19.03 What to do now...

It's the day after night before and we're now sitting in the one of the hostel's tv lounges just lounging around. Well, I think we deserve it! I have dragged Joanna out for four days in a row at some unearthly hour o'clock to make our picnic (she didn't have to make it all on her own!) and head out to the circuit. Took about 15 minutes using the trams from North Melbourne.

The grand prix was absolutely fantastic! When Martin & James talk about the noise and the sheer energy of the start, they're not wrong!!Firstly, the noise is immense - as four days of wearing ear plugs proves! Secondly, the vibration through the grandstand is terrific and finally the sensation of being left breathless as 20,000 horsepower goes by is unbelieveable - those horses have to be fed somehow - I've never experienced anything like it!

The build up was good, with the drivers photo taken in front of us & a bit of a song and dance. There were these three lasses from Australian Idol, called Diva's or something?! The formation of the grid - all the crews out with the cars. Kimi on pole and standing at the foot of our grandstand. The Minogue sisters.

The race itself was good, I guess on the TV it was a little bit of a one horse race at the front. And no amount of merchandise buying helped Jenson along or our efforts to get on TV. We were on before the starting grid was formed, but not during the race. Next year we'll know what to do!! Look's like a good season ahead - not sure if I'll be able to catch the european races - time differences and all that! Hey, Matt (K) perhaps I was wrong about Lewis. Is Jenson the next Couthard?! Lots of talent but achieves little!? The finish wasn't emotive as Le Mans or Daytona.

It was great to be able to see the podium celebrations from our seats, despite loads of people climbing the fences and sitting on top of them. At the beginning we could see Martin Brundle doing his grid walk & the luscious Suzie Perry. We also saw Stirling Moss touching up the Minogue sisters too, which, frankly, I was appalled by/jealous of! Yes, we (I) did catch their eye Simon, and no I didn't turn their stomachs!

After the GP we went back to the hostel to check into our dorm room. Ohhhh [shivers]. Never again! Guys, we shared with two girls & you've never seen such a mess!! Anyway, headed out to Lygon Street (the Italian sector of the city) to catch the atmosphere up there (V. passionate & with Kimi's win...). It was buzzing. Not quite as busy as the night before but quite a few Ferrari's (308's 348's, 456's, 355's, 360's, 430's & 575's) parked along the street again. Enjoyed some delicious italian ice cream & headed back to the room.

Spent this morning looking for my passport before we had a meeting with the real estate agent about our lease. The passport was found some hours later amongst some dirty knickers! We have now spent a small fortune to secure our new abode and we're now just an evening & taxi ride away!

So once we're in, we won't know what to do with ourselves. Perhaps, we'll continue the apartment hunt just for the thrill of it!? Or to see whether we got a good deal. I feel that we could end up in some of the libraries reading the latest trashy magazines! Yes, they do have them and it's free to sit there and wade through them!!

We've heard about about the dreadful snow that's hit and how everyone's now snowed in - is that a lie? It must be channel Ten making things up again!! The weather is still beautiful here, so perhaps we might be able to use the outside terrace and pool tomorrow...

Love to all,
Nathan & Joanna.

16.03 It's 'Go Go Go!'

General update on events happening here... stingray & sky got married, stingray dies* (how do you think he got the time off to do panto?!) & izzy's coming back. *unconfirmed, only seen the trailers. Yes we've managed to catch a couple of episodes of neighbours in between sorting out somewhere to live and absorbing the grand prix atmosphere.

Yet another week of complete extremes. Have seen some lovely apartments and a not-so-lovely one! I've mentioned that our days come in blocks of two. Day one is where a lot of leg work is done, visiting agents, searching the internet and booking appointments. Day two is visiting the places that we found the day before, and this is always the better day as it always offers us hope. Day three is a repeat of day one!

