I couldn't blog yesterday. The day was too crappy and I didn't even want to talk about it. Jim wasn't feeling good all day. Of course, he didn't tell me that until today. He gave me a hard time about taking buses. I had spent hours putting together our itinerary for the day. Pretty much every inspection was a bus ride away from the one before it. There was simply no way to walk everywhere and get there in time. He finally agreed to take buses, but it was far from a "win" for me. We started out at about 9am. Bought our all day pass for buses/ferries/trains. Got on our first bus and headed to the first inspection, which was scheduled for 10am. We arrived only to find out that they had changed the inspection time to 11.15am. Well, this meant that we had to decide whether to wait over an hour for this viewing or to walk to the next one. I had written, "Eh..." next to the first one, so we decided to skip it.
We walked to the next inspection on Kyngdon in Cammeray. We were there early so we walked around the area for a bit. The apartment was a 3 bed, 2 bath walkup to the third floor. It was a split level and the kitchen had good storage, but there was no central air conditioning. There was only one unit in the living room. Oh well. Next.
We walked to the bus stop to wait for the next bus that would take us to an inspection at noon in Neutral Bay. The bus never showed up. We waited for almost an hour before the next bus showed and by then it was too late to get to the apartment in Neutral Bay. We decided to just stay on the bus and get to the showing in Milsons Point, since that was the apartment that was right next to the Harbour Bridge and had excellent views of Lavendar Bay. We BARELY made it. The streets were so close together that some of them had no street signs and we couldn't find Glen Street. But we found it and the apartment was good. It is $780 per week... right on budget.
There were two inspections we had on the agenda for the next hour or so, but Jim and I both decided that if it meant more bus rides, we just didn't want to live there. We can deal with trains and ferries, but buses were simply out of the question for now. So we decided to stay in the Milsons Point area for an inspection at 2.30pm. We had fresh fish and chips nearby and finally left for our last inspection. This apartment was $875 per week. Way out of budget. But it was advertised as having the refrigerator and washer provided in the apartment. Usually you have to buy those. It's also only on the second floor of the building with no balcony and no spectacular views. The apartment also only had one bathroom. It was ultra-modern and there was storage galore! I mean TONS of storage. You have no idea what that means in Sydney. Well, we got into an argument about it because I loved it (who would have guessed? I usually don't go for modern at all) and Jim loved the other apartment.
I think by this point we were both just tired (it had been raining most of the day again) and ready to go back to the hotel for a nap (how old are we, anyway - LOL). We hopped on a train and came back to the hotel, only taking a moment for me to stop at Starbucks for a pick-me-up. It was an awful night. I completely HATE arguing.
So we planned to head to Ikea today to sort of get our heads around the kind of furniture we were going to need. I know that I keep saying that we are going to have to get rid of most of our stuff once it gets here, but we sold our living room furniture before coming so we are going to definitely need sofa-and-chair type stuff. Jim thinks we should get a sleeper sofa since we won't have a bed for a while. I guess he may be right. I think we are also going to have to re-think some of the furniture we did bring because it's simply going to be on too large of a scale. I cannot stress enough how TINY these apartments are.
So we went to Ikea today. Spent almost $30AU on LUNCH!!! The Swedish meatballs are NOT $1 here. LOL! I completely loved walking around Ikea, though. I love Ikea. The prices weren't so bad. I also think we may be able to get our refrigerator from Ikea. Too bad we can't buy our washing machine there, too. Also - it did not rain all afternoon (although it's pouring now) and it was hot as Hades. I mean sweltering and humid. Be careful what you ask for, I guess.
So now we are in Jim's office. We emailed over our application for the apartment on Glen Street. I hope we get it. I really don't think we can afford the kind of apartment I want, so I'll just settle for the apartment Jim wants. It's very close to his work and he won't have to get on a bus. :) I didn't completely hate the apartment. I really liked it for the most part. I think I would like it better if it were mine and I could get in there and gut everything I don't like and start over. Jim thinks we may be able to make some improvements without anyone getting upset over it. I mean, if you're improving it then what's the harm? I guess we'll find out.
No comments:
Post a Comment