Fractal Blog

I'm writing this entry sitting on the shady balcony, watching the yacht race in the sun-drenched harbour. One of the big pleasures of living here.

The day can already be chalked up as a success: We managed to get Australian driving licenses. This was a rather quicker process than we had expected: We turned up at the RTA office (equivalent of the UK DVLA) and got handed a form. Filled in form, brought with us UK driving licenses, our passports and an Aussie bank statement as proof-of-address, then the officer asked "Can you read the bottom line on that screen". Considering that you'd have to be half-blind not to be able to read script that big three meters from your face this wasn't a problem. They took our photographs there-and-then. Having forked over $142 each as well we thought we'd completed the application process but we were told there would be a five-minute wait. We thought they were checking the information given before letting us go. After five minutes we got called back to the desk. "Here are your driving licenses. Have a good day." They printed them immediately. In the UK this would have involved sending passports through the post and a two-week processing time.

If we hadn't had UK licenses (apparently, the UK is one of the countries deemed to have a driving test "of comparable standard to Australia") we'd have had to re-take the test here. Having observed the general standard of driving on the roads here I'm pretty sure the test consists of the following exercises: 1. Try to frighten as many pedestrians as possible. 2. Stopping on red at the stop line is for wimps. Drive straight through, or, if really not possible, stop directly on the pedestrian crossing, blocking it. 3. Having driven past the left turn you intended to take, reverse down the four-lane major road you're on and make the turn anyway. 4. Having decided that you really want to be going in the opposite direction, swerve across four lanes and do an illegal U-turn. Do this at high speed in order to avoid holding up other traffic for too long. 5. Your indicators are a high-value item that you should avoid using wherever possible. Other road users can see where you're going so there is no point. Demonstrate your appropriate use of the horn if other road users fail to read your intentions correctly (or if you change your mind).

Anyway, we now have a form of identification that can be handed over without a string of explanations. Next admin item, a Medicare card. Given that a driving license is a prerequisite to get one of those it should now all fall into place.

Still no broadband so I'm posting several entries in one go. From a wireless hotspot. I feel crippled without continuous access to the internet.

Sitting outside our favourite leisure establishment sipping a civilised alcoholic beverage while watching the world go by, we noticed this cute little specimen foraging for food very close by. Given that it was so cute it got photographed. Then the staff noticed, took it to be a rat and proceeded promptly towards a plan for exterminating the pest. Especially since it seemed to have hungry brothers and sisters, too.

Not usually slow in proclaiming opinions, the self-styled Australian Wildlife Expert mentioned to the staff in an off-hand remark that he thought these were marsupials. That would mean Australian Native Wildlife. There are draconian penalties for harming Australian Native Wildlife so clearly the plan could not proceed without formal identification of this lifeform. Fortunately both the Sydney Aquarium and the Sydney Wildlife Park are an easy stroll away so a staff member, armed with a cardboard box and a piece of paper for use as a makeshift shovel attempted to catch them alive. This was funny to watch but eventually successful.

The cardboard box was ferried down the quay to the wildlife experts. Ten minutes later the verdict came back: Rats. Being a wildlife park with plenty of authentic Australian wildlife (of which this lizard on the Cockle Bay train is a model) there was probably no problem in what to do with the rats. My guess is that the lizards were in for a good meal. And it was humble pie for the loud, confident and wrong Burbler.

Talking of urban wildlife, we found this exemplar closer to home. In our new flat, to be precise. "Isn't it beautiful" was not my first reaction but then it wasn't me who had to deal with it. My first reaction wouldn't have been to photograph it either but taking a photograph seemed to expedite my main aim, which was getting the thing out of the flat.

Having done Australia Day we next proceeded to Ikea for the basics, so that in the future we wouldn't have an excuse for eating out in the pub. This involved striking just the right balance between buying essential items (crockery, cutlery, and an outside table and chairs) without buying any unnecessary duplicates. After all, our sea freight will arrive in three to four weeks. We hope.

As usual Ikea has just the right price-to-quality ratio for this sort of thing. We obtained acceptable cutlery very cheaply, and some crockery that we like so much we're contemplating going back and buying a whole set. It's arguably nicer than the crockery in our sea freight.

A small table with two chairs to put on the balcony, bought elsewhere, completed the requirements. We now have the means to sit on the balcony overlooking the harbour which, combined with the air mattress we bought, is all the absolutely essential furniture. We're very happy that, unusually for Australia, our rented flat comes with all the white goods. Exceptionally good-quality white goods at that. Otherwise we'd have had to buy a fridge-freezer and a washing machine as well.

