moving to melbourne update
so we're back from our big house hunt in Melbourne. We left on Thursday and returned late last night and I declare it to be a most productive 4 days.
It started off with us leaving for the airport at 4am and spending the rest of the day flying, renting a car and attending house inspections in footscray. on google maps this suburb looks tops. from ground level the suburb made me feel very uneasy. there were a whole bunch of people doing a whole bunch of nothing and "hanging about". i felt unsafe when i walked down the street with stu next to me. this was at 11am. contemplating walking back from the station by myself at night made me want to weep. weep like a girl. anyway we decided to look at the houses that were open just because we were there already - they were nice but the suburb - i just could'nt do it! i was very disappointed because i thought footscray would have been IT.
so our hunt continued.
we looked at a few places on friday in a suburb called kensington- two mainly - one was too big (more room means more cleaning) and the other too small (turning sideways to get into your own toilet is not good). i felt like gulliver in that small apartment. so we decided to wait for a few more inspections in kensington on saturday. i really liked this suburb - the apartments we looked at were right across a big park and 2 minutes walk from the station. it had a nice "feel" to it. we also walked around and discovered a nice cafe and shopping strip not far away and also figured out that it is close to flemington race course. hello melbourne cup!
so we decided to lie low till the next day when we could look at more houses in kensington. we pretty much had friday arvo and evening free so we went to see the art deco exhibit that is on at the national gallery of victoria. it was beooooootiphul. the exhibit lacked continuity and flow - but it made up for it in sheer oomph and wow factor. in particular the foyer from the strand palace nearly knocked me over. woooo-eee. i also bought a cd full of songs from the roaring 20s. i'm quite in love with it.
that evening we went to lygon street with a friend and i stuffed my face with delicious italian cuisine. i had a lasagne for the first time in a restaurant (i have hitherto had to eat my own home made lasagna's because restaurant ones all make them with beef mince) but this one was made with pork sausage meat. OMG heaven. i envision many trips back to lygon...we finished up after with italian dessert at another delicious sounding place and i ate an assortment of mini desserts - a triple choc mousse, a passionfruit tart and some sort of delicious choc cream in a mini cup. i swear the whole trip was one giant orgy with food. we ate breakfast at our hotel (which turned out to be quite swanky thankyou wotif.com!) on 2 days and the buffett had illegal amounts of hash browns and bacon. mmm hash browns...
...
....mmmm
anyway i digress.
on saturday we had inspections in about 20 apartments in the same building and buildings nearby. i was ready to get my "push and shove" mode on incase we had to apply with a bazillion other people - but only about 5 other couples showed up! i think i am still in my sydney rental crisis mode.
sunday we mostly spent lolling about and catching up with a friend of stu and eating yum cha and walking down to st. kilda for the sunday markets. i saw some awesome handmade hats and gloves. i'm going to go back there for sure woo!
our flight back was quite an ordeal as air traffic controllers decided to undertake union action on our sector so we were delayed by about 45 minutes and had to hover over sydney for a while waiting to land. this morning i read this headline "pilots fly without controllers" in the SMH which made me thankful that we landed at all! eeep.
but we're back and now i'm all excited to know which apartment we are going to shift into...
*update: one of the real estate agents called and told us our application is successful for this apartment. woooo! the only negative is that we have to sign the lease and start paying rent by friday (which would mean we pay double rent for here and melbourne for a MONTH aaah). anyway we will wait to hear back from the others and see how long they are willing to wait...but atleast we have something!
It started off with us leaving for the airport at 4am and spending the rest of the day flying, renting a car and attending house inspections in footscray. on google maps this suburb looks tops. from ground level the suburb made me feel very uneasy. there were a whole bunch of people doing a whole bunch of nothing and "hanging about". i felt unsafe when i walked down the street with stu next to me. this was at 11am. contemplating walking back from the station by myself at night made me want to weep. weep like a girl. anyway we decided to look at the houses that were open just because we were there already - they were nice but the suburb - i just could'nt do it! i was very disappointed because i thought footscray would have been IT.
so our hunt continued.
we looked at a few places on friday in a suburb called kensington- two mainly - one was too big (more room means more cleaning) and the other too small (turning sideways to get into your own toilet is not good). i felt like gulliver in that small apartment. so we decided to wait for a few more inspections in kensington on saturday. i really liked this suburb - the apartments we looked at were right across a big park and 2 minutes walk from the station. it had a nice "feel" to it. we also walked around and discovered a nice cafe and shopping strip not far away and also figured out that it is close to flemington race course. hello melbourne cup!
so we decided to lie low till the next day when we could look at more houses in kensington. we pretty much had friday arvo and evening free so we went to see the art deco exhibit that is on at the national gallery of victoria. it was beooooootiphul. the exhibit lacked continuity and flow - but it made up for it in sheer oomph and wow factor. in particular the foyer from the strand palace nearly knocked me over. woooo-eee. i also bought a cd full of songs from the roaring 20s. i'm quite in love with it.
that evening we went to lygon street with a friend and i stuffed my face with delicious italian cuisine. i had a lasagne for the first time in a restaurant (i have hitherto had to eat my own home made lasagna's because restaurant ones all make them with beef mince) but this one was made with pork sausage meat. OMG heaven. i envision many trips back to lygon...we finished up after with italian dessert at another delicious sounding place and i ate an assortment of mini desserts - a triple choc mousse, a passionfruit tart and some sort of delicious choc cream in a mini cup. i swear the whole trip was one giant orgy with food. we ate breakfast at our hotel (which turned out to be quite swanky thankyou wotif.com!) on 2 days and the buffett had illegal amounts of hash browns and bacon. mmm hash browns...
...
....mmmm
anyway i digress.
on saturday we had inspections in about 20 apartments in the same building and buildings nearby. i was ready to get my "push and shove" mode on incase we had to apply with a bazillion other people - but only about 5 other couples showed up! i think i am still in my sydney rental crisis mode.
sunday we mostly spent lolling about and catching up with a friend of stu and eating yum cha and walking down to st. kilda for the sunday markets. i saw some awesome handmade hats and gloves. i'm going to go back there for sure woo!
our flight back was quite an ordeal as air traffic controllers decided to undertake union action on our sector so we were delayed by about 45 minutes and had to hover over sydney for a while waiting to land. this morning i read this headline "pilots fly without controllers" in the SMH which made me thankful that we landed at all! eeep.
but we're back and now i'm all excited to know which apartment we are going to shift into...
*update: one of the real estate agents called and told us our application is successful for this apartment. woooo! the only negative is that we have to sign the lease and start paying rent by friday (which would mean we pay double rent for here and melbourne for a MONTH aaah). anyway we will wait to hear back from the others and see how long they are willing to wait...but atleast we have something!