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
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