Filed under: living
It’s time to buy a heater I think. 16 degrees in my apartment last night when I came home and it went down to 14 degrees this morning. Reminds me of my childhood at the farm and my dad’s old house in the woodquarter. I still don’t understand why Australians didn’t care more about insulation when they were building most of the houses, and for example put in at least two-layered glass windows. Instead much electricity is used in summer for air conditioning and in winter for heating. So much about global warming and energy awareness.
Living close to work is great. You can get up reasonably early, go for a swim in a nearby pool and still be at the office by 9am to read your emails before starting work at 9.30am.
Not that I am requested to start work at 9.30am, but I am trying to, to keep up with all the things that I’ve to do. Working times here at uni are pretty flexible. Officially I have to do 37.5 hours a week, in fact I have to get all my tasks done, which in reality means I am currently working about 49 hours a week (on average).
I finally got the keys to my new studio today. Just went there to have a quick look. It’s in a pretty good condition – for Australian standards, just very small, the sink in the bathroom is probably one of the smallest sinks I’ve ever seen, and there was a praying mantis (Gottesanbeterin) sitting on the ceiling when I came there. – First time I saw one here in Australia. It was small too, just like the studio.
And the best: it’s only a 10 minutes walk to work – door to door.
I didn’t bring my camera, so still no pictures. Back to work now. Then going to Ikea first thing tomorrow morning to buy furniture!
Filed under: living
Only 7 more days until I get the keys to my new apartment. Can’t wait for that. After 5 weeks I’m a bit sick of living out of my bags and shared kitchen. Especially the lodge where I stayed the last two weeks was quite a challenge, with cockroaches everywhere, even in my bed. Apparently the smaller breed is the evil. They survive everything and hence are hard to get rid of. You almost start to like the big ones after sharing a room for two weeks with the small bastards.
Heut startet meine vierte Arbeitswoche, in der ich nicht bezahlt werde. Ich warte immer noch auf mein Visum und zunehmend steigt der Frust deswegen. Mein Umzug nach Sydney war ja nicht grad billig. Dazu kommt, dass ich wegen fehlendem Visum nicht krankenversichert bin.
Immerhin hab ich nach nur 2 Wochen der Suche schon eine Wohnung gefunden. Diesmal keine WG, sondern ein Ministudio mit Minibalkon. Wieder in Gehweite von Uni. Die letzten 3 Wochen musste ich täglich 2 mal 40-50 Minuten mit dem Bus zur Uni pendeln. Busse in Sydney sind eher mühsam. Die alten Modelle entsprechen in etwa den Zuständen von Bussen in Ostafrika. Und die Busfahrer sind teilweise echte Kamikazefahrer.
Das mit der Wohnung hat besser geklappt als erwartet. Man muss hier erst einmal eine Application abgeben, inklusive Referenzen, Kontoauszug, Arbeitsvertrag – und das Maklerbüro ruft tatsächlich überall an, um die Daten zu überprüfen.
Eine Google Streetview Ansicht von meiner neuen Wohnstraße unten. Das Apartmenthaus ist am Ende der Straße rechts, mehr ist auf Streetview leider nicht zu sehen. Weitere Fotos folgen sobald ich in knapp 3 Wochen die Schlüssel bekomm.
On Saturday I went to Ikea together with one of my flatmates. We rented a car to drive there. Public transport in Sydney sucks. So does traffic in general. I basically had to buy a chair for my room, and ended up buying lots of cookies and chocolate from the swedish food store.
Things I noticed at the local Ikea:
- The store concept is the same as in any other Ikea
- The “swedish” food at the restaurant was quite bad, not the same as in Sweden or even Austria
- There were more pregnant women than I ever saw in any European Ikea, which could either mean (1) that more women are pregnant in Sydney or (2) that more pregnant women are buying stuff at Ikea
- There were no elk soft toys at the kids department, instead they had plush sea animals
I also got a new table last week (for free from the University, since they were throwing out a lot of stuff), which I painted white on Sunday. That means that I can work even longer and more, now that I’ve got a table! (Thinking about this I’ve to say that maybe it would be better not having one…)
Today I finally got to take and upload some pictures from my new room/house. It’s just 2 minutes from my other place, which made moving really easy. The room is still small, but the rest of the house is big and nice. I’m sharing it with two girls from Australia, but with international origins.
Besides kitchen and bathroom, we got a living room and a balcony, leading towards a very quiet and green backstreet. The only bad thing about the house is that we’ve quite a few cockroaches here, although it’s a really clean place. But I already get used to this. The other day we also found a huge huntsman spider in one of my flat mate’s room. (Again, click here if you really want to see it!)
I finally moved to another place, which is bigger, cleaner and nicer. Before I’ll post pics of the new house, I wanted to share two more pics from my previous place with you: The first one shows the ‘window’ of the bathroom – the hangers are there since we used that space for drying our laundry. The second one shows a fridge magnet featuring images of Viennese sights that I received as a farewell gift before I left Vienna, next to a Japanese (?) and a Canadian fridge magnet and the roster (Putzplan).
I’ll post images from my trip to Melbourne and Queensland and of the new house soon!
King Street is the main road in Newtown, one of Sydney’s districts. Its said to be the alternative district of Sydney, where most of the students and artists live. Anyway, it’s a nice area, crowded with many bars, restaurants (most of them thai!) and shops (nice vintage stuff for example).
The location is very convenient, since everything I need for living is so close (there is a SPAR just across the street!) and it’s only a 10 minutes walk to my lab at the university. However, the flat (or rather house: I share the upper story with three other people) is a bit shabby. There is no living room nor does the kitchen have a dining table. My room is also quite small, about 9 m2, but I’m getting used to it and enjoy the great location. I might move to another place sometime soon though, I’m actually also planning to move to one of Sydney’s beach areas (Bondi or Coogee) towards the end of my stay.
