Completely Miserable

It has been an absolutely miserable day and it's not over yet.  You cannot fathom how disheartening it is for it to rain ALL DAY LONG until you have to walk everywhere in said rain with no benefit of a covered vehicle.  It has come rushing back how much I hated to do any grocery shopping when it rained because it meant that I would have to load the trunk with groceries and my purse might get wet.  LOL


It started this morning when I had an appointment with Hays Recruiting at 9:30am.  It wasn't raining on my walk over, but it was starting to mist when I had to walk back to the hotel at 10am.  My first inspection (it's what they call an apartment viewing) was at noon in Pyrmont.  I know I told everyone that Jim and I were going to live in the CBD, but I had my first inspection yesterday on Kent street in the CBD and it really scared me.  The apartment is renting for $800/wk and as soon as I walked in, it smelled bad.  Plus, the apartment was only 93 square meters (just over 1,000 square feet) - SMALL.  For that price, you still have to provide your own microwave, refrigerator and washing machine.  So I decided that we should probably look in a suburb of the CBD.  Thus, today I went to Pyrmont.  Our friends, Ben and Vin, live in Pyrmont.  The walk from my hotel to the first apartment in Pyrmont is an approximately 30-40 minute walk.  In the rain.  I was told that the address was 219 Bulwara Road.  First, I turned down Bulwara only to discover that a freeway off-ramp divided the road in two and I had to walk up a block to a cross walk to go back to the other side of Bulwara.  Then I'm searching for 219 Bulwara Road.  I found 211, but then the next building said 231.  Ummm?  Hello?  Where is 219?  Well, the building that said 211 was actually 211-219.  I guess you have to just know that.  So we go up to the apartment entrance on the second floor.  The apartment is actually a split level, which is nice.  Until you find out that the rooms are VERY small and there is only aircon in the living room.  The upstairs bedroom not only has no aircon, but the air is not moving at all.  The living space was nice.  The bathroom and kitchen finishes were very nice, but with no aircon... there's no way.  There was a parking space and a storage cage, but no pool or gym.  This place was $750/wk.  The agent's name is Ian.  He could tell that I was not happy with the place.  He asked me to meet him at 45 Bowman Street in Jacksons Landing at 2:30pm.  I agreed.


I spent the next hour and a half with Vin before leaving for the next inspection.  This next place was nice.  About a block from the harbor.  It was still raining, though.  Met with Ian and he gave me a private tour.  A bit more storage.  Kitchen open to a larger living space and a huge terrace that connects from the living room through to both bedrooms.  The bathrooms were a little bigger.  Downfall is that the laundry is in the second bathroom instead of standing alone.  This place has a parking space and a slightly larger storage cage in the basement.  There are also two swimming pools, two gyms and two tennis courts.  Ian told me that this place was originally going for $875/week, but that his agency had gotten them to agree to come down to $840/week and may even come down to $820/week if we agreed to sign a one-year lease and move in soon.  I need to talk to Jim about it, I suppose.


So it's 4:20pm now and I have one more inspection at 5:30pm.  This next place is in the CBD on Sussex street.  It's $800/week.  I guess we'll see.  I like how it looks in the pictures provided online, but I liked the pictures of the one on Kent street, too.  :)  It's shocking to me what you DON'T get for your money... in my opinion.  More later.