burning koala

As a few of you know, our lease for our old apartment came up and our landlord decided to take back the flat. It was bitter-sweet. The upside of our old place was that the Woolies supermarket on the first floor had just opened up (we had to endure the crazy loud construction all year) and we no longer had to walk to get groceries. The downside was that the Woolies supermarket had opened up on the first floor. Now we had lots of riff-raff hanging around our entrance.

So we needed to find a place. We were asked by our landlord if we could possibly move out a month early, so we had started to look for a place in early June. We found one in North Sydney, on the other side of the harbour, but our landlord said he changed his mind about having us vacate early. We were starting to get a little peeved with the whole thing and realized that we could not look too early as all the apartments we looked at wanted immediate tenants. Angela wanted to keep up with what was out there anyway and we decided to go look at some open houses about a month before we were out of our current lease.

And it is a good thing we did. We came to look at the first apartment and were among the first ones there. The owners were renting it after finding a house. We had a nice chat and mentioned that we were looking early and understood that they would probably not want to hold the apartment. They told us that they were more interested in finding the right tenants than getting someone immediately. Angela and I decided to walk around the neighborhood (it’s about a kilometer– 15 minutes walk– from where we were currently living) and get a feel for the area. On our way back, we decided to time the walk from the apartment to the nearest train station, as the commute was a consideration for where we ended up living. As we reached the building I was pointing out to Angela where the porch was and Nelson, the owner, popped out and waved. He asked us to leave our card on his car, which we did. Later that afternoon he called and said that he and his wife hoped we were seriously interested, because they wanted to rent to us. It was funny, as we were just talking about how much we liked them and the idea of dealing with the owners directly instead of a management firm (like our old place). Turns out that as we were walking by Nelson and his wife had decided that we would be ideal tenants and Nelson said “I’ll see if they are on the street”. His wife thought he was crazy to think that we’d be wandering around after half an hour. But there we were just as he walked out to see if we were around. Kismet, I tell you.

So the new place is near Hyde Park, which is essentially the center of the city. I can (have to) walk to work in the city, and it is a bit of a closer walk to the train for Angela. Still close to shops and restaurants, so it’s very convenient. And now we have two bedrooms, although they are technically part of a large studio with sliding opaque doors to enclose the rooms in a modular fashion.

A visual tour:

Angela sitting at the island in the main room

The kitchen, with the porch reflecting in the back mirror

The doors to the porch open all the way up to expose the entire apartment to the open air (plus a gas BBQ)

A small office in the back of the apartment

The artwork is stylized versions of Ned Kelly, Australia’s version of Billy The Kid

His and Her sinks in the bathroom, plus a full bath and a shower stall

Looking down the entrance hall towards the front of the apartment

Angela enjoying the sunny day

The “Master” bedroom. Equal in size to the other bedroom, but that’s where the bed was

Eric writing this post on the big comfy couch

I’d like to say that the move went smoothly, but I got the flu the day before we moved. Angela pretty much had to do everything herself while I slowly became dead to the world. Luckily, Manuel was available to help and we were able to enlist David’s car to move our stuff. I ended up getting walking pneumonia after the flu abided and spent the first two weeks pretty much holed up in our new place. Not an auspicious beginning, but I’m finally getting on my feet and we are feeling more settled in. Still getting used to the new layout and ambient sounds. But so far so good. It’s a welcome change with the additional space and almost excessive storage capacity (by Sydney apartment standards, anyway).