A posh little affair.....street performers and Sydney's creepy crawlies

Well well! It's so nice being able to type in the comfort of our home. No more sketchy internet cafes for us!

I just returned from the opening reception for the East Asia/Pacific Fulbright conference. It was in a swanky little club on the 16th floor of a building near to harbor so there were some great views. When I got into the room, I was the only person under the age of 45. Also, when they said the dress code at the reception was 'business casual' I didn't think it meant 'wear the nicest suit you possibly owned.' Everyone else did. I only have 1 suit and it is somewhere between Fargo and Sydney right now. I did manage to get myself to wear a tie.

All in all, it went much better than it started. I met some really nice Fulbright folks and some not so friendly ones(who shall remain nameless as I didn't bother remembering their names). There were two Americans involved with the Fulbright commissions from Tokyo and Beijing who were very friendly and knew about music and Indiana. There were several people who had actually been to Fargo! The US Consular General in Sydney was a very charming man who could either schmooze REALLY well or he really liked me. Also a diplomat from New Zealand gave me his card. The other Fulbright students I met were pretty nice. All the same questions were asked by everybody so I got really good at answering them(almost like a family reunion!) The food was very good but fairly scarce.

There are several more receptions later this week I get to go to.

Now onto a more amusing topic: the street performers of Sydney. They seem to be everywhere and are able to play anything! On the walkway of Circular Quay where all the ferries dock and cruise ships unload, there is a huge walk way that attracts some good and not so good performers. There are aboriginal men with their bodies painted playing didjeridoos(with a techno beat in the background), a harpist, a tuba player, steel drums, bagpipes(with the tightest grace notes I've ever heard!), human statues, a huge cross-eyed banjo player, accordion, an old Chinese man who is just learning violin as he plays, and my personal favorite: a guy in a donkey costume. He doesn't sing or dance, he's just dressed as a donkey. I put a few coins in the hat to see if he'd do anything and all I got was a hoof raised to shake my had and a very sincere 'Thank You!' Everytime I think about it, I laugh till my sides hurt!

And now onto another topic which merits mentioning: the bugs of Sydney. Prior to coming, we had heard about all the poisonous spiders of Australia. I assumed Sydney being very mild and moist of climate would be rife with creepy crawlies. When we moved in, I bought roach motels and prepared to declare war! We've slept with the window in our bedroom open(no AC) with no screen(they don't seem to be used in OZ) every night and all we've seen are several millers, a daddy longlegs spider, two beetles and a couple of gnats. All these have been sent on a nautical tour of Sydney's plumbing system. Now I'm not naive enough to think they're not there lurking in the shadows, but at least they stay out of sight so that I don't have to think about them. And if they do show up, I have shoes placed throughout the apartment(much to Ruth Ann's chagrin!!) to take care of them!

Ahhh, Australia! Land of charming diplomats, entertaining people, and polite bugs!

Have a good night!
~Mike

Back for good!