In case anyone is wondering what the picture of Solar Sailor has to do with this blog entry, the answer is "nothing". But the program that generates the page layout of this blog requires a photograph to go with the first paragraph and I can't be bothered to change that. Anyway, it's a good photograph, isn't it?

Having got the move out of the way (as in, having dumped our bags in the new flat) we determined to get as much out of Australia Day as possible. It's a lovely, sunny, summer day, about 30C, and most of the New South Wales population seems to have descended on Sydney. The ferries are packed and people are lining the Opera House Quay shoulder to shoulder, five-deep. Since the quay faces North there is no shade. This air display entertained us while waiting for a (very late) ferry.

We're all waiting for the Tall Ships Race, from Taronga Zoo to the Harbour Bridge. These are the four historic sailing boats that normally parade around the harbour from time to time, usually under power with maybe a couple of sails for decoration. This time they have all sails up. Meanwhile, any number of smaller, private boats go past the quay, the not-entirely-sober crews shouting "Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!" or "Happy Australia Day" at the spectators.

It's all very good-natured, if rather loud and boisterous. Australia flags are everywhere. There is a best-dressed boat competition, as you probably guessed from some of the pictures accompanying this entry.

Naturally it is everyone's patriotic duty to consume Australian beer on Australia Day so we walked to our usual haunt, the James Squire pub on Darling Harbour. That, too, was packed with a diverse crowd, being friendly and having a good time.

Since our flat was still entirely devoid of the items required to have a meal in it (crockery, cutlery, saucepans, chairs, tables) we trotted up the hill into Neutral Bay for an evening meal in our local. Pizza in the courtyard was just the thing to finish the day with.

Even though we're in the middle of moving in I thought I'd just post these pictures of the views from our new flat before internet access disappears. This is the view of the harbour.

You can just see the Harbour Bridge, and the top of the Opera House (behind the red-brick building).

Views the other direction, over Neutral Bay.

Turns out that new flat has non-standard telephone sockets. There may be a bigger gap than hoped before the next blog.

Also, Happy Australia Day!

There's only so many activities related to setting up a new life one can do in any given day so usually there's plenty of time left over to get to know our new city. Walking through the Botanical Gardens with my long lens, this beautiful bright-red dragonfly obligingly posed for many shots.

This bird was walking through the grass looking for worms. Not quite sure what it is but it looked interesting and hence got captured just as it was stretching its wings.

There is always something to see on the harbour. Sometimes big sailing ships parade around the harbour, and occasionally they even have some of their sails up. This is the most sails I've actually seen deployed so far.

Others rely entirely on wind power. The leader in this yacht race nearly ran into our ferry. Hint: The ferry is bigger.

Then again, as far as size goes, this carrier won. The ferry in front is the Manly service, the biggest passenger ferry on the harbour, with a carrying capacity of almost 1,000 passengers. It is dwarfed by the car carrier. However, the ferry wins on beauty and style.

Yet another cruise ship was docked today at Darling Harbour, the Dawn of the Pacific.

It's Australia Day tomorrow, and the city is getting ready to celebrate. A marquee has been erected on this warship. No need to be prepared for the eventuality of having to launch aircraft then.

Coincidentally we're also moving into our rented flat tomorrow. As usual they can't provision broadband until after the phone line has been provisioned, and they can't provision the phone line until we've actually moved in. So expect a 1-2 week break in the blogging process. Once we have achieved civilisation (broadband) again I'll post pictures of the views from our new flat.

Finding a place to live in Sydney turned out a bit of a pain. This city is full. The rents are exorbitant. The quality of what little housing stock is available for an acceptable price is frequently substandard. One property we saw had tenants in it who thought that a litter tray for their cats was not necessary, given that they had a perfectly good living room. Where a decent property is available, a dozen or more parties turn up for the inspection, all competing for the same property.

But, we needed somewhere to live. So we threw money at the problem. A lot of money. Ended up with a truly lovely flat in Neutral Bay (!), with Harbour Views. If you crane your neck a bit you can see the top of Sydney Harbour Bridge from the balcony. The view is so lovely we didn't care that the property has neither aircon nor central heating. After all, we viewed it in the middle of summer and the temperature was fine. And how cold can it get in winter in Sydney?? (We'll be able to answer this question in June -- watch this space.)

