Well the condo troubles continue, this weekend we tried to turn the air conditioner on in the bedroom. So I set it to 28c and let it run, at bedtime I decided to turn it off. So I got the remote control and ... dead. It was dead. Now I poked and proded the control and I could not figure out how to take the batteries out. So to turn it off I had to shut off the power via the circuit breaker. So when we got up the next morning, no hot water. So I figured that maybe it was attached to the same circuit but on the breakers it has it's own. So I popped off a plug and turned up thermostat, switched on the breaker for the air con and waited. Well the water came out luke warm at best. Now as I write this the top pipe seems to be hotter than it was yesterday. Now yesterday I turned down the thermostat to see if that works. So if you hear a huge scream that'll be me taking a cold shower.
Parking, when we first got here we asked a guy in the lot, where can you park and he said "wherever ?", so we did. Two days we got letters on the car saying we are parking their spot, so we asked work where was the parking they contacted the building and they gave us a map. Now we looked at the map and it indicated that we are supposed to park under the building. Which is ok but you need a garage door opener which they didn't supply. So we are now parking on the street.
So what else is wrong, the microwave still doesn't work, the dryer only dries on warm, and the dishwasher cannot take a full plate standing up. We have to lay all plates on their sides in order to wash them, we don't wash 1/4 of the dishes we did in Canada, cause we don't have any. Oh and when we do a load of laundry we have to put it in the dryer as 2 loads, which take twice as long to dry. Luna left a towel outside to dry and it's like sandpaper so that should either be good for drying ourselves off or for exfoliating.
We have been looking at cars and I think we have decided on a Hyundai i30, white, 1.6L automatic, hatchback. Someone asked why we are picking white automatic. Well automatic because Luna and I can't concentrate on driving on the WRONG side of the road and change gears and white because any other color in this heat makes the car an oven. Hatchback so we can carry stuff like, fridges and stoves, washing machines that we may need to get when we find a new places. Oh and we are getting the windows tinted for an extra $600. They said we should but paint protection from fruit bat droppings but that is $2400 that's 10% of the cars value. So I think not I'll have to wash it off. Their droppings are acidic and can eat thru paint if left on.
So today we are going to give Luna's new GPS a spin to determine if it's any good. So far it won't show a preview of the route like her old one. But it's only $100 (we miss you Costco). Hopefully it'll suffice. Just enough to get her in the general area and back to work.
We only have a week and a bit before we have to return the car so we need to put a down payment on the car on Tuesday and this car is not in their lot but is in their ???? area. Where they put the cars together, I don't know what that means I thought cars would come assembled, but I think it's something to do with having some Australian content in the assembly that keeps the taxes or something down.
I'll try to make some more videos it's just this internet limit is a killer and there is no end in sight it's pay as you go here and 3gig is $30 for 30 days use it or loose it. Heck that was 4 days worth at home with youtube video watching. Needless to say there's no youtube watching going on. Not that I miss it much but youtube uploads are restricted. I thought Vietnam was a 3rd world country but it seems in some ways Darwin is a little 3rd worldie.
So some good news, this town seems to have a lot of things going on as in markets, there are 3 every week and there is one on Thursday and Sunday at a place called Mindil beach. Where everyone goes to get some food and watch jugglers and watch the sun go down. Now you would think that this sort of thing would die after a few weeks but there are thousands of people there every time it's open and they bring wine and beer and watch the sun go down whilst sitting on the beach. We have been there 3 times and every time the sun went down without any issues, I wanted to clap but I'm affraid they'd send me in for a mental health assessment. People video'd it, pictured it and I don't think all these people are tourists. So to get about 3-5% of the cities population out twice a week is quite a feat I would think. The food is ok. Mostly meats, vegetables are a luxury here. I think that poor diet is a problem here for Australians and aboriginals alike.
We found a store the other day that had bananas on for $7.95kg instead of the usual $12.95 so we bought 3, 3 bananas not kgs heck we're not millionaires you know. It had other things priced pretty good. So we'll be back 4 sure.
Coke, I do not know what coke has against Darwin (not sure about the rest of Australia) but it is really expensive. A 1.5 litre bottle in the store 2 for $5. Now Pepsi is 2x2litre bottles for $4. I guess coke is more popular in Oz. Now the cans I bought from Kmart don't taste all that good. So I mostly stick to water, expensive 24 bottles $10, or milk $3 for 3 litres if you buy the store brand. Luna's drinking water and orange juice and we have tea once and a while but we can't find our type of tea here even though we know they have it in Oz. So once we run out then I guess Luna is off of tea because it's decaf and regular tea keeps her up at night.
We have been driving around Darwin looking at places so much that I could become a real estate agent. There are lots of houses on the market as well as apartments for rent. Good for us I hope, but we can't buy they are expensive for what you get.
It sounds like there are gonna stick a carbon tax on things here in Oz. Even though they Lady prime minister said she wouldn't. I haven't been keeping up on things much here but I'm sure that'll stick the price of gas up. Although it is a coalition government here so maybe they'll just delay as long as possible because taxes usually get people un-elected.
