Moving home

It felt a bit strange to be back in Sydney, on one hand it was great, our giant roadtrip had finished and we'd made it without too many ups and downs. At the same time though there was a tinge of sadness that this was the end of our amazing adventure in oz. From now on there are very few aussie places left for us to discover, and will miss the sense of adventure in seeing a new part of oz everyday.



The other downside of getting back to Sydney is that there are lots of things that need to be sorted; Happily though, after a manic week we can say that the two biggest stresses are behind us, we sold the van and we have found somewhere to live. At one point it looked as though neither of these things would happen easily!

We firstly looked for a flat....imagine...trying to find a flat over xmas hols in the city for just 6weeks - most people thought we were crazy! We spent a whole day running round the outer city visiting various places and saw one horrible, horrible place that was more like a swatters den and one gorgeous place (alittle like a lighthouse structure) in Manly that overlooked the harbour (sadly too much) and you could even snorkle on a private beach at the back of the garden! Luckily for us the next day we saw a place near Hyde park (right in the city centre) and we jumped at it. It's officially our first roof over our heads together...ahhhh... It's a fab house with 10 others from Colombia, France, Germany, Brazil, Italy etc.... it's basically the united nations! It's brilliant and should be great fun over xmas! ... Adam also said that I have to mention our fab bed linen... our bed is covered in Red/purple satin sheets and looks very 70's pimp!

Our other good/sad news is that poor old Bruce drove off into the sunset today with alittle tear in our eyes! The Bruce-miester did us proud though... after 1 hour of sticking up our adverts, a lovely french guy, Arnaud had a look and gave us an offer - brilliant! We really wanted the van to go to a good home and we've had an absolutely unforgettable time in him!



But like anything, it wasn't a simple case of just handing over the money, first we had to pass our pink slip (like a basic m.o.t). We didn't think we would have any hassle but this morning the mechanic told us that the little rust damage would fail us and would cost a couple of hundred dollars to fix. We were gutted...but he turned out to be a decent Aussie bloke and told us how to fix it up ourselves at the auto shop round the corner. We basically were stood outside in the carpatrk with filler, tesco card, plastic bag, paper and spray paint in hand.... nutters! But hey, it did the job and even though we are no panel beaters the mechanic was pretty damn impressed, so who knows, maybe we should open a garage when we get home!





So... Everyone was happy, Bruce passed the pink slip, Arnaud drove off to the beach and we had a well deserved fancy lunch to celebrate. Now we can enjoy our last 6weeks in Oz feeling relaxed and looking forward to spending time with lex's folks.

We also went along to the big grand final of Aussie Idol last weekend live at the Sydney Opera House with our new housemates. It was very cheesy but great fun and best of all, there were amazing fireworks over the opera house. We hadn't even been following the show, so didn't care who won, but it turned out that the winner wasn't even an Aussie...he was Irish!