MOVING DAY

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Hey all...I am writing this blog for the 2nd time! Wrote it the first time last night and then something happened and it was all gone just as I was about to finish. I hate it when that happens. Its never as good the 2nd time, but i'll try.

It has been an interesting few weeks here..

To start with all the regular stuff...work...well it actually isn't that regualar for us is it? Seems to be a common challenge around here. Tom landed a sweet job at a landscaping company. He starts early morning and ends about 2:30, its perfect for him because then he has time to go to the gym....and that keeps him happy! He also gets to take regular naps on the job! Most of their work is for the city...so they aren't 'city workers' but well on their way to the stereotypical work ethic of a city worker! Neil is still at Rebel Sport, he loves it and is doing really well at sales. Dan quit his job and his last day is this Friday (he goes home in 2 weeks). I got another temp job through the same temp agency that got me that first job back in January. Its soo boring...its in an office and I am just helping with some admin stuff because its the end of the financial year here and they are soo behind. But truth be told, I don't actually work that hard either, I have a desk by the window, I spend most of my time gazing around and day dreaming and surfing the net. But they asked me if I wanted to stay for a while longer...there obviously impressed with my performance, which makes me wonder how much work the actual employees do. We also do a lot of our work for the city! I am also stil working weekends at the cafe across the street. I didn't want to quit that because this admin job is just temporary. So its been 7 days a week for the past while.

The Hillsong Conference is next week. Its a major conference at the biggest indoor arena in Sydney. People come from around the world to hear speakers that also come from around the world to be at this thing. There will be about 17000 people there. It seems like its fairly well put together, there are different subjects/electives that you can choose from during the day. We are all going. Very excited.

Dan leaves in a few weeks now (flight is on July 13). We will be sad to see him go, but were all excited for him. Time flys so fast, it seems like we arrived here just yesterday.

So we moved...to be honest it all happened quicker than we all expected,

Story goes something like this. Our place was starting to turn into a bit of a dump, this was probably for a few reasons, the biggest being the fact that we were all getting a little lazy when it came to cleaning. But other than that, there were a number of things that went wrong with the place since we got there including a flood, and broken down hot water tank. They were fixed, but it was always a hassel because our landlady never seemed to co-operate to well with us. A few times we tossed around the idea of moving and just decided to keep our eyes open, but no rush. All was going fairly well untill the last few weeks there. As you may or may not have heard there have been some major stoms here in Sydney. The storms here are wild, way different than back home. Wind Rain and Thunder. And for those of us who live by the beach...sandstorms. The wind is so strong that the roads and paths get covered with a thin layer of sand when it storms. The shape of the beach has also totally changed. Anyways, these storms added a new 'feature' to our place...you no longer had to be in the bathroom to take a shower. As a matter of fact, you could shower and wash the dishes at the same time! How nice is that? On top of the free showers, half our oven broke down, 2 elements no longer worked. This but a big delay on the cooking times, and we had to cook in stages. To make matters worse our kitchen light broke down (possibly because of the wet ceiling). So now we were cooking in the rain and in the dark. During this whole time when these things were happening I called the landlady every day, I only ever managed to get a hold of her answering machine...typical. The last string came on a friday night when I went into the pantry to grab a loaf of bread for dinner and found that it had been half eaten, rite through the plastic bag. Rats. At this point we all decided that we were for sure moving and it was just a matter of finding a place.

The next day (saturday) we found a place across the street from ours, went for inspection, and applied to be tennants. It was through a real estate agent just down the road from us, and it was a much more professional process compared to our first one. We heard back from the agency that afternoon and they told us we had the place and could move in Monday morning. Now I got in contact with our landladys answering machine again and told her that we were moving out and that we wanted our Bond back and a refund for the following week which we had already paid for. We have also asked for compensation for the last week, but its a longer process, we wrote letters and everything to the owner, but we havent heard back yet.

Monday morning we finally get a call from our landlady and she says that everything has to be out by 5:00 and the place has to be spotless and she will come and return our bond and refund the last weeks rent. The problem was that we needed that bond back so we could secure the new place. We had to have our bond down and papers signed before we could start moving anything into the new place. None of us had the 3 grand sitting around in our banks to do this. We explained to the new real estate agent our situation and that we did have the money but it was just comming at the end of the day. We needed a place to move our stuff into. Long story short...the owner of the new place felt rushed in this whole thing and was now skeptical on even renting the place out to us. The agent told us that there was a 75% chance of this working out in our favor. So we took the risk. We moved everything out onto the sidewalk...now your probably wondering 'how much stuff can they have?' Let me tell you its funny how fast we've accumulated stuff. Couches, fridge, tv, tv stand, radios, dvd players, kitchen appliances, a wardrobe, and the list goes on. So were moving everything onto the sidewalk...now there is a funny thing here in Sydney, anything on the sidewalk is fair game for anybody...thats how we accumulated most of this stuff. So now that were moving our stuff out, we have people eyeing our stuff as they walk by. One guy actually picked up our luggage bags and without even looking whats inside just started walking away with as much as he could carry. We chased him down and he said he was very sorry...sure.

5:00 comes, our place is clean and empty our landlady comes, returns all the money....however that 25% kicked in, and we were now homeless. The owner decided not to rent to us. All our stuff was out on the sidewalk, we had our money, but no place to go...did I mention it was raining. I guess we sorta put all our eggs in one basket...and it dropped.

It was a good thing we didn't give our landlady all the keys back to the old place!! We moved everything back inside, and stayed the night. Now that was kinda risky because had she decided to come back...I am not sure what would have happened.

The next morning we got up early and tried to find some more options. We went down to the agency again...and turns out that the owner decided to rent to us after all!! What a relief. Things were getting a little tense. We singed all the papers as soon as we could, and moved everything into our new place.

The new place is a lot better. Its a fair bit smaller, but the kitchen is way newer, the place is cleaner looking, its fully furnished with nicer stuff, and the best part...it has internal laundry, . This is good because we used to spend 250 a month on laundry. The place is also cheaper rent. Its better all around. It has 2 rooms with 2 beds. There is still 5 of us, but Dan is leaving soon, so he is on the couch for a few weeks. Its in a much bigger building...there are about 15 apartments. It was a crazy few days, and we were all beat tired at the end of it...but it was definitally worth it.

Our new address in case anybody would like to send a love letter (it hasn't happened yet) is:

unit 13 286 Arden Street
Coogee 2034
New South Whales
Australia

Well thats it for now. Were going to the blue mountains this weekend...should be good.

There is never a dull moment here in Coogee!

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Photos

Stormy
Storms moving to the beach. The storms actually changed the shape so much that there is now surf on the beach. (coogee is the only beach in Sydney that regularly doesn't have surf)

Candle light
The last days in our old place makind dinner via candle light.

Our new pad
This was the extent of our move. You see all our stuff lining the side of the sidewalk?

The dirty work
...on rare occasion

Dinner
Our new friend Milan came over to make us dinner at the new place.

Family Dinner
Family and food!! thats milan at the back, and luis at the front

The STEW
19 litres of stew for TOM. Cooked for 3 days! It didn't turn out to good, but Tom eats it 4 times a day.

Coogee
i never get sick of the view here.