Must...Learn... Conversion

Living here and not knowing the metric system conversions will be the end of me soon.  I joined a new gym last week, Virgin Health Club, and my first day back in to my weight training was yesterday.  The gym is awesome and has everything- pool, bikram yoga, spinning with the fun TV monitors that make you think you are actually driving through a forest, beach, etc, and an awesome cardio section.  It's like the gym of all gyms.  Except that all the weights are in kilograms, not pounds.

It was "leg" day for me yesterday and I made my way over to the Smith machine to do some squats.  I had a new playlist on my iPod, new gym gear on, heart rate monitor strapped on and feeling like a rock star.  I put on relatively light weight, about 45 pounds as a warm up, and hoisted that bad boy up in the air and subsequently nearly broke my back.  45 kg equals 99.2 lbs.  Rock star status was immediatley revoked.

Bat Attack... Almost

I don't think I've shared with you any information about the bat situation here in Sydney.  Around twilight time, they come out in droves.  You can look up at any given time and see anywhere from 5 to 20 just flying around.  They squeak around here and there, doing their sonar-whatchamacallit looking for bugs, etc.  Usually they stay up in their trees or up in the sky.  This morning though, I was walking Bailey and it was still dark out.  I walk through Rushcutter's Bay park and it's pretty well lit in most parts (it's not daylight when I leave for work yet) but I decided to walk along this path by the water and there are quite a few low lying branches on the trees that line the paths.  I'm sure you can see where this is going.

I could literally not see a thing it was so dark (and the bats are black) but I swear I felt the fur of this darn bat brush my nose as it flew off that branch.  Granted, it could have just been a stiff wind from the beating of its wings, but I'm sticking to my fur story.  It gave one loud squeak and I gave one loud scream and then it was gone.  And that, folks, is how I was attacked by a bat... almost.

New Furniture

So exciting!!!  Our new furniture was delivered today!!  We are going a little funky in the living room.  Red leather chaise lounge, very mod-looking.  White and glass acrylic entertainment center and bookshelves.  And we are accenting with aqua and bright blue.  I think it will come together.  I'm still in the market for some wall art/hangings, and other little decor pieces.

For the kitchen, black dining table and chairs with electric blue accents.  We're getting an awesome picture for the wall that has alot of aqua, bright blue, purple and pink so I think this will be the statement piece.  The bedroom will be light grey with bright green and orange accents. 

Not that any of you care about all this but I love decorating.  I need my partner in crime/decor (aka Mom) here to help me but I promised to skype once it's all done so she can see everything.  I'll post some before and after pics soon...

Blogging from where???

Hi everyone!! I know I've been MIA for a bit but we have officially moved in to our new apartment as of Friday and we don't have Internet. I was thinking of trying to blog from work but they are so strict on security and personal use of the computers that I wussed out (I guess given that it's a financial institution, they want everyone to focus on making money. Lame I know.) So today is my first attempt at blogging on my iPhone!!! I'm on the bus on the way to work. Who knew?!? I don't know why I'm tickled pink by this but I am. I'm sure people do this often. I bet my friend M. is thinking "Way to join the 21st century."

So until we get our phone, cable and Internet installed, I'll be reporting to you from wherever my iPhone happens to be!!

New Digs

No more apartment searching!!  We finally landed a spot in Darling Point last Thursday.  It's a super cute property, right on Rushcutter's Bay.  (We are just to the left of the docked sailboats in the bottom left of this photo; you can see the city, opera hourse, Harbour Bridge just beyond).


10 minutes from work, 5 minutes from the pet store and vet I take Bailey to, and 2 minutes from my doctor's office.  I wish I could post pics from the realtor's website but they already took it down.  But we sign the lease this Thursday and do our walk- through so I'll take heaps of photos then and post them as soon as possible.  It has two outdoor spaces, one courtyard and a front terrace.  It's a large 1.5 bedroom, 1 bathroom apartment in a block of only 4 so plenty of privacy.  I can't wait to decorate and do some gardening/planting.  It's such a relief to be done searching and can now think about all the fun stuff we can do with our new place.  Home sweet home has just begun!!

No Go on Bondi

So bummed.  We didn't get the apartment in Bondi that my Aussie and I wanted.  And I just rushed to another listing with a near-empty tank of gas at 5:30 PM through rush hour traffic to find out that they don't take dogs after all.  Thankfully, I have a lovely bottle of Shiraz staring at me and my roomie P. is making his delicious Mexican special for dinner.  Tomorrow's another day... and another listing to see at 12:30 PM on my lunch break...

House Hunting

My Aussie and I started our house searching this weekend.  We crammed in five inspections on Saturday and found one we loved in Bondi Beach.  It's seven houses down from close friends of ours and about 100 meters from famous Bondi Beach.  It's an older property but huge and a has a little private courtyard in the back.  It's so cute and we want it so badly.  I told myself I would not get attached to any one property, not with how ridiculous these house inspections go.  But it doesn't help that my Aussie loves it too. 

