Dare I write that we have an apartment?

Hi everybody. I hate to push our luck too much, but the meeting to hand over our deposit and first month's rent is scheduled for 2pm tomorrow, so I feel pretty confident in announcing that we have secured an apartment for ourselves for the next 12 months- Hooray! What a relief. I was beginning to feel a bit panicky with our move-out date quickly approaching on Sept. 21. We thought we had one lined up over the weekend, and then found out on Tuesday morning that there had been some sort of "miscommunication" at the rental office as to who was in charge of that account- one agent offered the place to us, another agent offered it to another couple. So as of Tuesday at 11am, we decided to start over and search both furnished and unfurnished apartments. We found that most of the furnished places were quite small, and you were really paying quite a bit for things that, in the long run, would be cheaper to just go ahead and buy and own ourselves for the next 2 years. I'm talking very necessary things here, like a mattress and a refrigerator. Weird- from what I'm told and from what I've seen, many apartments over here don't normally come with a fridge. Who knew?! The place we'll be moving into next Friday is an unfurnished 1 bedroom apartment located in the South Yarra area of town. It is a great location- we've got a tram running right down our street, the South Yarra train station a 10-minute walk away, parks at both ends of our block (the Royal Botanical Gardens happens to be one of them!), the bay a short distance away, and tons of shops and restaurants all within walking distance. So I guess Andy and I will be out looking at refrigerators and mattresses this weekend. We are excited to get moved and start making our own place an actual home for ourselves. Here's a picture of the building- our place will be the top floor on the left.

We're hoping to catch a Footy game downtown on Saturday night. The start of the NFL season prior to us locating a pub at which to watch the games has almost been too much for Andy to take :)

We ate our first Kangaroo on Tuesday night- Kanga Bangas- pretty much like hot dogs, but not very flavorful. After we ate, Andy admitted that he felt a bit bad eating kangaroo.

President Bush was over here in Sydney last week for the APEC conference- it was interesting to watch and read the news, and to see how the country of Australia prepared for and talked about him and his visit. I'll leave it at that on that topic.

Hope all is well with everyone. It has been another up and down emotional week for us, but we've been listening to a lot of Todd Snider's song, "I'm Just Happy to be Here at All" to remind us of the important things. Worst case scenario, we live in a sweet hotel for a week :)

Cheers!
Christy