Sunday 22/2
Gosh, its been a while since I've updated this. I've now been at work for two weeks and I'm gradually getting used to the Aussie office's way of working. We've also moved from the hotel we were in to a managed apartment block in Cremorne. We've also bought a car, a fridge and a television. Also, Alicea has been to see her Mum.
So, where to start.
I started work on the 9th and was out meeting clients that very day. Talk about hitting the ground running! The guys in the office are friendly and easy to get along with. During the last couple of weeks I've been out so see a couple of different clients and starting next week, I'm going to be fairly booked with work for the next month or two. I also met with the area's functional leader for a coffee at his hotel during a stopover on his trip back from New Zealand to Singapore.
During the week I started work, Alicea hired a car and drove the ten-hour trip to Moama to see her Mum. By all accounts it was a good trip and, thankfully, her Mum has not been affected by the terrible fires that have been burning in Victoria.
We also left the hotel in North Sydney and moved to a managed apartment block in Cremorne, which is a short bus ride away. Despite still living out of suitcases, it is nice to be able to cook and have laundry facilities rather than having to eat out all the time and traipse down the road to a laundrette with bags of dirty clothes. The apartment block is right on Military Road and the room we had was facing the road and very noisy. We managed to negotiate a move to a room at the end of the first week to a room at the back, away from the road. However, we have to move again next Friday.
Last weekend, we took a taxi out to Artarmon and had a look at some cars. We were interested in either a Honda City, a Honda Civic or a Mazda 3. The specifications on each were very similar and we test drove the Mazda and were quite impressed. Early the next week, Alicea went and test drove the Hondas and after deciding that the City was a bit sluggish, we bought a Civic. The price difference between the second hand cars and the new ones wasn't huge so we decided that we would be better off getting a new one and benefiting from the extra warranty etc that we would have. We should be picking it up at the end of this week ready for the move to Crows Nest at the beginning of next week.
This last weekend we went hunting for a fridge and a tv for the new apartment. Just down the road from us in Cremorne is a “seconds” electrical shop, so we popped in there to have a look at what they had. After noting a few prices we then went into the city and caught a bus to Rozelle and checked out Retravision as we had some vouchers for there. Then we caught a bus back to the city and went to Harvey Norman, a large electrical retailer here. From there we caught a train to Chatswood where we had a look around some of the retailers in the large shopping malls there. While we were there we found a fabulous Asian grocers that I think I will be visiting quite often.
Eventually, we caught a bus back to Cremorne and went back to the “seconds” store where we bought a Whirlpool fridge-freezer and, after some conversations about the differences between LCD, Plasma, Full HD and HD we ordered a 32” plasma tv.
In the evening, we walked down to Neutral Bay where we went to an Indian restaurant called Mantra whose complete lack of service and incompetence in bringing what we ordered to the table was made up for with the excellent food
