Funky Curry Apartment

Alright. I can't believe it, but David and I spent our first night in the apartment! It's been a really interesting experience getting a home here in Aus..they basically leave everything to you to figure out.

Fridges and washers are not included in your apartments. It's byo. This caused for a comical fridge move.. David wheeling a second hand refrigerator across the bridge and to our apartment. That's a whole other post though. It was too funny.

But what wasn't funny? Our sick apartment. We got the keys last Thursday, and we were promised the place was professionally cleaned. Professionally cleaned must mean throw a party and then RUN from your apartment. Needless to say, I cried when I saw the place.

Then, positivity kicked in (and David's good words) and we got to work scrubbing the curry smell out of the walls, mopping food off the floor, un-blackening the grout, and getting the mystery smudge marks off everything. A week later, my arms and legs are sore, I have gone through 3 sponges, a bottle of wall cleaner, a grout brush and a mop, but the apartment is live-able!! YAY!

It finally feels like home. A minimalist home..but that's what this trip is all about, right?

So here are some pictures of the new digs!! Get excited all you future visitors!! (Pls note: we have an extra bedroom - the rumpus room - but it's really messy so there's no pic of it. But I promise we have rooms for guests!!)

The bathroom. I should have shown a picture of my fine handy work on the grout.


The rando 'hallway' from our bed to the balcony


Our sweet bedroom!


Living Room/Dining Room/Parlor/Game Room


Kitchen (complete with my splurge of a Bodum french press). Sorry the picture is dark!


Our first dinner last night! Ironically, David really wanted to cook Indian food...

Hit the ground runnin'

 It's kind of nice to be doing the city thing again after a month off up in Surfer's.  We recently got the keys to our new apartment at 708/547 Flinders Lane (The complete address is followed by "Melbourne, VIC 3000" for those of you wishing to send cookies, formal business attire, and large sums of cash), and over the last weekend we spent at least 5 or 6 hours wandering through the labyrinth that is IKEA.  I am proud to announce that we were able to purchase a new table, chairs, essential kitchenware, a shelf/dresser, pillows, a big assortment of cups, and a Swedish table runner for under $560.

To our great relief, IKEA delivers.

In addition to our massive furniture delivery today was my first day at work.  I work in a very small office that mostly does building inspections but also some project management and provides an enormous variety of building and property reports.  To make things short, I will be attending my first field trip on Wednesday, we have a beer fridge, and it is written into the company manual that after work on Fridays the office goes out to the local pub for drinks.  Oh Australia.  Best of all, I couldn't help but post my 10-15 minute walk to work every morning.

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The Torches at Crown Casino

From the Melbourne Ministry of Tourism

just throwin it out there. (courtesy of qantas)

Sorry to let down those of you who know how much we paid for our round trip airfare to Brisbane last year, but it seems like we flew both ways for the price of one way.  I've been trying to check back every once in a while, and it seems like $1200 has been as good as it gets.  It seems too that Bing's fare predictor isn't such a pro at working internationally, but Kayak has one that gives you a price chart based on departure date over a one month period.  For anyone curious, here are some things that are going to be happening in Melbourne:

January 18-31: Melbourne Open Tennis Championships

January 23-25: Australia Day

March 25-28: Formula One Australian Grand Prix

These are just the few that I have heard of recently.  Depending on your preference maybe you will plan for or around them.  There are also TONS of music and wine+food festivals here as well as sporting events and races!

click here for an events calendar from the city of melbourne

We miss you guys and hope we will see some more familiar faces soon!

A Taste of Melbourne

We got the keys to our new apartment yesterday!

We are quite excited to get our own place..and you should be too because now you can start planning your visit Down Unda!

To woo you to our fine new city, I thought I would share this week's Daily Candy article about Melbourne. Read on..enjoy..and COME VISIT!!

Daily Candy Goes to Melbourne

A Belated Welcome to Melbourne

Melbourne Victory vs Gold Coast United

Last month on the 26th, Manny took us to our first Australian soccer experience!  The Melbourne - GC United game foretold our future as the Melbourne Victory was triumphant.  It was awesome getting to visit a game and paying 6AUD for a beer rather than 10USD.  While not quite onpar with the Sounders, I'd say the crowd is definitely got it together!

 

 

 

Manny cheering through a sandstorm aftershock

So Missed

So you may remember a couple weeks ago we got a shout out on RadioMETRO from our favorite DJ RemmyG.  We were sitting in the parking lot of a Coles (supermarket) jumping up and down as we heard it over the radio.  Disappointed that we didn't catch it on video, we made sure to make up for it with a grand tour of the radio station...

Holiday - 1, Work - 0

So we have been out of internet for at least the past week.  I'll be working to upload random bits to get the blog updated!!

Goodbye Gold Coast!!

Tomorrow bright and early, we start our drive to Melbourne! We rented a car for 3 days...that's 3 days to drive 21 hours.

On the dockett:

The world's largest Avo (avacado)...australians are huge on giant statues of things)

We'll be driving down the coast, hitting some smaller towns north of Sydney (staying in Newcastle..the town where they sent the convicts that even Sydney couldn't handle way back in the day)

Driving through Sydney

Seeing/Staying in the nation's capital, Canberra

Wine Tasting on the way to Melbourne (hopefully)

We'll post as we can along the way! I just found out our rental car is manual (hi, manual and on the other side of the road, with a steering wheel AND clutch on the opposite side) But next stop, Melbourne!!

Evo!

Ahh what a day yesterday. We had the pleasure of hanging out with the one and only Evan Wheatley. As we are wrapping up our days on the Gold Coast, Evo showed us all around the town by water!


We saw tons of fancy fancy houses, had the best fish and chips (wooot for Pete's!) and even a Kangaroo that was hanging out on the beach!

Osu!

This week I had the chance to train with the Nerang Kyokushin Dojo.  It was so great to go across the world and still be able to train with Kyokushin.  It's kind of like being able to come to Australia and have a McDonalds...except the name hasn't been modified into "Maccar's."

 

photo-op with Sempai Josh and Shihan Tony Bowden