13h). After we landed, we had to pass through another security check point, again I was picked, luckly this one was quick.  We had a 4h layover but we weren’t allowed out of the Airport at all, so we wandered around for a bit, grabbed some coffee and found our gate. We watched the sun creep up over the horizon to a wonderful sunrise. One thing we learned was that you don’t want to ever be late to your plane in Aukland, they first start of polietly calling over the intercom “…flight xyz is departing at x time, please hurry to your gate…”, then it moves to something like “…flight xyz is expecting 4 people at gate abc…” and then you finally get full names”….John Smith, Alex Johnson, etc….please hurry to gate xyz, everybody is waiting.”  We were luckly to avoid this fate when we noticed our gate didn’t have enought time to recieve two planes before ours and I talked to an attendent. Right before we got on the plane, I was called aside and was told my carry-on was too heavy (for a 747?!?). So I broke out my laptop bag (SFO told me to combine them) and was able to split between two carry on bags.

Soon we were on our final flight to Brisbane, better seats, more on-demand tv, and something they called breakfast.

After landing, customs was relativly quick (I love electronic Visas), grabbed our luggage and I braced myself for more security screening, but, much to my surprise, this time it was Kristen that got searched.  (hehe) They tagged her because of the snacks (food) that she was carrying.

We found the school driver that was assigned to pick us up, got grouped with some other students to be taken to the coast.  Brisbane is about 30-40 min drive from Southport and I spent the time looking around, napping, and trying to adjust to the fact we were driving on the left side of the road. (it just feels wrong, I’m really going to have to practice to get used to the turns and round-abouts).

We dropped off a few students, helped our driver find the hostel we were staying at, checked in, and immediately changed out to shorts and slippers (it was about 80-90 degrees and really humid)

At this point it was early (2pmish) and we couldn’t sleep yet (if we wanted to get used to the new time zone) so we wandered around, found some basics, computer shop, internet cafe, mall, kebab shops, Atm for our bank, general grocery store, etc.

We ended the evening with a BBQ at the Hostel, hanging around the pool talking to some people, and then crashing hard at 9pm.

wheph!