Lots of news

Sooooooo, I've survived my first four days at work! The daily routine is totally different from my previous life as a self-employed worker who works from home. Now the alarm goes off at 6.30am (crisis!). Age and I get up together, have breakfast and hop in the car at 7.30am. A few minutes past 8am we arrive for our early bird parking spot in the CBD. Then it's a short walk to our respective workplaces, and if we want to we can be at our desks at 8.10am. We can also start the day with a coffee somewhere in a cafe. The thing is that if we leave a little bit later, we'll arrive a LOT later and miss our early bird parking for $12 per day. Arriving later than 8.30 in the car park means paying $30 and up for the day. By sharing the car we keep our transport costs managable, although we are looking at other options too, like cycling to work and purchasing a scooter and/or a motorbike.

University building (University of Adelaide)

Another University building (UniSA)

And yet another University building (University of Adelaide). All these buildings (and more) are situated next to each other. Quite an impressive sight.

Cycling sounds attractive, but it's 17k's from door to door, and not flat - Adelaide city is as flat as a pancake, but it's seriously hilly where we live. I have good shower facilities at work, but Age doesn't - so he's looking into joining the Uni's gym for this purpose. And.... we don't have our bicycles in Ozzie yet.

But that's going to change as WE JUST SOLD OUR HOUSE in New Zealand! How amazing is that!! We have been under offer for a week or so, but weren't very excited as the offer was conditional upon the sale of our purchasers' home. You never know how long it is going to take before they sell. But out of the blue another couple appeared, had a look at our place, and put an unconditional offer in. We signed it, and now the first couple has got 3 working days to make their offer unconditional - by selling their home, or by arranging bridging, or whatever way they find to do it. Either way, the place is sold! Both parties wanted to settle mid December, which means that it needs to be empty by then.

Huge hothouse in the Adelaide Botanic Gardens, which is around the corner from where I work.

Coincidentally, Age has to be in Wellington at the beginning of next week, so he's added a few days to make our home ready for the removal company. They will pack and lift our stuff up on Friday next week, and will do the final cleaning as well. We still have to get rid of 9m3 of furniture to get it all in a 20ft container. That'll be Age's job too :-)
The container will be shipped to Adelaide, probably arrive late December, checked by customs / biosecurity, and then partly unpacked for storage. We have a furnished rental place till June'12, so don't need much.

Things are suddenly moving very fast! By the way, even with the rigid current routine, we are enjoying our new lives quite a lot. It's nice to be in a city again. It's also nice to be in such a leafy and green area. A lot more trees here than in New Zealand, strangely enough. Another thing that is amazing is the climate. We've had rain almost every day (I don't know whether that's normal), but also temperatures in the high 20's and early 30's. And balmy evenings - just like you're on holiday all the time. Then there's all these tropical fruits, yumm, especially the mangos at the moment, they are devine!


[pics below: impression of Melbourne, where I was with Age a couple of weeks ago. Left: the best street in town. Centre: Melbourne Station. Right: CBD.]