Arrived!

We touched down on teusday last week so this is one week on. We have been busy. The first day we just wondered round Melbourne looking at the sights and gaining our feet. We were not too badly affected by jet lag so spent the whole day wondering round. The weather was spectacular (35 degrees) and unusually hot for this time of year. Turns out this was bad as I managed to catch every ray of sun I could and have spent the last week looking like a beetroot with a skin disorder. I have learnt my lesson now and use something called sunblock.
Thursday was when the jet lag caught up with us and we basically spent the entire day asleep. Just waking up in time to go down the road to the pub for jugs of VB. VB should be a national symbol! A kangreoo drinking from a can of VB whilst throwing a footy ball (different shape) to a Koala.
Over the weekend we looked around for various areas of Melbourne we would like to be based and have decided that the small village of St Kilda is an ideal place to settle. Near the beach and with an interesting culture, something a bit hippy crossed with goth.
Moira started work on monday afternoon and I started looking for accomodation and a job. accomodation is proving to be a little harder than we thought. The Estate agents allow 15mins for a inspection of a property. Not ideal to be looking round a flat for two with thirty other people all doing the same. apparently there is a high demand for accomodation so it is difficult to secure a place. Applications are submitted and then it seems there is some kind of biding war between the top applicants. Maybe we could have covered the mortgage if we had adopted the same system in england on our house. Ah well.
We have been staying in serviced appartments, courtesy of Oxfam, for the last two weeks and we will be moving into an affordable shared house at the weekend. Lots of Brits staying in a house together living and wroking in Oz. I have a feeling I have seen this kind of thing before but cannot just recall where.....
for the moment though I just keep plodding through appartment after apartment. The sun did do me one favour though, when I called to check on one application we made the woman asked me
"Are you the sunburn boy?"
So at least they are remembering me, not difficult when it looks like I just stepped out of a bush fire.
So the weather has returned to normal (21 degrees) and overcast. Not too dissimilar from england I bet :-)
Anyway have to get along I have two appartments to view, along with 5,000 others and some food to buy.
I made spicy barbeque Kangeroo for moira on her first day at work. I will let you hear her judgement when she adds to the blog. I liked it, although it was a bit springy (Boom! Boom!)

By for now
Peter