Hello once again! I am happy to report that WE HAVE BROADBAND!!!!!!!!!! HURRAH!!!! Now everytime Mike and I look at each other and say "This belongs in the blog!" we can actually rush over the computer and write an entry. I think this will make us both feel more connected with the world, since we will be able to check the weather. :o)
Our little apartment in Kirribilli is beginning to feel like home. Like I said before, we're right down the street from the Prime Minister and the Governor General. We're only a 5 minute walk to the wharf for the Kirribilli ferry, and at the other end of our street is a little park that stretches under the Harbour Bridge (aren't I becoming so British???). From there we have a clear view of the Opera House and all of the huge cruise ships that come in--including the QEII! Every night we take a walk down there and watch the waves and the little sailboats go up and down the harbor. There's always some couple having a moonlit picnic, too! (We have yet to do this :o)) Even though we're so close to the city lights we can see the Milky Way and quite a few constellations, though we don't know what any of them are yet. We'll get there!
When we first moved in, things weren't so peachy-keen. The very first day we had here was Terrible, and I mean Terrible with a capital T. :o( We had no furniture, so the very first thing we needed was clearly a bed--we had spent more than enough money on hotels as we tried to find an actual apartment and so had already checked out of the hotel. From the apartment, we walked about half a mile to the train station and went up to St. Leonards, which, according to the phone book, was Mattress Central. Luckily, all of the mattress stores were right on the main drag so we didn't have to wander all over the city. The first store we went into was owned by a crazy American from New York, and we had to admit that he had a lot of charms because we missed our home turf! They had a bed we wanted, but we couldn't have it until the following Thursday...a little bit long to be sleeping on hardwood floors! So we walked up and down Mattress Mile, trying all of the stores. We could have had a bed THAT DAY, but only if we were willing to spend $3000 on it. Sadly, we trooped back to Mr. Crazy American and told him that if he could tell us where to buy an air mattress, we'd be willing to wait a week. "Sure thing!" he says. "You'll need to go to Kangaroo City Tents, up in Chatswood."
Well, Chatswood has a train stop, and Kangaroo City Tents was on Victoria Avenue, which didn't seem to be that long and right near the train station. We thought our day was looking up. We boarded the train, made it to Chatswood, found Victoria Avenue.......and no Kangaroo City Tents. After consulting with a phone book and our large book of maps, it was discovered that Victoria Avenue stretches very far on the OTHER side of the train station. Sigh.
On the plus side, while en route to Kangaroo City Tents, we discovered Australian Target. You know all the jokes about Target being Tar-jay? Well, here in Oz it truly deserves to be called that. That was the most expensive Target I've ever seen. The cheapest iron we saw was for $40; there is no such thing as a $10 toaster; clothes hangers are made our of wood and so you can't buy 25 for $5; and trash cans are metal, so go for about $70. I've NEVER intended to make my trash can an investment piece, especially not in a foreign country where I have no intention of spending the rest of my life! I've always used Target as The Place to Go when I need something and can't think whereelse to get it. Not so with Tar-jay. They don't even sell Scotch tape! Let alone air mattresses!
Discouraged, we set out to find Kangaroo City Tents. About this time, the sun had come out and we both realized we had forgotten to apply sun screen that morning. We walked and we walked, gently roasting in the sun. Kangaroo City Tents was supposed to be at 195 Victoria Ave. We reached 196 Victoria Ave and...nothing. THEN we remembered the rule of Australian streets: just because 194 and 196 are on one side of the street does NOT mean that 195 will be right across from them. No, as a matter of fact, all bets are off knowing who your neighbors over the way are...In this case we were only at about 335 on the odd side of the street. That also does not mean that the 200 and then 100 blocks should follow; actually, we had to walk past every single odd numbered building between 335 and 195.
At least Kangaroo City Tents actually exists! It was a cute little store for all of your outback camping needs...including air mattresses. Now, I don't want to keep being the irritating American, but in the US, I've found air mattresses (at Target!) for $25, including an electric air pump. Here the air mattress cost us $40, and we had to spend $25 more on a hand pump--it was almost $50 for an electric one.
But we needed one and so bought it and moved on our merry way. Back into the sunshine, where we fried some more. Back to the train station, back to our home stop, back to our apartment where we applied sunscreen. Then we set out for a mall near our first hotel that had a Kmart (cheaper than Tar-jay for towels and dishes and the like) and also a cooking supply store where Mike had spotted and drooled over a set of pots and pans. To get to this mall involves a ferry ride and a bus ride, about 45 minutes total. We set about our way through Kmart, though without a shopping cart, for there were none to be had. Kmart here is terribly organized; prices are labelled wrong if they're labelled at all, and things don't really have much order in their shelving. But we bustled around and found pillows and sheets, winced at the price of towels so bought the cheapest we could find only to discover they leave fuzz everywhere, and found some cheap dishes. Then we went in search of fans.
Fans. A necessity in Australian life. You don't have A/C unless you're rich (we've discovered that if a store has A/C we probably can't afford to shop there) and the only way to survive the 35 degree heat (about 95--hotter in the sun) is WITH A FAN. By the way, on this day, it was over 35.
No fans appeared. Mike sat down in the patio furniture area while I went to search for a helpful clerk. I found one guy willing to be helpful, and when pressed for his fans, what do you think his answer was?

"We actually don't have any. We sold out a few weeks ago and aren't stocking any more because we're now into winter merchandise."





I actually said to him "YOU. DON"T. HAVE. ANY. FANS?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!"


When I came back to Mike I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. He laughed. Later we found your regular oscillating fan......for $90. We decided we'd rather be hot, and were in fact later able to find a 15 centimeter fan for only $10. We've named him Hoppy. He follows us every where we go.

