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Published: July 28th 2009
Eric - aka. my 'Sherpa'
Arriving in Fiji with our life (4 suitcases) in tow!G'DAY!
So after 9 more hours of flying from Fiji, one 5 hour layover in Brisbane, and tons of airplane snacks and pages read in our books....we landed safely in Perth!
As most of you probably know June and Kevin (friends of ours from back home) are currently living in Perth as well and have been kind enough to let us crash at their place as we get our bearings.
June met us at the Perth airport and brought us back (multiple suitcases in tow!) to their apartment in the heart of the city. June made us the first home cooked meal we'd had in over a week and we settled in for the night exhausted from our series of flights.
Our first day in Perth consisted of seeing the sights, wandering through shops/internet cafe's and eventually a walk down to the city waterfront - which puts Toronto's to shame we might add!
On our 2nd day here Kevin arrived from his trip to Canada and we were able to spend the day together (all 4 of us) in a suburb of the city called Fremantle. One of the main attractions in Fremantle is the historic jail and we took
Dinner on the Ocean in Fiji
Private table situated right on the beach - amazing! the 1.5 hour tour in while we were there. Our tour guide was Irish and was a fan of sarcasm and puns to keep us entertained. Eric found his way in a jail cell at one point...pretty small quarters even for him 😉 ha
After the tour Kevin and June took us down to the harbour front for some famous fish n' chips..delicious!
Since then our days have consisted of apartment & job hunting...stops for the odd meal out and then back to the internet cafe for more apartment & job hunting. A little stressful at times and overwhelming but we try to remain optimistic that things will work out...we also remind ourselves on a daily basis that if this move was supposed to be 'easy' everyone would do it...and clearly only some of us are crazy enough to take a leap of faith like this!!!
One of the big decisions we've had on our plates since we got here is where we want to live. We had our eye on a suburb called Cottesloe - a 20 minute train ride from the city. Apartments/flats are hard to come by there and living expenses tend to be pretty high
as one has to pay for transport & location (steps from the beach). We decided to make the trip out to Cottesloe yesterday to see first hand if it is somewhere we wanted to be...we saw an apartment right on the beach, beautiful inside but the commute to and from the city (which is where we will most likely find work) soon changed our tune. To make Cottesloe our home we really would need a car and that is something we don't want to do while we are here for a relatively short period of time. SO, onto the next apartment viewing...this time right in the heart of the city. The apartment immediately reminded us of a condo in downtown Toronto - well appointed, modern decor and most importantly FULLY furnished with a great location. The real estate agent was really keen to show it to us despite the fact that she already had an application on the place. Turns out the applicants were two 18 year olds and when she saw a young married couple starting out she seemed to want to help us out. She is actually from the UK herself, came here 8 years ago as a
Nightly seranades in Fiji
Each night these guys would come around to each table and sing a song. They asked us for a request and we said 'play whatever you like' - what did they choose? 'Wonderful Tonight' by Eric Clapton..which just happened to be our first dance song at our wedding!! back packer and never left...so I guess she could appreciate our situation.
We have now submitted our application and wait with bated breath to see if we are the new tennants!!
Needless to say we are excited at the prospect of finally having our first place together as Newlyweds...its been a long journey leading up to this point and are looking forward to having our own space to call 'home'.
This will also free up a lot of our time to focus even more on the job hunt!!
I am currently going through the temp agency route to try to start work as soon as possible. Eric has met with some head hunters and has some upcoming meetings with other contacts.
We've included some left over pictures from Fiji along with those new pictures from Perth. The weather in Perth has been unusually cold since we arrived - avg of 16 or 17 - which is apparently colder than usual for their winter here. It's been a little bit of a shock coming from Fiji and I finally gave in yesterday in buying a jacket! Pretty hard to believe that us Canadians could find this weather cold given
our winters back home but the difference here is that shops/cafe's are rarely heated...brrr. It is warming up this week, sun has been out every day so far and it can only get warmer as we approach summer here.
We apologize for the delay in updating the blog, once we have our own place and internet connection the updates will be coming much more frequently!
Till next time...
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