Author Archives: Jenni - 'Yuri'

Well, Google have the Street View thing working here in Oz as of this morning.
Basically, go to maps.google.com.au, go to Perth, in the top right of the map is wee boxes for StreetView | Map | Satellite | Terrain – click on Street View and zoom in on one of the blue marked streets. You can then drag a wee man and see the street from that position. You can turn round on the spot and see all around, or click forward or back and “walk” down a street.
I am not going to put our address on the incredible edible innernet, for that would be silly. However, if you dont have it yet (or our mobile number) let me know – I did text everyone two weeks back, but I dont think that many people got it.

Street View is well cool, we have spent ages playing with it already and its only been available for a few hours.

My mum had asked about the night life. Well, we havent found it yet. To be fair, there are pubs and clubs – including a local pub that in the height of classiness has a once a month “no wives” night with strippers and topless waitresses. Classy indeed. We were never heavy pub-goers, and its years since we were at the Cat House for a night of moshing, so thats not quite our scene. Most of the shops close between 5-6pm, which is not that great for picking up something after work. The local Co-op equivalent closes at 8pm every night, so we arent ever stuck. The petrol stations are also open 24 hours, so again, if you are hit with munchies at 2am – there is somewhere to get those munchies.

We went out for a drive last night, sat in a car park by the beach with the top down on the car (and the heat up) and did some star gazing. It was pretty awsome – you can actually make out the Milky Way. On the way back we decided to get a bag of chips. Man was that a difficult task – We know our local chippy is open 4pm – 8pm and thats your whack (damn fine chips btw). But we didnt think that would be the case everywhere. We found a couple of places open, a few Subways, couple of pizza shops, but couldnt find a chippie. The places that were open looked like they were closing up as well at 9:30! We found one part of Perth that looked open, but by that time we had decided to head home and just get some toast instead. So – nightlife – I am sure its out there, we just dont know where!

And our stuff finally arrived in the country yesterday.

Which actually came as a bit of a disappoint to us as we were told it had arrived a week ago!

It will take at least two weeks to go through customs, so we were hoping to have it next week, but it will be at least two weeks from now. Sigh.

But its nearly here, we nearly have a tv and a comfy sofa and my Kenwood Chef and pasta machine and decent pots and most importantly the wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!

I am no longer an unemployed hippy.
I have been (not so) slowly going spare, but finally someone has geezed me a joab.

I had a second interview this morning, didnt screw up the technical questions they threw at me, and I start on Monday!

>You have leveled up!

>Adding extra skill points to EVIL.

>EVIL is now at maximum level.

BWHAHAHAHAHAHA
We have tenants.
That makes us landlords.
That makes us evil. More evil!
We have seen all those caricatures and therefore obviously have to live up to it.
Now I need a title higher up the chain than Queen of Evil.

Well, I had an interview today for a business analyst role. I think they liked me, I was in for nearly two hours and got a guided tour. It comes down to the fact that I dont know the tools they use. It is pretty much what I have been doing for years – talk to users and figure out what they want and how to go about getting it for them. Its just the formal way of documenting it that I dont know.

It will be a few days before I hear anything. Once I know something, I will let you know 🙂

Well, its a month to the day since we arrived in Perth, seems like longer!

I have got the finger out and started looking for a job for real.
I hate job hunting, I really do. Not a good thing for a contractor it has to be said given that in theory, I could have had to look for work every three months. Not that I ever did, what with being renewed over and over till they ran out of budget (I think that tells you a lot about contractors and their ability to find and then spend budget 😉 ). But, still, I hateses it.

This time round though, with the fact that we are on the other side of the world, I figured a little bit of stability might not go amiss, so I am opting for the permie life for a while.

