Chores Chores

I always forget just how much is involved in moving to a new place. Adrienne and I have been dealing with finding housing over the last few days. Sydney’s public transit system is still in its adolescence, and we’re still learning how to use it, so we’ve been doing a lot of walking. Sydney’s housing is a bit more expensive than Ann Arbor is, so I had been preparing myself to settle for something a little closer to what I was used to as a student. Then we found this amazing place. It is what the Australians call a granny flat (I’ve just always called it an apartment), it is a part of a house that has been sectioned off as a separate, stand-alone dwelling. It has two spacious rooms, a kitchen, and bathroom with high ceilings and windows on the east and west sides, so it gets a lot of light [since writing this we’ve moved in to this place, pictures will be coming soon].

Most people here use their phones and 3G/4G USB modems for internet, and for good reason. The bandwidth is much lower than in States, the usage is metered (only allowed so much upload/download a month), the ISPs seem to prefer contracts, and the lines seem to be old and unreliable. Therefore, most people use mobile technology to get to the internet. Some of the same problems apply, but it can be used anywhere, and the connections are a bit more reliable. This is going to take a little getting used to.

It turns out getting money here is way more complex than we expected it would be. I figured I would be able to set up transfers from my bank to here, and just move money whenever I wanted (in fact, in my first call to my bank they said I’d be able to set up online bill pay for this.) I wasn’t going to be surprised when if there would have been some fee involved, but I thought I would have the ability. Turns out my bank is completely useless when it comes to moving money, and it took me three phone calls (thank you Skype) to find out just how bad it is. In the end, it seems like easiest course of action is going to be to mail a check to the States, and then have someone wire the money to our bank. Ugh.