Last weekend was a bank holiday so we took some time off from the searching. well almost! We decided to check out a suburb called 'st kilda'. Nice beach & quite trendy. Here you can catch a colony of penguins and you can also meet the italian 'Tony Coco'. This chap is the youngest 80 year old you'll ever likely to see, spends 3 hours in the morning in the gym and the rest of the day sunning himself on a jetty. He even has his name scratched into a bench! Usually there is a crowd of old duffers but the rest were in the park (we saw them) as its closer to the trams! Had a nice chat with him, asked me whether I was going to work in a supermarket, which I replied 'I haven't come ALL this way to do that!". Not really sure how he took that, even though I had previously told him I was a designer!

Anyway a few more days of searching for flats, visiting flats, travelling on trams, taking a bus & riding the train to spend some time on Brighton Beach. Public transport is great! We finally had a break through, as an agent called to say that she had two flats for us to see. Same apartment block as before over looking Southbank & the casino. Liked them both, applied for them both.

We had finally reached Thursday and it was time to start absorbing the GP atmosphere in Albert Park, however there was a viewing to see on our way. Saw the flat very impressive, so we applied for that. On the tram had a call to say that we had been successful on the application the day before, but we really liked the one we had seen just moments before. Ah, what shall we do? A delaying tactic was played 'we'd like a second viewing early tomorrow morning' - this is payback for all the rubbish we had to put with before hand!! Phoned our lady in Docklands and she said that she would get back to us later in the afternoon, but by 14.00 the flat was ours and we are very very happy!! Finally! And just before the grand prix too! Thought it wouldn't happen this week, and now we're moving in on Tuesday!

This has meant that we've been able to really enjoy the weekend. The F1 cars are SOOO fast, the speed they carry and scrub-off is amazing. The noise... unbelievable. We were at turn three today watching them go through the chicane - totally amazing considering it was in the wet!
Yes, we had our first rain last night. Cooled things slightly, but has been very humid. It was 33° on Thursday & 21° today. We can now say that we've experienced a 'change'! Tomorrow is qualifying and Joanna & I are planning to get on TV, we're sitting opposite the gantry that holds the starting lights, near the start-finish line. We're in a great position to shout at Martin Brundle as he does his 'grid walk'!!

We have just been to Docklands to check it out at night and to see what stuff is about. It looks like it may take us a couple of weeks to work our way round all the restaurants! Luckily we have access to the gym & pool!! It looks like an amazing place & I'm sure that we'll be quite happy there! We're definitely on the best side for facilities & quietness (in a city environment!).

Anyway its time to go. Its another early start tomorrow because the trams are like sardine tins & we've got to make our sandwiches! But should be good though, it seems to be a very open season at the moment so there's a real buzz of excitement. I'm loving it & I think Joanna is too!!

Love to all,
Nathan & Joanna.

10.03 'I Haven't come all this way...'

This is an expression that is ususally used with '...to live in THAT!'. You may have heard that we've had a few issues regards finding suitable accommodation. The rental market here is very hot at the moment. It's been quoted that vacancy rates are 0.4%. This means that every viewing you are likely to be greeted by 30 snearing faces! That's a lot of people to squeeze into a one bedroomed appartment!

The procedures are slightly different here too. It's not like when we inspected GH and good 'ole Pat said 'yes' on the spot. Oh no, we have to apply for each property by filling in a form! And that's two forms (one each)! We had an application turned down for a brand new 27th floor, two bed appartment over looking the river yarra, southbank & the casino. Quelle surprise! So we are now dab hands at these, and even have our own little info packs to hand in too!

So ALL our time here has been spent visiting estate agents and visiting properties with the rest of Melbourne. All this travelling about means that we are slowly learning the 'knowledge'! So we now know where we want to live, its just trying to get a place. Somehow, Joanna has even found time to apply for a job - I like this idea as I can pursue 'other' projects! In fact, we think it will be easier to find work than a place to live!!

Hopefully the following week will be a bit more exciting as its a bank holiday on Monday and grand prix week! Hmmm, flat or grand prix? Flat or grand prix?... feel that the duties might be split, Joanna on flats and me on practice & qualifying! It's okay, Joanna is very experienced and as long as it doesn't cause me to react with the subject of this blog, it'll be fine!

