Veronica's First Week and a new apartment

Veronica has completed her first week of work, and as of Saturday we are now living in a new apartment. Life in Sydney is good.

(Veronica – So I have just finished my first week at work. My job title is still Environmental Scientist, but now I am working for a much larger consulting firm compared to the Hawaii firm. The people are nice and I take the ferry and a train to get to work. It’s nice because I can read my books or listen to my I-Pod. Matt and I are getting a car, but its use will be for weekend trips only.

I had a physical this past week and wow what a difference in the medical care from the US. First off, a physical is standard in my job. When I had my Hawaii physical last summer I was not impressed with the clinics facilities. A bit snobbish I know but what can I say? Here in Australia, medical care is provided to everyone, which I am pretty skeptical about. The clinic I visited not only looked run down but the technology was straight from the 70’s era. They had huge, loud machines that reminded me of silent films when people had to crank their engine up to start their car. And it got worse. The doctor was unable to get blood from either my left or right arm. He told me he had no choice but to go through the painful way of taking blood from the top of my hand. I nearly fainted. Out of the two tubes he needed to fill, he only filled half of one tube. Because of the pain and the slow drips of blood, the doctor told me he had enough to run all the tests. Whew! Looking back now, the Hawaii clinic was undoubtedly first class all the way. After telling Matt about my experience, we both decided we were not going anywhere near a hospital here unless it was an emergency.

Perhaps the scariest part of my physical was where the hospital was located, Bankstown. From what I can tell, this part of Sydney reminded me of Kalihi, or South Dallas. Yikes! )

Matt - It wasn’t all good news though as I got into my first accident driving in Sydney on Thursday night. Luckily I reversed into a telephone pole and didn’t actually hit anyone, but regardless I still feel like a first class moron. It wouldn’t be so bad if I had only dinged the car, but it actually shattered the back windshield! Yowsers!

Friday I had an interview with the owner of a commercial real estate firm in Sydney. I don’t have an offer, yet, but it is looking pretty good so far. I will be meeting with him again in 3 to 4 weeks when he gets back from a few business trips. We shall see.

Saturday was an insanely hot and humid day to move, but nonetheless everything of ours, and our roommate Morgan’s was moved in to the new place without a hitch. Our new place is pretty nice, and from the back balcony we have a view of the Harbour (very nice, I like! We will post more pics of the place later this week, once it is all set up). After finishing around 8 pm a storm moved in and brought strong winds and rain. We went and walked down to the Wharf to get some dinner from a place called Chat Thai. After a few beers at a Bavarian Brewery, right next door, we headed home for the night.

Morgan knocked on my door at 8 this morning to go surf. It was tough dragging myself out of bed because when I looked out the window it was still cold, grey and rainy. Surprisingly the surf wasn’t too bad, and after driving around checking a few spots we surfed a spot North of Narrabeen. It was cold, but the waves were decent. Still, I found myself dreaming of the warm surf of Hawaii.

Today marks 3 years from the day that I first took Veronica on our first date to Emilio’s. Unfortunately with the move and the bad weather I don’t have an awesome day planned for our anniversary. Horrible I know, but I have vowed to make up for my pathetic lack of planning. If anyone has any good ideas, please email those over to me pronto!

Before we sign off though, we went and saw a movie with our friends on Sunday night, Hot Fuzz. Oh man, the movie was hilarious, and it featured major homage to one of the greatest movies of all time, Point Break. But that’s actually not the point. Here in Australia movie tickets are $15. The reason for these outrageous prices is because everyone, no matter how brainless and easy their job, gets paid a living wage here. This is a great thing, except that the ticket lady tonight was practically brain dead. Same thing at fast food chains here, the workers make $36,000 a year, and yet they are completely worthless at their job. Seeing this crap almost makes my liberal rhetoric seem a tad hollow. Dear God I hope I am not turning into Dick Cheney!