So, after that frustration we managed to get out of Kmart and buy Mike's pots and pans and so forth. Thus ladened with at least 4 bags, we decided to head for home. Only to discover that since we had put on sunscreen, it was now POURING with all its might and main. We sat in the mall for a while and then gave up and caught a bus back to the wharves. Of course, in our distress with so many bags, we sat on the wrong wharf for 20 minutes and nearly missed our ferry, then struggled home up the hill with all of our packages, only to discover that in our box of dishes, 25% of them were broken.


!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What a day! Luckily, we've not had one that bad since :o) Actually, things are really settling in here. We have a membership to the Kirribilli Video Store and have discovered a fabulous new kind of ice cream--macadamia mango. We got our student IDs and email addresses, registered for classes, got lockers, and signed up for access to the postgraduate study room (--a fabulous place with computers and quiet area just for postgrads! Hurrah!!). Orchestra auditions are on Wednesday and I have my first lesson with Alexa on Friday. We've been offered VERY lucrative jobs at the music library (how many people knew I'd end up at the music library? Raise your hands!) and will start those next week. The food here is fabulous, but I'll leave that for Mike to talk about.
Speaking of Mike, he's off at his first fancy Fulbright function tonight. I've been left at home to do nothing but eat ice cream and type, but I'm not sure that I don't have the better end of the deal!
But now I should probably go do dishes. Good night!
~Ruth Ann
.

Getting our things in order

Hi again!
Sorry for the long gap between posts. We've had some crazy adventures trying to move into our new apartment. But despite sunburn and fatigue, we are mostly settled. We have a couch, a desk and a table, a bed coming on Thursday, a phone line connected today and broadband being connected next Monday. So things are moving along!
We have all kinds of funny stories to report about Australian Targets and KMarts and "winter merchandise." In a week we'll be out of our sketchy intenet cafe and can write in peace. Stay tuned!
~Ruth Ann

No longer homeless!!

Happy news!!! Today we FINALLY got the OK that we really and truly can have an apartment. WHEW!!!!
We will be living in Kirribilli, right across the harbor (excuse me, harboUr) from the Opera House and only a 5 minute walk from the wharf. Which means that I can fulfill my dream of taking a ferry to school everyday :) We also live right down the road from the Governor-General. We will take every opportunity to hob-nob. Think he'll be our welcome wagon when we move in? Greet us with fresh baked bread??
We get the keys on Wednesday so now get to start finding dishes and towels, etc. BUT WE HAVE A HOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

~Ruth Ann

P.S. We've had several comments posted that are not in the spirit of our blog...First of all, we'd like everybody to sign their names! It's rather difficult if all of our friends are named Anonymous. :o) Also, we have no qualms about deleting your comments...so please be nice!

Australian showers and other mysteries

Well, thanks to Stuart, we now know more about metric paper than any human being should. :o) (Stuart being my fabulous bother...er...brother-in-law who works for Apple.) He will be glad to know, though, that the other day as Mike and I were headed to the lobby with our Power Book in our hands, we were stopped by a lovely British gentleman. "It's good to see another Mac user!" he said. "It's a sign of higher evolution." We think so, too!

We've settled nicely into our new hotel. We both got at least 10 hours of sleep last night...The beds are SO SOFT! I have to say bedS because although it's advertised as a queen sized bed, it's definitely two twins pushed together. Maybe this is the metric bedding system. We're on the 12th floor, so have a great view, and even did our laundry last night on the 45th floor. The only problem with the room is the shower. Alas, we cannot figure out Australian showers. The hot is really hot and the cold is really cold. It's impossible to find the right balance, so you're constantly running in and out of the stream of water screaming in scalded agony or squealing in frigidity. There are only shower curtains, and the lip on the floor around the shower itself is less than an inch. Which means that with all this dodging in and out, much water is splashed all over the floor. That might explain the extra drain on the floor near the trashcan.......

Other oddities that we've noticed in our apartment hunting is the decided lack of closet space! Apparently no one has a clean streak in them or they just enjoying showing everything. We'd like to find a place to hide our ridiculously sized suitcases, but they may end up becoming defacto coffee tables. Oh yes--kitchens almost never come with fridges, and only if you're lucky do you get a stove/oven. These all have to be rented.