Anyway, we signed the lease today, and we can move in on Australia Day (Jan 26th). Result. In the meantime, another observation about this country: It is not possible to get a mobile phone contract without passing a credit check, but it is perfectly possible to rent a very expensive flat in one of the most desirable parts of the city without any income. (Admittedly we did offer to pay the rent for the entire 12-month lease in advance but the offer was not taken up.) However, now that we've got it I suppose somebody had better get a job.

After yesterday's crop of flat viewings we went to Circular Quay for some fun on the ferries. This enormous cruise liner, the Sapphire Princess, was docked, dwarfing everything around it.

There are lots of big ships around in the harbour. We watched this tiny tug guide the monster ship out of the harbour.

In the Botanical Gardens we saw some two-day-old coot chicks exploring their environment, being watched by their parents. They had the cute.

Having arrived in Sydney it's now time to build a new life. Two items are at the top of the agenda: 1) Find a job (either of us would do to start with); 2) Find a flat. There are worse conditions to go job and house hunting in than 25-30C and glorious sunshine. It's the best summer weather I can remember in at least two years (and yes, that does include Melbourne where summer is terrible) though I'm told the locals are complaining about this summer being on the cold side.

Admittedly it does rain a lot too -- on Saturday we got caught no fewer than six times by torrential downpours which inevitably stopped after five minutes (usually just after we'd found some shelter). This fantastic rainbow made up for getting wet on the ferry.

House hunting here works just like in Victoria, basically an inspection (usually lasting 20mins) is scheduled by the agent, and potential tenants all turn up to view the place at the same time, desperately trying to ignore all the other contenders while impressing the agent. It's not first-come-first-served; all applications are taken and the landlord chooses whomever they like the look of best on paper. So far we have not seen anything that we actually want to rent but we're getting to have an idea on which areas we might want to live in. Inevitably this is going to be a compromise between what we can afford and what is nice.

Looking for jobs just requires web access so considering the internet charges in the hotel (see previous blog entry, or should I say "previous rant"?) we sometimes go to the local coffee shop, which has excellent coffee and free internet access. It's all proceeding satisfactorily.

There is only so much scouring of adverts and viewing of flats one can do so we are enjoying the rest of the days as holidays. The ferries are always a major source of fun, even when one doesn't have to go anywhere. We saw these modern sailing dinghies preparing for a race just off Rose Bay. It is rare to see modern sailing boats in Australia and the crew clearly had a great time playing on what for most people was the last day of the Christmas holidays.

I also discovered two major shopping areas, one in the CBD and one at Chatswood. Sydney is much more cosmopolitan than Melbourne, and its shopping centres compare favourably with Paris or Berlin. Of course, so do the prices. Back to job-hunting for me, then.

Day 1 had gorgeous summer weather to offer but didn't go very smoothly nonetheless, not helped by jet lag. No matter how much sleep one gets during the flight, an 11-hour time shift is still not pleasant. It turned out that the serviced apartment's internet charges are the highest I've ever seen: measured by the minute (for broadband!) and capped at $27.50 per day per laptop for a maximum of 50MB. This is clearly ridiculous as it would have added almost $2,000 to the cost of our 30-day stay. However, reception were rather understanding about it and agreed to give us a discount on accommodation to make up for it. It still isn't great (the 50MB daily cap barely seems to allow downloading our email, never mind looking for jobs or places to rent) but it's a start.

Next thing, getting me an Aussie mobile. We knew this was going to be hassle, based on last year. In this country you can open bank accounts with little checks but try getting a mobile phone contract and they give you the third degree. Eventually I had to settle for a prepay mobile. This can only be set up over the internet. See above for the problem with internet access, so I haven't set it up yet.

Tomorrow's plan is to go to some open inspections for places we might like to rent. There seems to be quite a lot available in the price bracket we're looking at but we fully expect to have a problem renting a flat without having a job.

And it's hard to look for a job without proper internet access, or a (local) mobile to be contactable on. Anyone spot the circularity of the problem?

Sitting comfortably in the business class lounge at Changi Airport, happily drafting the previous blog entry, a bored glance at the flight departures screen suddenly showed our flight's status having changed from 'Check-in' to 'Flight Closing' with seemingly no intervening stages, a full forty minutes before the scheduled departure. That sounded a bit too scary to ignore so we hot-footed it to the gate where it turned out they had barely started boarding. We boarded anyway (business class tickets are so nice!), and found ourselves on the top deck of the A380.