So, with Ian having been working for 3 weeks and everything that we ordered here being delivered, I couldnt use “I have to be here for the delivery man/pool guy/internet connection bloke” as an excuse any more. I spent a few days working on my CV, got Ian to go over it and then yesterday sent it to 3 agencies. Within 10 minutes I had the First Agent on the phone, my CV in for 6 jobs and a meeting with him for Monday. 5 minutes after that, the Second Guy called, and my CV was in for another job, and he had another two, but it turned out that the First Guy had already put me in for them, and I had a meeting with him on Monday. Another 5 minutes passed and Second Guy called back with another two. It took Third Guy till this afternoon to see my CV, and he has a place to put my CV into, and a meeting with him on Monday.

So …. to recap … thats my CV in for 10 jobs, and I am meeting 3 separate agencies on Monday.

I still hate job searching, but at least this time it looks like it will quick!

It was pishing down in Oz:

Yep – people 5 minutes down the coast from here had their roofs torn off due to the storms.

GVD! Storms!

Today was nice though – we walked along the riverside here at our apartment for ages which was gorgeous, then later on went up to Joondalup, parked outside our new place and walked to the station and back to see how far it is. I ended up seeing stars as I was knackered after walking for ages on two slices of toast and Vegemite (yeah, I have been having Vegemite for breakfast 🙂 Totally ozzie 🙂 )

Tonight we were rather bored – its sunday again – most things are closed – so we went out for a run in the uber car and ended up on Scarborough Beach (most things are named after the UK) watching the sun set into the Indian Ocean, which was amazing.

We had decided to get a furnished flat in the city centre and try out city living for a while till our stuff came.

Pah, that was sooooo two days ago.

Today we spotted an amazing house in Joondalup, about 25 minutes from the center and are going to be staying there from the 5th June (we will be kicked out of here on the 2nd, so either need to extend for a few days or find somewhere else). Its amazing!

Empty, but as it has FOUR bedrooms, we will be getting a new bed anyway, so when people visit we have a spare. We will get a nice patio set as well, letting us use it as a dining room table till our stuff arrives.

It doesnt *just* have a pool – it also has a hot tub!

Lookie :

Yep, seem far better adjusted to the time zone now, got up with the alarm at 8, had a shower (realised that all I had got in the supermarket was shampoo – no soap or face wash!) and off into the central business district to the bank for our appointment for opening the accounts. We now have banking set up, and have applied for a credit card, to build up our credit history. We do indeed have *no* credit history here – which is good! But … means we cant get a car loan, so have to get an old one, still looking for that ford capri 😉

So far we have seen The Fenian Pub, and coon brand cheese, there is also “The Coliseum” – the christian gym. I can only assume that they get people fit by putting them on a treadmill, and getting a lion to run behind them!

We have also seen drive through offsales. We had heard about them – and apparently they are also common in the US, but its such a weird concept!

I think I should cover the end of the Singapore trip and coming into Perth …

We got up when the alarm went off (at 5:45 blerg!) and then the wake up call arrived (“Have a great day!”) and had a fab shower. The transport was to pick us up at 6:50, but we had to let the front desk know so that they could call them. We had tonnes of time, so checked out we had decided to skip the S$30 breakfast and grab a McDs in the airport, but while they were trying to figure out who needed to know about our transport (nobody, they just arrive) we were treated to a coffee and croissant (she made us lattes rather than white coffee, yum!) And then another one and some chocolates.

I love Singapore! I dont know whether we would have got similar treatment at another hotel, or just because it was the Ritz Carlton, but it was just amazing.

We got to skip check in because we had already done it in Heathrow, and didnt have to worry about our hold luggage either – it went straight through. Singapore Airport is ginormous, you can walk, or they have shuttle trains to get you to your gate. We wandered into Departures and got nabbed by security to put our rucksacks onto the scanner (not everyone did, I think its coz Ian looks shifty), then through passport control and into the departure lounge which was again clean and full of stuff, water features, art displays and shops.