So we put in an application Sunday afternoon and I followed up with an email Monday to make sure all our 50 pages (only a slight exaggeration) of supporting documents uploaded and went through.  The realtor followed up and all was received.  Apparently there are five other applications aside from ours.  I'm worried the "pet issue" is going to be a challenge.  But we offered to pay an additional $10/week along with an additional pet deposit to try and sway the decision.  We also attached a photo of Bailey (the one where he's at the beach sitting on a towel).  I think it  makes him look small and well-behaved.  I mean, he is well-behaved but he's not that small.

We'll see.  I'm mentally preparing myself for another Saturday of inspections though just in case.

Another Check!!

You know how I love to check things off?!  Well, this is a big check, a massive check.  I finally got my FBI background clearance letter back!!! Woohoo!!  And as I suspected, it indicated no arrest record or criminal history.  Of course I knew this but to have to wait 8 weeks for someone to put it in writing was silly.  But, I got the letter and we are pretty much at the end of my visa checklist.  I still have to get the state of New York to write me a letter of clearance as well, but that one only takes three weeks.  After that, I'm finished.  I can fork over a huge chunk of money along with the application and hope that within 5 months, I'm granted my permanent visa.  If it doesn't happen in five months, then I have to find another job.  Ick.  My current visa allows me to work with one employer for a maximum of 6 months at a time and to only be in Australia for no longer than a year.  So I better get cracking, eh?

And on another good note, the IRS accepted my most recent tax return e-file with no rejections.  So as soon as that refund comes into the bank, it's going right back out to pay for the visa fees.  Short-lived riches towards a life-long love. :)

Perceptible Shift

Today was a strange day.  Strange in a good way.  Let me try to explain.  I was at work chugging along booking rooms, answering the phone, planning menus and the woman I'm replacing wasn't in today.  I was on my own for the first time.  And things just started clicking all of a sudden.  I could look at my caller ID and recognize extensions and the names that belonged to those extensions.  I didn't have to refer to my room capacity chart to see what kind of meetings would fit in certain rooms.  I could quote pricing from memory.  It was like a perceptible shift in my universe had happened, like the gears were slipping a bit yesterday and then today I'm moving at full speed.  It was awesome.

And there was a lot of smiling today.  Not that people in Sydney are not nice, they just don't seem to smile at other people much.  I used to pass the same moms with strollers at the park almost every day and I would always recognize them and smile, and get nothing back.  But today, people were nodding and smiling at me all day.  And not just when I was walking Bailey.  I mean, how could you not smile when you see this pup?

But people were smiling at me when I was just walking along by myself.  It was so weird.  Good weird.  And I didn't look like anything special today either- light make-up, hair in a bun, work clothes.  I didn't look particularly radiant.  I get dressed and do my make-up pretty much in the dark as my Aussie is still sleeping and it's not light out. 

Hey, I'm not complaining.  Keep the smiles and friendliness coming.  I prefer that to rudeness and scowls and blank faces any day.  It was just bizarre because the change was so noticeable to me that it was almost physical.  I'm not sure if my words are doing it justice.  I just know that I'm moving in the right direction.

Hannah vs. IRS

Phew, I just finished my taxes round two and I'm exhausted!!  I was rejected on my first e-file attempt because some of my numbers didn't match up.  So I went through each line and took pain-stackingly accurate measures to make sure that I didn't miss anything.  Hopefully this is it and I'll be getting my refund check soon.  It's going straight to my visa application fee fund.  And what's left will go towards my credit card... or a new couch.

My Aussie and I are starting the new apartment search this week.  It's exciting and awful all at once.  Exciting because we will finally have our own place and not have to share with 4 of his university friends (I will note that they are really great, nice guys but it's time, you know).  Awful because its such a freaking rat race to get to these timed inspections.  There was one today that ran from 5:00 PM to 5:05 PM, and that was not a typo.  Sydney has such a shortage of proper housing that these realtors will literally shut the door to the apartment at the cutoff time and not let anyone in, not even if you have the bank account of Donald Trump and the reputation of Mother Teresa.

So we are mapping out our Saturday and hoping to get in at least four inspections.  You have to have 100 points of identification, copies of bank statements, passports, driver's license, utility bills and a perfectly filled out application ready to hand over if you like the spot.  My last apartment was a bit of a "Monet" (nice from a distance but once you got close, it was a wreck) so my parents want me to really make sure I do a thorough check in each place.  But with the strict time limit and overwhelming turnout of interested renters, it's going to be tough.

Who knows, maybe by the end of the week I'll be holding on to my new apartment lease??  And a confirmed ACCEPTED tax return??  It sounds too good to be true but we'll see.  Say a little prayer!!!