The seats were very wide, there was a huge entertainment screen each and plenty of buttons to play with. But the real fun was the sleeping arrangements. Having loudly proclaimed himself not at all impressed with the seats because they wouldn't go "fully flat", the other Airbus A380 Novice had to eat his words following the video presentation on how to convert the seat into a bed. It involved similar procedures to folding down the back seats of most cars to make the boot bigger. The result was fantastic, even I could fully stretch out and I had an excellent few hours sleep. In fact I didn't want to wake up.

Disappointingly the food wasn't any better than on the flight to Singapore, although I'm told that if I stopped choosing European foods and went for the Asian choices I'd get better meals. The problem with this is that I'm not quite such a chilli-fiend as Other People, nor do I consider noodles with fried meat (and chilli), irrespective of how excellent, to be suitable for breakfast. Still, we both loved the A380 experience so much that we would actively want to repeat it in the future.

We arrived in Sydney nearly on time. You know you've come a long way if the welcome announcement doesn't just say "...where the local time is X" but "...where the local time is X on date Y". If you squint just right you can see the harbour bridge in the background of this picture.

We got issued with 'Express Path' invitations, a new spiff for 'selected' (i.e. business and first class) passengers who can go through a specially short immigration and customs queue. We were very glad of this since the normal queue was unbelievably long! In the event we cleared both immigration and customs in under an hour, with officials wishing us all the best setting up our lives.

Taxi to serviced apartment. Weather is about 26C and sunny. Result!

Ah, the joys of travelling half-way across the world on the first day after the Christmas break. Half the drivers on the M4 seemed to be asleep, weaving dangerously. There was a monster traffic-jam at Heathrow. The car hire company wanted us to drop our car where there wasn't actually any space and the Russian (?) lady whose job it is to direct customers didn't speak much English. All of these things combined to make a less-than-promising start.

However, one of the spiffs of business class tickets is priority check-in and fast-track security. Despite being an hour later than we had planned we made it easily with enough time to sample the free wines in Lounge D. I am getting quite good at blind wine tasting. Identified both the Savignon Blanc and the Chardonnay correctly. Maybe an alternative career would be open to me?

Having already indulged in the pre-flight wine, they promptly gave us champagne as a welcome on the plane. And then more wine. The wine on the flight was noticeably worse than in the lounge. As the Other Oenophile so rightly remarked, a Barossa Valley Shiraz shouldn't have a zing to it.

The amount of free alcohol on offer was largely to hide the quality (I use the word loosely) of the food, which frankly would have been a disgrace in economy class, never mind business. I'm absolutely certain that the "scrambled eggs" were the worst I have ever tasted, to the extent that I considered them inedible. Made from powdered egg, apparently. Honestly, give me Qantas catering any day. (But they're double the price of Singapore Airlines, whose staff, it must be said, are fantastic and service is excellent. In fact apart from the food the whole flight has been excellent, and of course Singapore Airways have the added spiff of the A380...)

I'm typing this entry in the Raffles Class Lounge at Changi Airport. Free Wi-fi and free showers. But still absolutely terrible food. I have no idea what time it is but it isn't the time at the top of this blog (my laptop is still on UK time). Another nine hours to Sydney. On the A380. Really looking forward to the experience.

Yet another new year started with a monumental hangover, due to seasonal over-indulgence. Today, however, we couldn't give in to the desire for sleep as we are once again moving half-way around the planet. Tomorrow is the day. So today it was time to provide our existing furniture with a good home in a friend's house. For logistical reasons this had to be done in the morning. At least the physical exertion of taking apart IKEA furniture soon got us over the hangover.

Hopes for the New Year. A home and a settled life in Australia are top of my list. Not moving half-way around the planet every twelve months. Being able to accumulate "stuff", otherwise known as "personal possessions that make a house into a home". Stability. Most people seem to manage to acquire these without moving 10,000 miles but not us.

With a major feat of organisation we managed to see the vast majority of our friends and families before heading off. These are concentrated in Devon, Berlin and of course the Bristol/Bath area. The visits have reminded us why we are emigrating: the weather.

This was Devon three weeks ago. High winds and driving rain made spectacular views but driving or walking was dangerous in freezing conditions.

This was Berlin two weeks ago. Maximum daytime temperatures were around -2C, and we didn't have proper winter clothes (clearly there was no point buying any).

Christmas was somewhat scaled down as all presents need to be shipped at a whopping cost of GBP 8 per kilogram so it made sense to have only silly presents (to be left here) or presents that don't weigh anything and don't take up any room. The Burblechaz won that one by giving me a beautiful ruby necklace.

It'll be summer again the day after tomorrow.