First Day of spring

Today is first day of spring, and what a great start! It is like all the trees got programmed to get their leaves out over-night and the sun is shining with not a cloud in sight. It was very hot walking to work and I can only imagine what it will be like in the summer. I'll have to take the bus to get the benefit of air conditioning. Getting home I found the thermometer on the balcony and it was showing 31 degrees - which is not bad for spring. I went away planning for our first dinner on the sunny balcony, but had to re-plan as I suddenly got reminded that it was only first day of spring - not summer. The sun went down :-( It still gets dark before 6pm.

No posh lunch today

For the first time since arriving we have not had a Sunday lunch in a posh eatery, for various reasons.
a) We've done all the obvious waterfront seafood eateries - Lars & Mia, need some suggestions please
b) It was not sunny
c) They had an event called Malaysia Day - so thought we could pick up some decent Malaysian food
d) We had lots of unpacking to do, so could not really motivate spending several hours on lunch, given the reasons above
The Malaysia Day did not provide anything delicious, so we stopped for a quick burger on the way home. Overall the event was not very interesting

Unpacking is moving forward. We have almost fitted all the furniture in a reasonable configuration and most of the books are unpacked as well. It will be another week or so of chaos but we are doing much better than normally when moving houses

On the news today we were told it had been the coldest August in Sydney for 65 years. Hmm, considering it is in the middle of the winter I had expected worse. Most days has been 8-10 degrees in the morning and 15-20 in the afternoon, which I consider a very decent winter. However my friends at work have been complaining a lot.

The tedious task of un-packing

Last night we went out to watch the cricket in the bar next door and for once England did a good job and beat South Africa. Unfortunately due to the time difference we could only watch the first session and had to listen to the radio when we got home.

We have started un-packing and re-organising. It is not entirely easy to fit all of our belongings into 88 square meters, or just your normal 2 bedroom flat, but we are making progress. Martin is making me un-pack absolutely everything, even boxes I have not opened since I left Sweden last in 1999. I guess he has a point, un-pack and use or throw it away. Today I think we have done around 30 boxes and there are only about 10 or so left.
Unfortunately the bed was not put together properly, so we are back sleeping on the sofa bed, until we find the missing part, but at least we have a proper mattress etc.

The garage I rented for Little Car did not work out, so today I have also been looking for another one. As he is still stuck in customs, I have bought a little bit of time.

Tomorrow we will meet the people we have swapped cars with and get the keys to their Mazda 121, which we will use as "shopping & exploring" car. They got the keys to our Audi yesterday and did not complain yet about the fact that I spilled 5 litres of paint in the back seat just before I left.

Our stuff has arrived

On wednesday our stuff arrived minus boat and car which are still stuck in customs. I was right - the flat is way too small. It was very chaotic when they tried to fit everything in and un-pack. We still have probably 50 boxes left to un-pack but we are getting there. I found one I had not un-packed since I left Sweden in 1999, so probably don't need the things in there. However it is nice to sleep in a bed and sit on a sofa and have a table to put things on. There is no room for a dining table so happy we did not ship that. We will have all our dinner parties on the balcony.

In the middle of un-packing and cooking of dinner the firealarm went off. I am sure it was not me, as I had to disable the smoke alarms early on in order to be able to cook dinner each evening ;-). We waited for a while and looked out from the balcony, but could not see any smoke, but as it did not stop we went out in the lobby where we met our neighbours. The guys at the fron of the building could not see anything either and just when we decided to go back in, the speaker system told us to evacuate. We thought of taking the lift, but in the end decided to be good and walk down the 19 floors.
around floor 13 we could no longer hear the alarm, so got out to the lobby to take the lift back up. The lift was full of firemen who asked if we had a swipe-card for the 20th floor. We offered to take them to 19 and they could walk one. Scary, what if there really is a fire on a specific floor and the firement can't get access?

I hate shopping!

I really do hate shopping. They never have anything I want, or if they do - they don't have my size.
Bored with the contents of Sydney City we ventured out on the train and the bus (no car yet) to the big outlet stores. I was after some work trousers, just plain cotton chinos. Normal trousers nothing strange or odd. In the Ralph Lauren store they had Ladies ones which had low waist and flared legs, and Men's ones which were normal and straight but not my size. I have figured out I can by kiddie ones size 16-18 years, but they did not have those either.
So, off to the Tommy store. Same thing there. Girlie ones were weird. Gave up on trousers, off to get some boat shoes. They had them in several shops but only men's sizes. Are there no women sailors out there? Were do you buy your shoes?
Finally I found a shirt, which Martin bought for me (together with his trousers which were very nice). The shirt was typical me though, stripes in three colours. Mainly blue, but one red sleeve and one green sleeve.