Meals are interesting as we currently live out of a bag. It seems that 'carrier bag living' is all the rage here. Can't wait until we get our own place with our own kitchen!

You'll have to excuse the irregular posts, as some of the wireless networks here are a little patchy. Due to the 'cafe culture' here, we are currently sipping latte's & tea's, while enjoying the benefits of wi-fi! This really is the life!! We do enjoy the occassional drink out, but its dependant on whether we've got sandwiches with us - Joanna's rules! AKA 'Poverty Corner'!!

My relatives here are helping us out and been very supportive. We've been told that things might take a little bit longer than we're used to & we have only been here SIX days!!! We have managed to sort some bits out like phones, bank accounts & tax file numbers.

As soon as we have a bit of reliability on the wi-fi, we'll post again!
Love to all,
Nathan & Joanna

06.03 What we've been up to!

G'day!
Well what HAVE we been up to?!? Don't think we have 'blogged' for a while so here goes....

HK was fab the city was amazingly clean, the people friendly and helpful and a shoppers paradise! We went up to the Peak on the tram - a big rollercoaster ride! Out on the ferries round the harbour which cost a whopping 15p to cross the harbour by boat AND we treated ourselves to the top deck - crazy! Went into tons of shopping malls - Jeffery girls you would have absolutely LOVED it - I think better than Singers! And Nathan wouldn't let me buy anything as we were slightly over on our bags.....! But they did have Marks & Spencer but soz Ryan we didn't see your chum!

Our flight to Australia took us on a surprise stop in Adelaide! Another 12 hours cramped up but the pillows you got us Matt were Amazing and we did sleep loads!

We arrived on Sunday 4 March and were met by Nathan's rellies with a fab welcome bbq! And now it's down to business and the reality of living in Oz! But we've been pretty good and have got mobiles sorted, bank accounts etc and are really living the dream - however no jobs or anywhere to live - ho hum, you can't have it all!

And that's it for now, thanks for all your blog messages and we will write / speak / email / contact people soon!


Jo x

01.03 Leg One: Complete

Its 4.00 in the morning in HK. We're a little jet lagged as we probably slept too well on the plane! Cheers for the pillows Matt! I think they made quite a bit of difference. Not sure what to do with ourselves so we thought that we'd write our first travelling blog!

Karl & Helen picked us up at our allotted time from No. 5, as the duck & the china man sang their farewells to us! Did you see us on Wednesday as we were leaving Simon?!

Arrived at Heathrow and tried to check in but found we were over our baggage allowance by 11kg (don't they know who we are?). This wasn't helped by the fact we were to be charged £40/kg!! It was suggested by Gok Wan (his real name was Dominic) that he would charge us for half of it. Then it was time for the 'easyjet tears', (which kind of helped) so it was suggested to try and get the total down to 56kg. How did you get away with it girls?!!

A little moving of baggage & removal of our books (5kg just for these!) we managed to just get within Gok Wan's 56kg total. Also found out that out seats hadn't been booked & everyone else had checked in! The desk was supposed to open ten minutes after we arrived there! We have never had any trouble like this before and it wasn't a great experience.

Said a very fond farewell to my M&D, Karl & Helen and headed air-side! Thank you all for everything. Hope everyone got back okay.

Arrived in Hong Kong at 18.00 after our 12 hour flight - when we return it will be premium economy for us! A little tired & weary, but made our way to our hotel, using the train & a taxi, which is just round the corner from Times Square. The city is amazing. Its very clean. The people seem to be very friendly & helpful. I think its in the detail - we went to a supermarket last night & they pack your bag and taped up the top, either so stuff doesn't fall out or it gives the pick pockets more of a challenge!? You don't feel intimidated when you walk around. It looks like the Matrix & so very similar to the Channel4 ad! We've been looking for the '4' but haven't found it yet!! We'll keep you posted...

Still another 2.5 hours to breakfast. Someone says she is starving!! I expect we'll do a little exploring today - there are plenty of trams & ferries to ride. Can't wait to tuck into some of the local cuisine - it smelt wonderful as we looked around last night!!

Will post soon.
Lots of Love,
Nathan & Joanna