Quick update

So, a quick recap of our week before last before I move on to the good stuff from this past week, yes I know I'm behind, I don't know if I'll ever be ahead again.

So, two weeks ago, Monday, Andrew's car get stolen from the bus parking lot while he's at work, they find the car later that night and it turns out when the people stole it they decided to do a little B&E with it, so the car was used to cart away stolen goods, such a good feeling. We still don't have the car back but Andrew is a little worried it's going to feel weird when he drives it again, I'm sure the guys messed it up so I won't be that surprised.

Tuesday, they turned out electricity off because they lost our paperwork from November applying for electricity in our townhouse and decided that 4 months later was a good time to take some action. Andrew had even spoken to them earlier that day and straightened everything out because we got a letter but since it was in their system to turn ours off a technician was already on its way, something they failed to tell Andrew. After repeated phone calls and promises that someone was coming we finally got power back sometime on Wednesday. It really syched me up for my first day at the new job getting ready for work in the dark.

I started the new job Wednesday, I wasn't in my office but at the main office which is just down the road from here so I could get trained in their software and what exactly I need to do. The girl who was training me, Andy, was really nice and incredibly helpful. Luckily she had been on maternity leave recently so she had a whole binder full of typed notes she handed over to me that gave me a step-by-step on every task. It was a good couple of days to slowly ease me into the Ray White company. My office is part owned by the main office and part owned by this guy Ben.

Friday afternoon I finally got to head out to my office for a few hours to figure out the phone systems, the printer, where everything is set-up and get my space the way I want it. It's a very small office, we've just added a 7th realtor to our group which is very exciting. Because it's so small I sit at the front and do a bit of reception work as well since we don't have the money or space to hire one.

Last weekend Andrew and I went to see a few more houses, one of them being in Gowrie (the suburb his parents live in) and out of our price range. Sadly, prices are so out of control here that we realized we have to bring our price range up a bit. We decided that we actually really like the place, even if the current owner hung sheets all down his driveway, over the garage and put umbrellas in the bushes, plus sat in the garage while the open house was on, he was the first thing you saw when you walked down the driveway so it was a bit weird. We ended up talking to him a bit because he had put giant roll down metal security shutters on all the doors and windows that completely lock the house and I just wanted to make sure it wasn't for an actual security reason. He is a real nice guy and was happy to answer all of our questions.

On our way home that day we decided to talk to Andrew's parents about the actual possibility of raising or price range a bit so we could make an offer on the house.

Well, I'm off for a 30kms bike ride now, I'll fill in on last week and this weekend tonight when I'm home.

Melbourne has the second largest Greek population in the world, after Athens.

Two weekends ago was so much fun. Andrew headed off to the Gold Coast for his friend Will's Buck's Weekend (their version of a bachelor party) and I ran away to meet Rod and Liv in Melbourne. After a 3 hours delay I landed safely in Melbourne to see the end of Satan's revenge on the city, which was what I'm calling the massive storm that hit the city. Roofs collapsed, cars were destroyed, train stations were closed and streets were flooded. It was chaotic, and was the cause for my massive delay and it taking me another 2 hours to get from the airport to our hostel.

The hostel was really nice, we had a room for just the three of us just down from the bathrooms, with a flat screen tv and plenty of room to move around, and since it was a hostel it was incredibly cheap, we might give it a try if we meet in the city again.

After I was given time to dry off the three of us headed off through the rain to meet with some other friends of ours, Mick (another Aussie) and his girlfriend Pil(a Dane like Liv) who just moved back to Melbourne from London recently and a few of their friends. The bar we went to was so trendy we walked past it 3 times before we saw the birdcage hanging over the door that was the only sign for the Red Hummingbird.

After a few drinks there Mick led us to the italian district to a restaurant owned by an acquaintance of Mick's father. The food was absolutely amazing, I had a massive bowl of delicious pasta and split a small pizza with Liv and Rod, we just couldn't help ourselves, it all smelled so good. I am surprised that we managed to walk out of there once we were done eating, I just can't get over how good it was, and not expensive at all. If anyone is heading to Melbourne eat at Cafe Trevi. From dinner we walked a few doors down to a nearby bar for some pool. Everyone was disappointed that Andrew had to miss out so we're going to plan another weekend soon.

Saturday Liv and I did a bit of shopping meeting up with Rod for meals before the three of us hopped a free trolley down to check-out the Docklands where we looked at a photography gallery and had some ice cream while wandering around the shops and waterfront. We relaxed in the room for a bit with a few beers and Uno while we waited to see if the storm was going to hit again, which it of course did as soon as we stepped outside.

Because of all the rain we were running from shelter to shelter be it a doorway, bus stop or even a tree, so we decided to turn it into a rain pub crawl and stop at bars along the way to stay dry. We started at this cool Hawaiian bar where we partook of the happy hour cocktails, I went for a Mai Tai which was very good just not as good as the ones Dad makes, they must have used less rum.

Mai Tai's in the rain, so good

From there we went to a brew house to try some locally made beer before grabbing a quick dinner of fast food and locating an irish pub with live music. We stuck at the pub longest, mainly because of the live music and the ridiculously cheap beer.

Brewhouse:

Not a bar but a really tasty treat

There were lobsters, crabs, fishes and we have no idea what the one on the top left is, if anyone has an idea. They were all in the window of an asian restaurant

Irish pub:

Monday was our last day and Liv and I were very excited about getting to go to Ikea, it is the closest one for her and my closest one is in Sydney so this was my first time to get to go since being here. We had the best time and it was really hard for me to control myself and not buy things since I wouldn't be able to get it home with me. They dropped my in the city on their way out of town so I could try and see some things before heading to the airport. As luck would have it soon after they left me it started pouring rain again. I started walking towards the train station. I decided to avoid the rain for a bit and hid out in this great little pub called Insigna right across from the Aquarium. It has incredibly comfortable couches and a great decor and was very hard to leave though luckily the rain had stopped by that point.

This past week was sadly my last one at ASADA since my contract was ending and as I'm not a resident I'm not allowed to stay. Luckily I've been getting a good amount of interviews and Thursday I was given an offer from one of the main real estate companies in Canberra. They have just opened a new office and have asked me to come in and run the office, kind of scary to think I am going to be in charge of people, weird. We'll have to see how it goes.

This past weekend we had drinks Friday night with some of the kids from my work and than went home to meet some of Andrew's s friend to watch some football. Saturday we had to do some house hunting, it's a very grim market out there right now and so far we haven't found anything as much as the place that we went to auction for on Wednesday. We were really excited about the auction and thought we had a very good chance of getting it, the bank evaluated it at $375 , the place ended up going for $422, so absurd, only two people bid and everyone else stood around in shock. But we continue on, this weekend we'll do some more looking. So everyone fingers crossed that we find something soon that we like. Until...well probably Sunday cause I know I'm super behind with this.


ps- we're on fire....or they were doing some backburning and the wind picked up
I know the bottom two pictures may not look very impressive but there are houses, towers and mountains hidden in that smoke, I'll take a non-smoke picture tomorrow for comparison