Movin' on Up (or CSIRO giveth and Ikea taketh away)

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Originally uploaded by BLP.

After months of temporary housing, we've finally taken possession of a new apartment - one where we'll be able to sit on our own furniture (someday), move around without bumping into each other, have internet access, stay warm in winter and cool in summer, stay dry when it rains, and take showers without kneeling down.

There is, however, a catch. The 20ft container containing all of our belongings is still at sea, although it's due to arrive in Melbourne this Friday. Hopefully, customs officials will be kind and give our stuff quick clearance.

So the task for the weekend was to make the new place liveable. Turns out this took a bit more work than we'd anticipated - we weren't thrilled to find that the apartment didn't come with a refrigerator. We were even more displeased to find out how much the damn things cost down here. For what we paid, we could have bought two comparable refrigerators in the U.S. at Sears and still had enough money left over for a couple of cases of beer.

We took care of the fridge issue first thing Saturday morning, arranged delivery, and then proceeded to Victoria Gardens, our local shopping mall, where we went to work in Ikea, Dick Smith's (TVs and such), and K-Mart. About six hours later, we'd been through K-Mart twice, made a young salesman at Dick Smith's extremely happy, and bought a new dining table, chairs, and some really cheap dishes at Ikea. All of this was loaded into the Subaru Outback that we'd rented for the day (sweet ride, by the way, but it didn't come with a Crocodile Dundee). We then headed home, took a breather, and then made one last trip to K-Mart just to make sure we had one of everything they sell. In addition to the most intensive shopping experience of my life, we also learned the following:

a) the parking deck at Victoria Gardens is hell
b) prices in Australia are often negotiable
c) when negotiating prices, it helps to mention that you just saw the product in question for sale elsewhere at a lower price (even if that's complete rubbish - hee, hee).

We eventually wrestled all of this stuff back into the new place, and then immediately ran away from it all, spending one final night at our temporary shelter in South Yarra.

Sunday, we checked out of our old place, returned the Outback, and had a nice breakfast at the Prahran Market (where we got to see some die hard souls emerging from clubs at 9:00am in the morning). The rest of the day was spent in cleaning (prior occupants cut a few corners on their way out), assembling the aforementioned loot from Ikea, and being amused by the fact that we now have enough space that we can hide from each other.