Despite these odd quirks, we did have a housing breakthrough yesterday. We talked to a leasing agent that told us exactly what was necessary for us to do as overseas applicants, and then gave us the secret heads up: after we see a place in a mass viewing/cattle call, we should rush over to the leasing office. If we can give them one week's worth of rent, they will process our application first and hold the apartment for us until our application clears. !!!!!!!!!! It sounds little better than a bribe, but if that's what it takes to get us our own temperaturly-challenged shower, then so be it!
~Ruth Ann

A happy post

We've decided that we've been complaining too much so here's a cheerful post! Today we went and looked at two apartments! Neither was our dream apartment either would do in a pinch! But we can't extend our stay at this hotel any longer, so tomorrow we have to move across town! Then we're going to see another apartment!!!!!! :o) :o) :o) :o)
To answer some questions by our faithful readers:
-No
-Yes
-It could be, but I doubt it
-No
La, you'd have loved how we fit those suitcases in that tiny car. We fit one big one and two of our carry on bags in the trunk; Mike pulled the front passenger seat as far forward as it would go so we could set the other large bag on the backseat floor. The two smaller bags went next to me in the back seat; my backpack was at my feet and I held the bassoon the whole ride there. Mike's knees were jammed into his face. It was a long car ride. (Also because we had to try and make conversation with a zany lady with little or no sense of humor...) (P.S. I've started writing you a letter...)
Harms--I have no idea what the exact specs are for a metric sheet of paper. It's a little bit taller and not quite as wide. As soon as I can get a ruler I'll let you know :o)
BobE--No Foster's yet! We've yet to try out the Sydney scene.
A very amusing anecdote from last Sunday: We had lunch at Circular Quay before petting wallabies. (CQ is the main hub for all the ferries running across the harbor.) Since it's so close to the water, there were seagulls and pigeons everywhere, begging for snippets of our lunch. One bugger of a seagull kept getting closer...and closer...and closer...until he finally took flight and dove straight for the sandwich IN MY HANDS! I saw him coming and shrieked but that didn't stop him. He actually took off with a wad of my bread. HMPH!!!!!!!
And now, to tell you all about our secret indulgence, Australian TV, is Mike!
~Ruth Ann

As we're sitting in our room night after night without a whole lot to do, there has been one little slice of happiness and entertainment that has kept us sane. It's called "Home and Away" and it is the king of Australian soap operas. We don't quite know what the overall premise of the show is but here's the low down on what's going on:
Martha is a do-gooder who is infiltrating a cult that has its community out in the bush ('The Farm'). Mamma Rose is the leader of this cult and tries to control everyone, INCLUDING MARTHA!!! Martha is trying to save her friend, Tasha, who is being wooed by Jonah, the son of Mamma Rose. Mamma Rose made Jonah drug Tasha and impregnate her to make her stay. This baby will give faith to the 'believers.' We think Jonah is questioning her so he may not have done that. Robbie is the boyfriend of someone(we can't figure that out). He's the namby-pamby tool who is running errands for the corrupt mayor who is sleeping with the trophy wife of Robbie's grandfather. These two(mayor and trophy wife) have something to do with the believers and are trying to thwart Robbie who is trying to find out what's going on. Meanwhile, Matha is trying to convince her boyfriend, Jack the cop, that the believers have someone(possibly Robbie's girlfriend?) locked up in an underground pit.
Things are really getting excited and tense! We can hardly wait what is going to happen next on our story. We'll let you know ASAP!! We'd write more, but it comes on in only a few minutes!!!!!!!
~Mike

We're still here

Hi again--
After a strange night where we both woke up for good around 3:30 we've continued in our apartment hunting. We're going to look at two more places tomorrow and have all of our documents in a row so we can throw our qualifications in their faces. This feels like applying for jobs! We did talk to someone at the international housing office who told us that the suburbs we've chosen to apply for aren't used to renting to students and are notoriously snobbish. We're supposed to push the fact that we're engaged and thus "family oriented," plus show all kinds of documentation showing every tie we have to Australia...bank accounts, Australian references, if we had a third cousing four times removed who once vacationed here, that might help as well.
On the plus and amusing side, today Mike was mistaken as being from the UK! The teller at the bank was absolutely convinced.
We also ran into Kim Walker today, the dean of the conservatory and Mike's old bassoon teacher. She's taking us to dinner on Saturday and pretty much assured us of getting us jobs. At least we don't have to search for those on top of an apartment!!
But now we're REALLY SLEEPY so more later!
~Ruth Ann
(Mike says zzzzzzzzzzzzzz)

Monday is no good!