Just got the keys to the garage I rented for Little car and Little boat ;-)

Belongings on their way

My stuff is arriving!
The only thing so far is that Quarantine complained about the wheels on Martins boat-trolley. They were apparently dirty and we were charged 350 AUD for cleaning them. That is about 175 pounds or 1800 Swedish kronor. You might ask, buy bother paying that much for cleaning - the only other option was to have them disposed of. That cost 275 dollars as they still have to clean them.

Anyhow, if everything goes to plan they will be moving in everything except the boat and the car in the flat on Wednesday. I have no idea how everything will fit, but will be working from home and direct the removal lads - and if some things don't fit, I now have a parking space for little car, with some additional storage space. I will sign the contract tomorrow and it feels good to have somewhere to store the surplus items and that Little car has a dry and safe place to live. I am not sure when he will arrive as he has not cleared custome yet.
I think I will have to do some more clearing out anyway and sell some more things on Ebay (Tradera). The thing is, the flat is 88 square meters which is really not small for 2 people.

Will let you know how it goes and how much does not fit ;-). I know some of you are reading my ramblings (as I have a counter), but not who - feel free to leave comments - so it is not just a one-way communication. I think you can choose if your comments are private or public ;-)

When in doubt - Use Excel

Have spent the morning analyzing the effects of the sales team giving away things on my project for free - again! At lunch time we agreed it was just a small disaster for my department, but not for the company as a whole, so they got OK. I however had to analyze the changes to explain the difference between my expected baseline and the newly proposed one. After several hours of trying to understand the extent and reasons for the changes and get the figures to tie up, I made a brand new Excel spreadsheet to analyze how things were linked. It did not tie up (I was not as stupid as I thought) so asked a work mate to help finding the variance. It turned out there was a mistake in a previous spreadsheet that had not been spotted. This lowered my margin even more. At least now, all figures tie up - and I can spend the weekend working on explanations.

But not tonight - need a few hours off. Martin is buying and cooking something exciting for dinner.

Parking for 2 cars

You suddenly remember you live in the City when Parking becomes a major problem. Our flat comes with one underground parking space, but we are soon to be with 2 cars. Little Car, obviously are coming over and we have also arranged to swap one of our cars in the UK with the family from Sydney who are rentling our house, so I need another space. As their car will not be registered to us, we cannot get an on-street parking permit, so we have to rent another space.

Yesterday we looked at a space which was advertised as secure, but it really wasn't. It was just a space in a parking garage that could be accesses by anyone. However, today I spoke to a lady who claims to have a secure lock-up garage for rent about half way between home and work. I will have a look at it tomorrow, hopefully it is nice enough for Little Car, and then we can have the "every-day" car in our building.

Parrots and other fish

Most of the time I don't really think about being in Australia as different (apart from that it is sunny every day), as most things are the same, but when you get parrots flying around in the wild you suddenly stop and notice. There were several of them outside a house and they were really nice. The picture above is taken without zoom and they were not scared of me at all.

As it was Sunday, we headed off to the Fish Market for lunch. You can choose to buy your lunch from "take-away" places around the market and then sit outside in the sun and eat, or eat at one of the proper restaurants. As all the nice tables were taken and the Seagulls seemed a bit aggressive, we decided to try another branch of the Doyle's Restaurants. The food was nice (I had grilled Whitings and Martin had Tandoori Barramundi), but the service was not great. Also, the desert menu was very limited, so in the end we went to the deli counter in the market and brought home cheese, bread and wine for consumption on the balcony. Really looking forward to furniture arriving...

Pictures are here: http://picasaweb.google.com/sissi.se/ParrotsAndOtherFish

Bills

Yesterday I asked a friend to collect a letter from my apartment in Stockholm, as inflexible Swedish government companies cannot mail things to addresses abroad, and I needed some information to register Little Car here in Oz. If I had not needed this, she would not have gone there and discovered 2 other extremely important documents that had been sent to the wrong address.
Fortunately Insurance Companies are more friendly and without discussion took the blame for sending me my insurance bill to the wrong address, waived the late fees and also ensured that the 500kr fine I had received from a 3rd party, for not having paid my insurance was also waived. In all, I feel a bit better than this morning when I received all of this. Thanks Malin ;-)

On another note our hot water tank in the House in Stockholm gave up a week ago, flooded the kitchen and now needs replacing. At the same time our Central Heating boiler for the House in the UK may need replacing as well, to pass the Gas Safety Certificate criteria. So a week of many, and some fairly expensive bills :-(

I think there is a saying in Sweden stating "an accident never comes alone" and I think it might be correct.

