The hard week

Our trip to Australia started off a bit slowly, but after 5 days here we really kicked it into gear. I think the only fair way to retell the story now is retroactively, day by day. It’s pretty chronological since the week itself is worth telling about.

Monday

When we decided to come over here I told Andrea several times that it would be easy to find a place to live, and we’d only have to see a few apartments before we found one we liked, and the rest would be easy peasy. After searching online for apartments all weekend and writing down our favourites, we headed out on Monday to the real estate agents to book appointments. It’s a bit different down here in that real estate agents are plentiful and act as the property managers for the apartments in the area. Usually you can’t book an appointment to view the apartment online, so you have to go to the office in person. This wouldn’t have been a problem for us in Edmonton, but it’s a lot harder when you don’t have a car and have to run around in 26 degree heat and 80% humidity.

We intended to see 4 apartments today, but we had to miss one appointment and we avoided another. The apartment we avoided was textbook ghetto, with location right next to a busy road, bombed out houses on the block, and with a pair of shoes thrown up over the power lines. Since we didn’t travel 18 000km to live on Stony Plain road, we moved on. The other apartments we saw were in our price range, but they were dark, odd, and unclean. Searching all day to no avail left us a bit demoralized, but we booked 6 viewings for Tuesday so we were hopeful.

Tuesday

The big day is here. Andrea and I spent Monday night printing off google maps and devising a clever transit schedule to move from place to place today. Make no mistake, every appointment will be tight, and since Brisbane is a lot hillier than we anticipated, I try and mentally prepare Andrea for a day filled with rushing and sweating. The day starts similar to Monday, with dive after dive. We start to think we might have to raise our price range a bit to avoid these dodgy places, but we soldier on. Finally we move a bit north of the city, what they call the Central Business District (CBD) but what we would call downtown, and we finally find a place that isn’t half bad: good neighbourhood, clean apartment (staged, for a change), and close to shops and transit. With our spirits lifted, we book it across town to the North East of Brisbane to see some apartments that I found online when Andrea was asleep. I had been telling her all day that these would be the places to see. Andrea was a bit sceptical, but hopeful as well.

As soon as we get out of the train station and realize our map is much too narrow to get us to the appointment, so I had to make an educated guess about which way to turn, left or right. Using all my powers of deduction I choose we go left, and we go left. The appointment is at 4pm and it’s about 3:40pm when we arrive, so we are feeling confident we can make it. After walking about 10 minutes we realize that we must be in the wrong area. We ask another real estate agent for directions, which takes about 5 minutes, and she tells us we went the wrong direction. Fantastic. We are faced with missing the only appointment I wanted to make all day, but I told Andrea I could make it the 2km if I could run without our backpack. So we loaded up Andrea with both our backpacks and I started sprinting. If I thought I was sweaty and tired before, I really was now. I finally make it to the place and I look across the street and see a car from the realtor. I mosey on over there real cool like – think Steve McQueen – all sweaty and panting, and I beckon her out of the car. A bit of small talk fills the gaps where I’m catching my breath and apologizing for being late and she shows me the place. It’s by far the best one we’ve seen and is definitely a ‘must have’ kind of deal. Andrea finally shows up just dripping sweat and loves the place. After a bit of talking back at the hostel we decide to make this our final decision and file an application.

It’s our last night at the hostel and life has been good to us here. We have gotten free meals for the past two nights and pitchers of Victoria Bitter are only $12. And these aren’t 12 Euro bucks either, but are actually cheaper than those in Canada! (actually they are about the same price after the banks take their cut from the exchange). Luckily Andrea met some people on her cruise to Greece she said we can stay with for a few days. Just a little forewarning to all those people who make the claim that, ‘if you ever come to visit you can stay with us,’ that Andrea and I are taking you up on that offer. But you could have worse houseguests. 

Over here they want you to have all this documentation to support every frickin’ contract you sign. They want references from everyone you’ve ever had a contract with, letters and receipts to support it, the whole nine yards. These buggers won’t even let us sign up for a postpaid cell phone without about 6 pieces of identification and proof of prior contracts. It’s ridiculous. I can’t wait to stiff them for a huge cell phone bill. :P

Wednesday

Today is the day to meet the strangers and impose ourselves on them. Bob and Rhonda are Andrea’s friends and they agreed not only to let us stay at their house for a few days, but also agreed to come and pick us up from the hostel! Amazing! It’s immediately clear that Bob and Rhonda are fun, funny, generous, and great hosts. They have 5 kids who are all married and only one without kids of their own. Bob is an avid rugby union fan and also a fan of the wine, red, in particular. Although I have adopted Australian Rules Football as my sport of choice, Bob agrees not to make fun of me too much as I’m new to the country and don’t know my ass from a hole in the ground.

We submitted our application and we were ensured that the apartment would be ours and that we could move in by Friday! How incredible is that to go from total morale devastation on Monday after seeing dive after dive to having a great place to live on Friday? It’s also incredible what looking presentable and showing someone your bank account will get you in this town. The location is just great too since the Toombul shopping centre is close by and is not up or down a huge hill like all the other units we saw. Fresh seafood and fruit markets are about 2 minutes walk away, along with many yoga studios, pizza places, Maccas (McDonalds to the Auzzies), and Racecourse road, which has tons of shops and restaurants. It’s not the trendiest of neighbourhoods, but for a couple of homeless Canadians, it’s home sweet home.