All right guys, don't bother with monday. If at all possible avoid it. Stay in bed and sleep until tuesday. (You guys are lucky you have us to tell you how the day is going to go!).

~mi......

At this point Mike collapses with exhaustion and tells me to step in. Well, let's see. We got on a bus coming back from practicing that should have taken us back to our hotel, but it took us to the casinos down on the water and called "Last stop!" We then had to hike it all the way from Darling Harbor back to the hotel, almost an hour, lugging our instruments and in 90 degree heat.

When we arrived back at the hotel, we found that we had been rejected for the apartment we applied for on Saturday. Only because we're American, we think. The housing process here is very odd...there's no way that we would have been rejected from this apartment in the US. Here's how it works: There is no equal housing act whatsoever. Also, within one apartment building, every unit is owned by a separate landlord, and thus they all use a separate leasing agent. You can rarely get a private viewing; instead you have the show up at the prearranged 15 minutes on a Saturday where you can view both the apartment and all of your competition. If you like the place you take and application and have to get it in by Monday morning, at which point they review the applications.

We had found this fabulous place north of the harbor, and grabbed an application. We got it in ON SATURDAY, spouting that Michael was a Fulbright scholar over and over and over again. I had proof from our last apartment that we paid all the bills on time. We have Australian references, those being the head of the wind department at the conservatory and the dean of the conservatory herself. We know that our references were called, and the agent sent us a very positive email on Saturday. This afternoon we just got the voicemail that "Someone else got their application in last minute" and our "application looked great except that we didn't have Australian references."

AGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, the search goes on....and on....and on................We are so tired of living out of suitcases, and I personally don't love living RIGHT in downtown. I'd like to get a bit of peace.



On the plus side, we did get to go to the Tarango zoo yesterday! We had our pictures taken with koalas and even were two of the lucky few to get to pet a wallaby! But the best were the two baby snow leopard cubs with big paws climbing all over each other and their mommy. Pictures to follow :o)
~Ruth Ann

Does this spell the end of our Australian adventure and, by vicarious extension, yours too? Will our heroic, intrepid duo fight this one out or will they be crushed in the gaping maw of Sydney housing? Stay tuned! Find out on the next posting!

~Krazy(at the moment) Mike

Where the hell are we?

Hey everyone! We are ALIVE and in Australia now!(and have been for the last four days). It's been very surreal so far. We were picked up at the airport by a zany Australian lady with a TINY little car! I thought that when I came here, nobody would know where North Dakota was and so I didn't have to go through being laughed at. The second person we had contact with(the hotel desk clerk) saw that I was from Fargo and burst out laughing!!! There's a mix of the familar with the completely bizarre and we are so completely exhausted that all we can do is laugh at it and fall asleep. Jet lag doesn't seem like it would be a problem until about 5:30pm when we normally hit the wall. It's been very hot here and we've walked all over the place so we've sweat a good deal. We have a cell phone now(email us if you want the number) and hopefully we'll have an address on Monday afternoon. The food has been great! There seem to be more Thai restaurants than anything else so we've had a lot of that.

~Mike

~The hotel front desk clerk does a nice imitation of the Fargo accent
~The water really does go down backwards
~The trains are double-decker
~Australian money looks like monopoly money. It comes in denominations of $50, $20, $10 and $5, but $2 and $1 are in coins. There are no pennies, and no quarters, just a 20 cent piece. It still all looks alike to me.
~We just got laughed at by the front desk for our "American paper." We were trying to send a fax and the front desk agent went to the back office and said really loudly "DID YOU KNOW THAT AMERICANS USE A DIFFERENT SIZE PAPER???" We are sadly behind the times.
~We are becoming very adept at Celcius...Today it was only 23, which is a nice change from the 35 it was on Thursday. The weather report says something about it "freshening" this afternoon and it will " become fine" tomorrow afternoon.
~Our hotel room is very small but very tall
~Australian TV is predominantly American or American inspired. Wheel of Fortune just isn't right without Vanna!
~Not only does Australian paper come in metric sizes, SO DO THE CRACKERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yours, on her way to being an Aussie,
~Ruth Ann