Thursday 09 July 2009

Time: 2319
Yes, I Sold Out…to Ugg.

He he. If you’re reading this from EST, you are probably wayyyy confused about the time right now. Like my bank. I tried to arrange a payment to happen instantaneously, and I got this little error message that demanded “You cannot arrange a payment for a date that has already passed!” Yeah…okay, silly bankers. More importantly, though, you know what this means? That’s right. I’M GOING TO SEE THE NEW HARRY POTTER MOVIE AT LEAST 14 HOURS BEFORE YOU.

MWA HA HA

…in other news, I got an apartment! Yup…as you can imagine, the last several days have been ra’r nutso. Monday and Tuesday, I spent between 7 and 10 hours!!!! per day on the phone with the University and the “The Scholarship” people and the telephone company, until one of them denied me service, one sent me a bank account card, and the other accepted me as a student, possibly not in that order. I think by the end of the day I was calling people, and then asking them their names (“I’m sorry, yes I know I called you, but can you just remind me who you are and why I called you?”)

Wednesday, Frank took me round the University (they say Uni here. It’s a lot easier) and from about 9 in the morning til 6 in the evening we looked at apartments. We poked our noses into leafy backyards, plucked at clotheslines, shook dust from curtains, knocked and knocked and knocked on doors, rang reluctant landlords, peered into kitchen sinks, removed our shoes for someone’s shag carpet, watched a little girl in pink tights demonstrate the loo (“this is how you flush it”), stared in horror at the overflowing bucket jury-rigged under a dripping pipe, and again and again drove the routes (“ok, this one is 1.6 kilometres to the Laundromat, but the left front window is broken and there’s a smoker living in the flat below and the bus only runs every half hour once a week on Sundays and public holidays…”) During a two-hour break in the middle of the day, we ate lunch and met some really fantastic people at the Uni …and I think I’m enrolled…so that’s all right.

So today I called back the owner of the 3rd flat I looked at yesterday, and applied. Tomorrow (Friday) Alice and I are going to make a journey into town. We’ll explore the bus routes, so I have something of a clue once I’m on my own…seriously, instead of big blue and white signs with a B for Bus, here it’s this complicated yellow sign with a picture that may be a bus or may be a train or may actually just say something like “Traffic Calming, Drive Slowly” but you can’t tell until you get within two centimeters and push your nose up against it. We’ll hit the markets, because I need a pair of boots like every other gal in this city wears with her miniskirts(did I mention Ugg is Australian? Oh and did I mention it’s COLD?) Then it’s off to 47 MOIRA CRESCENT, RANDWICK, my new flat…(doesn’t it just roll off your tongue?) My new landlord Bruce is handing over the keys and I’m handing over a coupla large bank checks (that was another hassle today because apparently the student account set up for me at an Aussie bank DOES NOT entitle me to my own Personal Checks…yeeeeeah).

The important thing is, as of tomorrow, I will have an apartment. AND…my very own pair of Uggs.