The day started bright and early yet again as we are still in the search of a permanent place to live. As I (Lauren) was in the bathroom getting ready for the day I noticed it was going to be a wet, rainy day. Never knew that we would be stepping in hurricane force winds though. The winds here seriously stop me in my tracks sometimes. We grabbed the average 4 pieces of toast each loaded with peanut butter and strawberry jam then we were out the door. First stop of our day was to get to the library on University of Sydney campus to once again have secure, fast internet. Currently from our hostel it takes us 40 minutes to reach the university and exactly the reason we are looking for something closer. We spent the better half of the morning looking up places on the internet as well as updating this blog, checking facebook, and emailing tenants. We left the library in high hopes that we would finally find some place nice. However, those hopes were slowly dashed throughout the day...
On our list was yet another attempt to see the apartment that Lee was offering. Since we had failed to get a cell phone early on we were stuck using pay phones whenever we could find them. This made it very difficult since the person cannot call you back, and the time runs out quickly! We arrived at Lee's place once again and used someone's phone to ring him. We gave us the all too common respond of "I'll be there in 3 minutes." Fifteen minutes later we were finally introduced to Lee himself. He led us up to the room which was the biggest disappointment of all. Since this was the first apartment that we were inspecting (that's what they call checking something out) an apartment we were still stuck in the American mindset that the place would be clean and spacious. However, we were rudely awakened whenever we walked into a messy, tight squeezed apartment with 3 people to a room. The strangest thing was that Lee didn't even know which beds were available or how many people lived there. We agreed this was a place for neither of us to stay and left Lee in the dust, once and for all. We had a couple of other places left on our list but that list slowly dwindled whenever the tenants either weren't available or didn't answer the phone. We had one potential place left where international students were preferred. When we got a hold of the tenant he directed us where to go, which landed us on the front door of an apartment complex with a security pad. Of course we weren't know how to get inside, which apartment door to knock on, or even how to work the system. Common sense would be that the tenant would come down and meet us at the front door, but apparently Australians have different views on salesman dealings. We waited 15 minutes and with no tenant in sight we decided to call it a day. Discouraged and frustrated we headed to Coles (the main supermarket here) to figure out what was for dinner. With storm clouds growing dark in the sky we quickly headed back to the hostel. That 40 minute walk takes a lot longer when you're tired, exhausted, and discouraged. I could tell that Riley was exhausted whenever he started talking to umbrellas. For one, he protects us with an extended umbrella which he calls a 'beating stick.' Then broken and disowned umbrellas started popping out of nowhere. The first umbrella was 'Dad!' the next was "Mom!" and finally "Cousin!" All are umbrellas that were ditched on the side of the curb or near trashcans. Closer to the hostel we stumbled upon a whole pile, or family of umbrellas. At least humor got us through the tough day! Tomorrow is our adventure trip where we get to pet a koala, which we are both excited and ready for :)
Things we have realized:
~People do not like to sell stuff over here. The mannerisms that go along with selling are so laid back and ignorant that people are seriously losing out on our business.
~Ice cream cones at McDonalds are 30 cents, maybe ice cream won't be so rare after all!
Hang in there.
ReplyDeleteYAY for McDonalds. :)