Saturday, July 23, 2005

French Fries

Just a quick update on the dietary situation. Peggy and I have declared a self-imposed moratorium on chips (french fries for you Nor'Mericaners) for the remainder of the month. Shocking news, I know, but extreme measures had to be taken. Australians eat chips like Chinese eat rice. There's chips with meat pies, chicken burgers (there's this great brand down here called Oporto -- portugese style, of which I am addicted), fried fish, kangaroo burgers-- you name it, all come with heaps and heaps of chips. If I break our promise and have some, I'll let you know, but just don't tell Peggy.

The country has been brought to a virtual standstill by a cricket match currently underway in the UK called Ashes, which is held every four years and features Australia's and England's best national squads. Knowing absolutely nothing about cricket, we spent our first spell watching it chuckling and poking fun at the funny hats, comical applications of sunscreen and preppy-looking V-neck sweaters that these (ahem) athletes wear. Initially, it was easy to imagine a crowd of 20,000 elderly Brits all nodding off at this numbingly slow game.

Alas, that was until someone came up to us and asked 'Do you know who knocked the second wicket?', to which I jokingly replied, 'My good man, I do not know which cricket wicket they did sticketh'. After exchanging some high-fives from Peggy, we were introduced to a jolly chap from Birmingham, who was in town to watch the match and was delighted to find impressionable young minds in which he could attempt to share the virtues of cricket with and to his credit, did an excellent job.

The history behind Ashes came about in the year nineteen-ought-something-or-other when the first Australian cricket team set foot on British soil. The pulled the surprise of the century (the century apparently being only a few years old at the time) by beating their host nation at their own game, if you will. So incensed were the Brits, similar to when one is served a soggy crumpet, that they burned the wickets(those three posts with the horizontal bar on top) and kept them in a kitsch silver trophy (an urn, essentially). Just as we in the states have the Axe or the Stanley Cup, Aussies and Brits have the Ashes. Whichever nation holds possession of the trophy for four years gets the world's most fussed over ashtray.

Plenty of housing news to share, but it's worth a story in itself and I've
been told not to jinx it. Although, if you send french fries, I might be
'greased' into giving up a few details.

posted by ncawthon at 6:00 PM

Friday, July 22, 2005

A Second Wind

There's nothing to cure the doldrums of a rejected application than a great home tour or two. We've seen three very good places all in our desired neighborhood. If our odds hold up, we'd get at least one of those three.

There has been a rash of what is called, "concrete cancer" in some of the places we've looked at. This causes some of the bricks holding up the building to disintigrate and 'poof' there goes your sun porch. We've yet to do extensive research, but it has made some fantastic properties unrentable.

Not sure how one's building contracts concrete cancer, presumably by being diagnosed by a Structural Oncologist. We're told that concrete cancer might develop if the masonry workers are heavy cigarette smokers, or perhaps too much red meat is mixed in with the compound solution. As someone who's had a bit of cancer (not of the concrete kind), I've got license to make jokes of this poor taste.

Our tourist jaunt to the Star City casino last night was ho-hum. Nothing special at all about it at all, it felt very mechanized and cold. If you ever get a chance to visit the casino in Montreal, it is much more unique and engaging.

posted by ncawthon at 11:24 AM

Thursday, July 21, 2005

Where is the Love to be Found?

Our on-again, off-again land lady called shortly after our last post, saying that she put our name into a hat with other potential lab rats - and we lost. Crushing news, as we had already envisioned our activities while living there. Spent the latter part of the day moping around in defeat.

Alas, the sun came up again today and there are more properties freshly listed for our viewing pleasure. Again, we cannot imagine the highs and lows involved with trying to secure the purchase of a half-million dollar (give or take a million) house in the Bay Area, let alone a temporary apartment in a distant land.

Barring a miracle this weekend, we're likely to go into a sort of short-term purgatory, staying at a serviced studio apartment nearby until a flat is secured. The optimistic side is that we've only been looking a week and have had three properties come up that were suitable. Sigh.

What has been difficult to adjust to is mentality that we're not here on vacation. There are an immense amount of logistics involved with setting up not only for attending school, but for habitation in another country, as we are finding out firsthand. To retain our sanity, we're trying to go out every evening and do touristy stuff, instead of pounding the real estate ads yet another time.

posted by ncawthon at 11:39 AM

Wednesday, July 20, 2005

Your Golden Sun will Shine for Me















Yesterday we went to Dee Why (which is down the road from Say What) to go and check out some of the Northern beaches. The surf breaks there were pretty good, a lot of people were out on some really rocky looking point breaks. If you wiped out, you'd get banged up pretty bad.

There are quite a bit of people out and about mid-day during the week, we're not sure of the unemployment rate in Australia, but staring at the sea seems to be a full time position for many locals.

Did an evening walk around Circular Quay, taking many more obligitory opera house photos for your viewing pleasure. Explored the Rocks district, which has undergone some serious gentrification since I was here last. I remember a pretty dumpy part of town with sleazy bars and rowdy drunks. Now its a fancy part of town with expensive restaraunts and pretentious drunks. Their slogan, as plastered on street light banner and such, is 'Rocks: Right Now', which implies that there was a problem to begin with. All that Olympic redevelopment money has made it a good place to go to take in some pricey cocktails and fantastic harbour views.

Still waiting on housing, we think we have a line on a place but have been burned before. Trying (unsuccessfully) not to get too excited.

posted by ncawthon at 7:58 PM

Monday, July 18, 2005

Holden Caulfield Has Arrived



Our automotive motivations have proved to be successful and we are the proud new owners of a blue 1992 Holden Commodore. 100% Australian assembly, baby (GM parts).

Oh 1992, the year young Elenor went from TPHS to Berkeley, back when Clinton was still in his intern-hugging prime and Tivo was still just the guy from your local convenience store.

So back to the airport went our Kia Ocelot and away we rolled. Then... the air conditioning stopped working. Then... the radio. But that's OK, we're still cruising fine. Just gotta go back and claim on the warranty 24 hours into ownership.

Apartment hunting has proved to be extremely laborious. It seems that the realtors in this town like to experiment with the minds of potential renters. Like a place? Put in an application, only to have the unit pulled off the market. The owner just wanted to test what kind of demand there was, should he want to sell it. I feel like we're lab rats, at the mercy to be played with by men in white coats.

Another potential landlady said what a great fit we were for a place, then called back to see if we would like to pay $60 more a month because she had so many other interested parties. Meanwhile, Peggy and I are pulling each others hair out over choices we don't even have. Good times. We can't wait to house hunt!

Peggy's mobile is 011 61 413462003, give her a ring! Mine is, corrected, 011 61 413660173. These are codes for all you state-siders (and UK, too!) to dial in.

posted by ncawthon at 7:34 PM