A New Life in Melbourne

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Things are starting to get more settled here. Yesterday (Tuesday) we picked up our bank cards and started looking at apartments and cell phones. We found out that we can’t use our iPhones from Canada since they are locked into our Canadian providers. There is a place here that can unlock them, but it would cost $160 to unlock mine, and $220 to unlock Becca’s. So that’s totally not happening. Cell phones makes so much more sense here. The providers can unlock them, you can buy SIM cards pretty much anywhere for $2, you don’t get charged for incoming calls or texts (including international!), and the plans are cheaper, too.

Today, we went to get phones. It feels like an official step towards a semi-permanent life in Melbourne. The part that sucks is having to get used to a new phone. It’s not a bad phone, but I know I’ll be missing my iPhone. I like that I won’t have to pay for incoming calls. So to my family and friends that want to call and talk to me and pay for international charges, ask for my number! Hahaha.

We also had our interview with ANZUK today. Now THAT’S an official step for sure. We finished all the registration, signed the papers, gave our start dates (available as of Monday), and can now teach in Melbourne schools! We even have ID cards on lanyards that we have to wear at schools. It says “Teacher.” That’s me. I’m a teacher, and very very soon, I’ll be getting paid to do just that. Crazy.

Now the biggest thing on to-do list is to get an apartment. Ugh. Of course the hard part. We have a couple inspections set up for tomorrow (Thursday), so I’m hoping one of those is our new home. If not, there’s about 3 or 4 open inspection times on Saturday that we’ll go to. We’ll have a pretty big problem if we don’t have a place by the time Becca’s parents leave. We’ll probably stay at a hostel, but we have a lot of stuff... so it’ll be pretty difficult to transport it all to a new place when we do get one. So we’re crossing our fingers to find a place soon.

In other Melbourne news, it’s rainy. It’s windy. It’s cold. And it doesn’t seem to be letting up anytime soon. Apparently winter in Melbourne means rain and wind. So... yay. It doesn’t seem like we’ll have to right weather for it, but we’re planning on going to Phillip Island and see the penguins. Hopefully we’ll also go to the Koala Conservation. No other big plans yet. Just find a place, get set up, and get working. Hopefully it happens soon.