The actual gate was were the security was – they seem to have one for each gate. So, through the scanners and the xray machines (just like being back at work but with a less restrictive list of banned items!). This flight wasnt as good as the long haul stretch, but thats not to say it was bad! It far surpassed any sleazyjet flight, and a million times better than that shitey Thomson flight to Cyprus. More space, more entertainment (it was an older version of the system on the A380 – good, but slower and not as wide a selection) Less in the way of snacks and drinks, but it was a far shorter flight. I would definately still recommend Singapore Airlines.

Then we arrived in Perth! By god by the customs and quarantine people are paranoid! It was so intimidating I ended up convinced I was going to get caught with something. They fine you for carrying food, feathers, dirt, all sorts of stuff! As it happens, we were fine. But it was an intimidating experience. They scan you again coming into the country!

The flat we are in is nice, good views, comfy bed. It has its downsides though – it someones basement, and as well as the two patio door entrances, there are stairs up to their house that they lock. The guy that owns the place very nicely brought us in some juice and bread and butter. The layout is a little awkward, but nothing to worry about, but the kitchen is really small. Never mind, we are only here two weeks, and we dealt with an even smaller kitchen in Cyprus!

We picked up a chinese takeaway last night, and it was strange. Carrots, brocolli, cauliflower and chicken thigh meat…. the kung po had at least a handful of dried chillis in it! It lasted us two nights though as we ordered wrong and ended up with 4 meals rather than 2 and 2 sides. Heh.

We have been looking around for accommodation today – thats hard work I tell you when you have no idea about the areas! But we are already figuring out where abouts we are in relation to the major roads around here.

Ian reckoned we would be adjusted to the time zone. Hah! We went to bed at the back of 8, and I was up at 00:30 and Ian was up around 3:00. We finally got back to sleep around 5am, till about 8. Its now 22:15, so this time, we might be adjusted 😉

Oh, and the only beasties we have seen so far beyond some flies is ants. All over the kitchen.

Ants, why does it always have to be Ants!

here we are in heathrow terminal 3 with an hour before the gate opens.

we got a taxi from the hotel to here, scooted through check in in only a few minutes but got caught in security when we totally forgot about a bottle of water we had picked up yesterday. so we got pulled over and everything checked and tested for explosives. didn’t take too long though.

now we are waiting as we don’t actually fly for another 2 hours. bur I am happier killing time here than being late.

…

doing this from my phone and its not the greatest as I can only see 1 chacter on screen. I will fix up the text later 🙂

Too tired to do anything other than take their complimentary beer, wine and juice, we didnt go far last night.

Bed at 8, yes, we were that tired.

Today, we are up early again and about to go try the complimentary breakfast, see if its any good. Then off to check in to the uber flight. We will probably do that early, what with my “flight missing paranoia”, there are “pure hunners” of people getting on this plane, so we dont want to get caught up in a huge queue and miss it.

We did indeed manage to get this far without any incidents other than me blubbering at my mum and dads and then again (and again and again) at the airport.

We had plans to try and get into London itself and see some stuff, but we really are just too knackered. I can see us asleep in the next few hours. Its been a long week…..

Just had my first actual meal of the day – nerves have been keeping me from eating. Thats such a rare occurrence, it needs special mention!

The bed, it has to be said, is extra comfy and its bedgravity is extra strong.

Just up, got to get to the airport and get on a plane.
Lets see if we can manage that without any incidents!

The last few days have been mental!

After the lorry took all our worldly goods away:

the house looked pretty empty. But you wouldn’t believe how long it takes to clean an
empty house! We have been sleeping at my folks and driving up and down from greenock to the house.

Ians mum and sister and her husband and anns russian lodger gave us a huge help with cleaning and touching up all the painting.

Yesterday was finishing the garden. It looks great now, but it was hard work..

Many skips runs were involved and hefting huge bags of gravel. We are officially knackered.

Last night was a family meal at my sisters which was good fun 🙂 much food, much drink.

Today is last minute running around with customs declarations and getting a replacement battery charger for the camera as ours is on a boat to perth now. Along with so many things we could be doing with.

I don’t expect to get much sleep tonight with nerves!