Balmain

Today we wentured to a very nearby suburb called Balmain. It was 2 stops on the ferry which is really just across from where we live. A girl from work lives there and said it was nice. It was, but it is quite a wide area so you can't see the water from everywhere.
We walked up Darling Street, which is the main street going through Balmain, but also ventured off the track when we saw something interesting. One of those things was a very large old house, overlooking the water, and another was a "swimming pool" named after some Australian swimmer who got drunk during the Tokyo olympics. It was not really a swimming pool, but more like a part of the harbour closed off, with decking around.
We also walked past a house which was "open for inspection". A bit like Sunday viewings in Sweden and a concept that has not taken off in the UK yet, where property that is for sale is listed with when you can go an look at it. We just happened to walk past the sign and went in. It was quite nice, but they had too many bedrooms upstairs which made the rooms quite small, and there was not much of a garden. It was also $1.5M so out of budget.
We had lunch at the balcony of a nice pub and afterwards walked past where I think the girl from work lives and it looked very nice. The bus back into the city took only a few minutes so it is not a bad spot.
I also managed to buy a DVD copy of "Love Actually". I really like that movie. I watched all the "taken out" bits and then the whole movie with commentry by some of the actors seeing it for the first time since they filmed their parts. It was great.
Now looking forward to Martin's cooking. He has not done a great deal this week as he has been working for 4 days and is very tired, but it smells nice ;-)

A Chinese meal

Sydney has a decent China town which include some quite authentic restaurants. We came across something that did not look very expensive one evening and decided to try it. The restaurant was your usual Chinese with plastic tables and cheap chipped plates. The food comes when it is cooked and in no particular order and is put on your table without much care.
The menu is also quite interesting, you can for example order "Pig's ear salad" and a few other things most people I know would not eat - but they also do the most amazing "deep fried pork with pepper". In comes a mountain of pork pieces wich have been fried just right.

We now go to this place almost every week. Yesterday we decided it was time so I went to queue for a table whilst Martin went to get some beer (you have to buy your own beer in the shop next door). Fortunately I got a table almost straight away and decided that we would try the "Home made noodles with beef" as well. Both dishes were excellent and the total bill came to round $30 which is very reasonable.

I have been informed by our removals people that the ship with our stuff on is due in Sydney on Friday, so if everything goes OK we will have furniture next week - and maybe Little Car the week after ;-)

Lazy Sunny Sunday Afternoon

Yesterday we went off to discover the Rocks. We have been in the touristy part before, but realised last week, when looking at it from the other side of the water, that there was more to see. We found an elegant looking wine cellar at the far end of Kent street, Some really nice old town houses with water views, converted shipyards into apartments we can't afford and then we wondered through the weekend market down to the quay.

There were several people doing the Harbour Bridge climb, where they walk on top of the arches of the bridge. Maybe we'll fit that in one day.

We had lunch at Peter Doyle's fish restaurant. They asked if we wanted a long or a short lunch, and we thought short - which was 2 hours. However, we stayed much longer. For the first 2 hours we had a waterfront table with a view of both the Opera house an the Harbour Bridge. We spent those hours in the sunshine with a sample starter and a bottle of Semillion, followed by Barramundi & Lobster accompanied by a bottle of Chardonnay. Unfortunately at this point our 2 hours were up and we got moved to a table with a less interesting view. We then finished off we a cheese plate and dessert wine before heading back to the flat.

Pictures are here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/sissi.se/LazySundayAfternoon

This is a very good example of a Lazy Sunny Sunday Afternoon.

Boats, Boats, Boats

Today we went, as long planned, to the Sydney International Boat show. The normally empty Darling Harbour was filled with boats. Martin had already done a pre-view on Thursday while I was working - so tried to steer me in the right direction. However, while he could spend half an hour on a boat chatting to the experts I decided to have a look at as many as possible to try to get an understanding on which ones I liked, which size would be suitable, and value for money. We looked at all the big makes but I quite liked the Hanse ones, a 37 or 40ft, whilst Martin still talks about a Sea-quest 36.



He took me around to look at what he calls "Bendy-Toys" - Benetau's I think which are supposed to be really nice, but I was not much impressed. We also look at Hunters (apparently no good for passage making) and some others. As you may have figured out, I don't know much about sailing boats, but I like there to be teak-decking on the top, a nice G&T area with a table and cup-holders, a decent shower and workable kitchen + 3 x double births in case we bring some of you guys on a trip. Is that too much to ask for?

Finally I got talked into a 3 hour sailing lesson for $20. Think I will save that one for the summer.

End of freedoom

Today Martin signed the contract for his new job. He is quite spectacular when it comes to getting new jobs. Last time he decided to look for a job, he a applied for 1 job, had one interview, a few days later, and got the job immediately.

This time he applied for 2 jobs (last Monday), but only managed to speak with one recruitment agency. They told him on Tuesday that he had an interview for the Thursday. Then Thursday afternoon they asked him for a second interview on the Friday - and Friday afternoon they told him that as long as his references and work visa was OK he would get an offer. Then they took a week to sort out the paperwork.
Anyway - good luck to him!

When his 6 months are up (unless the contract gets extended), it is in the middle of summer here, and I guess he will want to do some more sailing.

So today he is celebrating his last day of freedom - and I am looking forward to working from home all alone next week.