Living in a Garage

10/30/11 – Sydney, Australia

Today we started on a high, excited and anxious to move into our new apartment, but we were brought down to a rough low when we found out that our keys would not be available for pick up until tomorrow.  It was hard enough lugging our luggage across the ferry and down the bumpy streets, but with nowhere to stay, our moods were a bit dark.  We ended up having to resort to a hotel, so we stayed at the one closest to our apartment to create an easy move in the morning.  It was a stressful day to say the least, but at least the hotel was really nice and had our favorite, FREE Wi-Fi!

10/31/11 – Manly, Australia

(Tommy rolls our luggage from the hotel to our apartment...we borrowed their trolly)

Today was a great day!  We finally got our key to our apartment and made the official move in.  I am hoping you are wondering why this blog is titled: Living in a Garage.  Well, atypical to the normal front door of a house or an apartment, our front door is a garage door.  Yes, we literally have to enter our apartment through a garage door that opens by an automatic button on a key chain...  After the garage door electrically opens, we walk through a huge garage space that includes a grill and ping-pong table as well as a vast amount of bare open space.  Exiting out the back of the garage we find ourselves on small outdoor patio with a glass table ready to be used on a hot summer’s day.  Finally we have made it to the actual apartment space, which is entered through a typical sliding glass door that steps up into our living room.  This is Tommy’s favorite part of the apartment because we have a massive flat screen TV.  Our apartment is fully furnished from the appliances and linens to the furniture.  We have a washer and dryer, thank gosh, that is tucked away in the corner of the living room hidden by closet doors.  The living room connects into the kitchen, which leads into the bathroom and study through two different doors.  The study can also be used as a guest bedroom as it has bunk beds in the corner…feel free to come visit!  And last but not least, the study/makeshift guestroom leads into the master suite, which basically consists of the queen size bed, a pretty big closet, and a few dresser drawers.  That is our lovely little apartment in a nutshell, and boy do we feel fortunate and love it! 

We did our first grocery shopping today at the market a few blocks down the road, easy enough to walk to after departing through our remote controlled garage door.  Grocery shopping led to our first home cooked meal, which was actually a pretty exciting feeling.  The two of us were like giddy little kids bubbling with excitement all day from just the idea of having our own place. 

I almost forgot to say “HAPPY HALLOWEEN” to everyone, although it is an American holiday and not very well celebrated in Australia.  It is actually catching on here, but we did not receive any trick-or-treaters knocking on our garage door, so instead bought a few candy bars to celebrate the holiday on our own…in our new apartment!  Clearly I am so excited to finally be moved in to our own place.  I will just remind everyone that our garage door can easily roll open for all of you who are now on your way to visit us for the opportunity to sleep in our glorious bunk beds. 

 

Our Garage and Patio 

 

Our Living Room and Kitchen Area

     

Our Bathroom and Bedroom

11/1/11 – Manly, Australia

Cooking our own breakfast this morning was just as exciting as making our own dinner last night.  The two of us are really not hard to entertain, and our fear of boredom of each other and our jobless lives was quickly forgotten as we settled into the idea of cooking, beach-going, part-time jobs, and the simple bliss of having our own apartment.

Today was the Melbourne Cup, a huge horse race held in Melbourne every year that shuts down the nation for the festivities that go along with the races.  Bigger than watching the races and betting on the horses is the fashion of the races.  Girls show up in their flowery sundresses and massive ugly hats looking like a plant has sprouted out of their heads, while boys flaunt their pastel suits with the occasional top hat.  What it basically comes down to is that Australians love any excuse to drink loads of alcohol, and the Melbourne Cup is one of those great opportunities.  The telltale description of the event would be that girls and boys show up dressed to the nines, and stumble home at the end of the day looking like a raggedy mess. 

As Tommy and I strolled home from the bars, we walked past the beach volleyball nets reminding me of the job I was interested in.  Yesterday we saw some girls out coaching on the courts and I thought, “What a perfect job for me!”  I truly have Tommy to thank who reminded me to look into a coaching job, and I just applied.  Fingers crossed…

One of our great home cooked meals eaten out on our patio.