Thursday

You never realize how great it is to have a proper bed to sleep in and home cooked meals when you are traveling. We are definitely missing our families, but we are being treated as family by Bob and Rhonda, and that act is just so comforting when you are surrounded by strangeness and without a home, furnishings, phones, internet, vehicles…All that stuff gives you a lot of security when you have it. You feel established, ready for the challenges you regularly face and even those you don’t anticipate. When you have none of these trappings to fall back on you feel quite naked and helpless. Now, obviously, we have savings and resources to call on, but they are not so extensive that we can say that money is no object. Once you can do that life is without challenge, and I think we call that heaven, or a wealthy retirement. A huge part of this trip was to push ourselves and put ourselves outside our comfort zones. Well, consider us there, and consider us succeeding. We picked up our keys today and Bob heartily suggested we celebrate with a drink. That of course led to more drinks, and after several bottles of wine later, a great day concluded.

Friday

Golf is cheap in Australia. That might not mean a lot to some of you, but it means a lot to me. I’m sick and tired of paying +$80 for a game of golf on an overcrowded and poorly kept golf course. Golf memberships here can be so cheap, as little as $500 a year, and you can golf all year long and each course looks like you’re golfing in South Africa. Well, technically it looks like Brisbane, but I didn’t realize they looked so similar before.

Bob took me out golfing to his course today, which was a pretty good day weather wise, about 23 degrees at 9am and a few clouds in the sky. From the first tea I debated which club to take, but then realized I hadn’t picked up a club in 7 months and hadn’t practiced, so what did it matter. The hangover from the night before wasn’t treating me so well either, but I lined up and swung and lost total sight of the ball. Not a great start to my day. Luckily it was in the fairway, as were many of my shots that day, and I did quite well…on the course, anyways. By about the 8th hole I was about to vomit from the hangover combined with the heat and the sun, but we only played 10 holes, as Bob needed to get to his dentist appointment, so I narrowly escaped heaving into the tropical bushes.

After recuperating at our adopted home, Andrea and I took the car our for an afternoon at IKEA. Andrea had the whole trip google-mapped out and assured me that we could do it. Naturally, 3 turns into the trip we took the wrong road and were lost, heading for the CBD of Brisbane. We’ve developed a rule from traveling that if you think you’ve gone the wrong way, just got a bit further just to make sure. Be confident. So I ambled along the road hoping that Andrea would pull a rabbit out of her hat, so we pulled over to see where we had to go and we looked up and saw the overhead sign that pointed us directly to Logan (IKEAs location) on the Pacific Motorway! Score one for beginners luck.

IKEA was fruitful, and after weighing the pros and cons of shopping for furniture in Brisbane at the Salvation Army, Gumtree (Auzzie version of Craigslist or Kijiji), or garage sales, we decided that the allure of having the furniture delivered to our house in good condition was very advantageous on our minds, our time, and even our wallets. We headed home as victors. Place to live – check. Furniture – check. Naturally, upon our arrival, Bob suggested this was cause for celebration and time for a drink! I still can’t believe they were insistent we use the car to help us around town. I’m not sure I’d be so trusting in their place, but we were very thankful.

That night Bob and Rhonda had one of their sons and their daughters over for supper and we all had a great time. After the wine got into us, Andrew forgot Andrea’s name and started calling her “Stranger girl,” which we all thought was pretty funny. We watched a bit of rugby union and called it a night, but Bob told me about the Pittsburgh/Ottawa game on FOX at 1:30am and set it up for me to watch if I was interested. Obviously I was so I woke up and watched the third period and the sped up overtime (as the game was a replay). What can I say, I miss my hockey.

Saturday

The day of the big move is at hand. We are so fortunate that Bob’s son Andrew has a truck and is willing to help us move. We are even more lucky that Andrea’s uncle is lending us his old fridge and TV for the apartment. I knew there was a reason we chose Brisbane over Sydney. Starting off is hard, but starting with a bit of family around makes it loads easier, which we are terribly grateful for. Moving went off without a hitch, delivery guys eventually showed up, and we started building. We got finished the bed and sofa before we tired out, and then we headed to Uncle Errik’s for a fantastic dinner and a bit of footy. Sadly, the Brisbane lions took a real shit kicking, ruining their undefeated record. That’s alright, we’ll get ‘em next time.

Sunday

Today is Sunday, which is ANZAC day, so it’s a huge holiday in Australia and almost no one is working, which means nothing is open, which means we have to live off the meagre groceries we picked up on Saturday. We have been so busy it’s crazy, but it feels good to get this first mega hectic week out of the way. I think this will prove to be the hardest week we have to suffer here, and it has been great. We’ve made new friends, had great times, and feel truly thankful to all those who have helped us get started in Brisbane.

It’s a pretty lazy day today. We spent most of it building our table and chairs, bar stools and computer chair. Did a bit of exploring and a bit of surfing the net on our pirated wifi connection, made some supper and generally chilled out. Like Andrea said our lights are out, but the rest of the power is on, so it looks like we’ll have a bit of work to do tomorrow before we head to the Gold Coast for a few days.

Tomorrow we would like to arrange for some dry cleaning for my suits, since I start my job next week, take care of some more paperwork for my internship agency (argh!), do some shopping, book our hostel, and maybe see about buying a used washing machine. Maybe the hard stuff isn’t over yet…


Also, read Andrea's first post below this one!