Flat Finding Fun (not)

So, flat hunting.

It's a completely different experience searching for a place on your own as opposed to finding a place to live with a group of friends. It was a case of signing up to many many flatmate websites and searching on gumtree.com.au everyday (I sacrificed a few hours of facebook time for this). There were certain ads you knew to stay away from, for example, the ones that advertised rooms with pictures of four-poster beds in the style of Henry VIII, ones that said "hav room availabel. plz call after 6pm only 04** *** **", and the one that had the Taj Mahal as one of its pictures (we're not stupid, people!).

As I searched for houses, my standards slowly lowered and lowered. After all, Sydney is an expensive place so I was already wincing at the fact that my budget was 3 times what I paid in England per week. At first my aim was a place near work and the city, low rent, my own room, Australian housemates and a nice tidy house. This turned into aspirations of a place near work and the city, sort of low rent, a shared room with one other person, and at least a few Australian housemates. This transitioned into a need for a place near work and the city, the best rent I could get, and a shared room with anybody.

I saw so many places of all shapes and sizes that I literally lost count. During the day I would line up about 4 or 5 places max to see after work, and I would go everyday for almost 2 weeks. They all had their benefits and drawbacks, but the drawbacks were usually things I couldn't really live with, like having a bunk bed in a 1 bed apartment where the owner lived in the bedroom and the bunk beds were in the living room/kitchen. I can't live in one room . For a few weeks, hmmmmm maybe, but not for 3 months+. And one place advertised an "own room," which turned out to mean a landing with a mattress on the floor and 2 sheets stapled to the ceiling to make 'walls'. Yeah.

It was especially hard to choose considering I was already living in a clean and tidy 2bed/3storey house in the lovely suburb of Balmain. But I needed to move, the simple reason being that I would come home from work and.... watch tv. In silence. And not speak to anyone until the next day. And it's kind of hard to meet new people that way.

The house I eventually picked is... interesting. It's seriously close to work, a 10 minute walk max. I share a room with 3 other girls on bunk beds (as the newbie, I get the top one). There's not much room for my stuff as you can imagine with 4 girls sharing a room, so I'm going to need to ship a lot of it home (which I have to do anyway, as I am over the weight limit for my suitcase already. And I need to go shopping at least twice a week to stay alive). It's not really the cleanest or tidiest place in the world, and cooking might be a bit of a nightmare with 10 people trying to find room.

So why compromise?

Well, you see, I'm meeting people now! The other day I went shopping with Saki (Japanese) and Jee Eun (Korean). That night I had dinner in Darling harbour with Jee Eun, Edouard (French) and his Marie and Valerie. The next day I celebrated St Patrick's day with them, Saki and Alex (Italian). It would appear that yet again I have fallen in with the international lot, instead of the "natives" of the country, just like America, but I'm completely fine with that. I've been there less than a week and already I can tell they are a fantastic bunch of people. This trip is now officially going to be awesome.

And THAT'S why I compromised.

TTFN!

On my flathunting adventures, I saw this...... the dog I expected. The pig? Not so much.