11/2/11 – Manly, Australia

Well that was dang fast!  After a night of sleep, I woke up to an email offering me a coaching job.  Who knew it would be so easy to get a job, and a fun one at that.  I assumed I would meet with the manager and hopefully hear back from him about the job. Well, I went in and saw the manager, and an hour later I was down on the beach courts coaching my first group.  PAY DAY IS COMING!  Today I coached a group of 4th grade girls fulfilling their PE requirement for their school day.  After an easy hour of volleyball I am $40 richer; now that is what I call a job!  

11/3/11 – Manly, Australia

One word: COCKROACHES.  We have now been living in our lovely apartment for 4 days and we have killed 5 cockroaches…GROSS!  What seemed to be the perfect place that we had been idolizing started to turn up some special surprises, such as the cockroaches, the bugs in the cooking supplies, and the shower mat that is actually not slip proof as Tommy painfully found out.  I would say that reality has hit just a bit. 

The good news is we made contact with other people today!  Yes, we usually spend our days alone wishing we had some friends, failing in our attempts to get an in with the clicky Aussie groups already formed from growing up here, but today we got to do some socializing.  This is really important for us to do because without having other people to hang out with, Tommy and I can get a bit on each other’s nerves.  We met up with Hanna and Jon, the people who lived in our apartment before us, for dinner and drinks.  They were probably wondering why Tommy and I seemed so happy and would not shut up, but little did they know that they are 2 of 4 friends we have here in Sydney.  We actually had a great time with them, and at the end I told them to PLEASE feel free to give us a call whenever they wanted to meet up again because we were always free, always.  Some useful information they passed along about the apartment was that the big black plug in that makes an annoying clicking sound is actually important to leave plugged in because the frequency of the click keeps bugs, in particular cockroaches, away.  Hmmm, the plug in that Tommy so happily unplugged the first day to charge his computer…no wonder why we have a million cockroaches! 

My defense against the onion...

11/4/11 – Manly, Australia

Tommy and I were ready for another adventure.  We set off to hike to the top of North Head where we could see the amazing lookout where the harbor opens up into the ocean, and turn around to be greeted by the entire city line.  We saw this view when we went to Doyles Seafood for dinner on the opposite side of the harbor opening, so we figured it was time to hike the side we are now living in.  What we thought would be a quick hour-long hike to the top turned out to be a few hours longer than that…  This seems to be a repeating theme with the two of us.  We set out on these great adventures and underestimate how long and challenging they are really going to be.  

Hiking North Head was really neat because there is a Memorial Walk that takes up one large part of the trail showing the history and memory of the Australian soldiers who fought in all of their different wars.  After taking in the gorgeous views at the tip, we decided to take the long way down, following the street out to the harbor side of Manly.  Tommy was really keen on finding Reef Beach, which is where the penguins in Manly apparently spend their days, but he did not realize that this was probably another 2-3 hour walk.  We did attempt it having no idea how far it really was, and after walking for an hour on already tired legs, we decided we should turn around and head back.  My stubborn little mind was convinced that if we kept going on the same trail it would cut us back to Manly Beach, of course I was wrong.  Instead we headed another 30 minutes in the absolute wrong direction before Tommy told me I was never allowed to be in charge of directions again.  I don’t blame him because I clearly have no sense of direction.  A big glass of water sounded like a great way to refresh my body, but of course my fratty boyfriend thought two beers would do the trick for us instead.

11/5/11 – Manly, Australia

Happy Anniversary to us!  Today is our year and a half anniversary.  For some reason to Tommy this meant the sky was the limit today, and I definitely was not complaining.  After I finished coaching my volleyball class for the day, Tommy picked me up and we headed to the wharf to catch the ferry to the city.  It was weird how it felt like we were going home after spending so much time there before our cruise, and was nice to go back and visit all of our favorite spots. 

We mistakenly did not make a reservation on the busy Saturday night, but got lucky to slip into a table at an excellent, jam-packed Thai restaurant back in Manly enjoyed with a celebratory bottle of wine.  This is going to be pretty hard to believe, but we did not even have any room for a Max Brenner treat when we were done, and you know I ALWAYS have room for dessert.