One step at a time (and other blunders)

Booya!!

I finally got an apartment...unbelievable how hard it is to get an apartment in Australia - or maybe I just suck at apartment-hunting? Either way, I now have a place again. I actually got more than a bit concerned, since the one month of company-paid temporary accomodations was about to end (after which it would have gotten very pricy very fast), so I applied for the first apartment I looked at after I got rejected the last time. Surprise, suprise, I got accepted - now I have an apartment that is quite a bit more expensive than I had planned, but also quite a bit nicer - and it is also in Perth. For those of you who don't know what that means: Even though Perth is usually listed as having 1.6 million people and occupying 5382 sq. km, these numbers are actually referring to "greater Perth", i.e. Perth and all its Suburbs; Perth itself is much, much smaller - essentially only the Central Business District (CBD), which is the Ozzy-equivalent of the American "downtown". So now I am not only very close to the center of Perth, but also only 15 minutes away from work - and all "by accident".

Naturally, as always, there is a fly in the ointment: The apartment does not seem to have air conditioning (or I am really, REALLY blind!) ; at this point I assume that the A/C has not been installed yet (the building is brand new and only opened recently; there is actually still small-scale construction going on in some parts of the building) - otherwise, the summer is going to get extremely toasty ;-)
It's also missing most of the appliances (basically, it only has an oven and a drier right now), but we'll see if there is more stuff to come or if I have to buy the rest myself (wouldn't be a problem, even though I am not keen on it)

Unfortunately, since my stuff from the US of A is still floating on the Pacific somewhere, I still can't put up pictures as of yet, so hold your horses! (especially you, Chris ;-p )

Oh, and I now have a suspicion why I might have been denied for the other apartment: There is one particular question in the (pretty detailed) questionnaire: "Are you a smoker?" with the words "Yes" and "No" next to them (just the words, no checkboxes). Naturally (being mostly a non-smoker), I marked "No". I didn't realize at the time that this could also have been interpreted as me crossing out "No", essentially answering "Yes". I only realized this problem when I applied for my current apartment and the lady at the real estate agency checked the application and verified my answer with me. In my opinion, it would be extremely easy to prevent this from happening by putting small checkboxes next to each answer. But I guess the moral of the story is: If you fill out a form, make absolutely sure that your choices cannot possibly be misinterpreted.

My home is my castle....

....unfortunately, I nave neither right now - I'm still living in temporary housing arranged by my employer, and while I definitely appreciate not having to pay for my accomodations right no0w, I cannot wait to get back into a place I can call "home". Fortunately, I have applied for an apartment and with some luck, I should get approved by Monday or Tuesday.

Even though I went through the exact same experience when I moved to the US 8 years ago, I had completely forgotten how many of the daily comforts we enjoy in the "western" world are contingent on having a permanent address - the ability to get decent TV channels (Hotel TV channels are bearable, but nowhere near decent), a personal cell/mobile phone, a car that is not a rental, not to mention cheap Internet-access, all those require some "proof-of-address", or, in other words, a utility bill.

Well, hopefully, after next week, I'll have my own place again, and can start to get back all those little amenities we all depend on far more than most of us are willing to admit...