I must admit that the weather has been amazing, it was cold at night although lots of people are saying it's cold, for us Torontonians it's just right. No humidity and sunny every day. There was a fire the other day in a field but the paper said it was a controlled burn. Didn't seem like it was very controlled to me it was burning in all different spots and we only saw the fire department sitting at the gas station, probably a wise place to protect.
The Australian forces have a big presences here in Darwin and every so often we get to see fighter jets flying around making lots of noise. Although they are the outdated ones that the Canadians are trying to replace.
They have a place like Lowes/Home Depot here. It's smells kinda funny must be some sort of dirt or something but it's huge and clean. We bought Luna's GPS at a place similar to Staples and the prices on hard drives seem pretty good. Some prices on things are a little better cause taxes are included, others are a little more, and others a WAY more. Over all we are way better off in Canada except for the weather. Even healthcare wise you are better off.
OK well I gotta go gonna see if the shower is cold, warm or hot (please be hot). Since I am writing this email offline (can't afford sending packets out to the interent it'll eat up my 2.5 gigs that are left). I will report back what the water heater situation is.
Take care all we love you and miss you all, we miss Oceans Chinese food store (good prices and lousy service beats HIGH prices any day).
I'll write in the week. Please write us (cough Luna cause she's the only one with friends) she reads them all it's just that I won't let her on the computer to write you back hahaha.
Paul and Luna (in absentia or the kitchen).
SHOWER REPORT:
Well it was a little more than warm today and lasted enough for us both to have a quick shower. But we had the faucet cranked on full heat. Now really we should be scalded on that setting but we were just not shivering. I also see that under the sink there is some sort of thing that mixes cold with the hot I think it's some sort of safety feature. But the pipe on the hot water heater should be too hot to touch and it is not. So I have upped the thermostat maybe it needed a reset, it's probably the element or the thermostat is fried.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Thursday, June 9, 2011
The Perils of Paul & Luna
Hi all this is an blanket email to all of our friends across the world (all 3 of you).
I hopefully have BCC you all so you don't get a wack load of other peoples email addresses.
Well it's week 2.1 here in Oz it's Wed so we've been here officially 2 weeks. We have been looking for cars and apartments. As far as cars the tsunami in Japan has severely hampered any chance of getting a Japanese car so it's down to just Kia and Huyndai, and they are really the same car company so the car we are looking at is small, cause gas is 1.51 a litre here. But it must be white and automatic.
Apartment shopping is interesting most places come with on or the other applicance missing. Usually fridge and washing machine. Some have outside laundry, like in the outside. And others have communial laundry. I wonder if you have to fold other peoples underwear ?
The weather here is nice every day and should be like that until Oct. They say we may not get rain until then which explains why the google street view of Darwin looked pretty dry.
We are in a unit which is not bad and our car is a boat, it's huge and takes $75 to fill it.
If you didn't hear food is expensive here except McD's ice cream cone which is 50c taxes included. So $30 of fruit and veg is on small bag here. Banana's 12.95kg. But we're over that now. The internet is expensive and so is phones. Although to call canada is only 4c a min on a phone chip/plan/whatever it is. So that's reasonable.
I was complaining about the price of coke but I broke down and bought a case $14 for 24. I don't know what pop companies have against Darwin but coke is $3 in McD's. Thank god milk is cheap if you buy the store brand $3 for 3 litres.
It was my birthday the other day and I have put up a video of me getting a birthday cake (doughnut). It's on http://youtube.com/muddcliff
Doughnuts, a Canadian can't survive here. They are $3 each. Now they are fancy and all but 3 bucks folks. We got a deal the other day 6 for $1, which was 1/2 price at the Coles. Oh the 2 places here are Coles and Woolworths. They are the grocery store, they also between them own Kmart, Big W, gas stations and the government. Someone said 30c from every dollar goes to Coles I think it was.
Someone upstairs keeps playing this song "Miss Jones and me", don't know who it's by.
Luna is at her 3rd day at work. I'll try to describe it as it was told to me.
1st day got a desk, it's a big workspace she says, got a log in for her computer. Logged in, logged out, couldn't log in againk, had to get IT to fix it. Sounds like Luna with her computer luck. She isn't sitting with her team just yet they are shuffling desks around. Guess no point just yet they need to see if she'll stay. One lady we were emailing went back after 2 months we don't know why.
2nd day went in for training, she says she can do things here without the clients permission, call welfare, call family. I'm sure I'm missing things but that's idea. The indegnous can have their payments forced onto a card 70-80%. This is then like a bank card that they can only buy non alcohol stuff with. But it doesn't have their picture on it so any one of the same sex here can use it. They seem to get good welfare payments here Luna has a client with 3 kids gets free housing and (not sure if I can say amount) but it's damn good. Her first client seems to be an easy one, in my opinion at least and they want her to get it off the books quickly 12 weeks she says.
One thing is she cannot bring anything home no case notes nothing. They supply a car and a phone and they have to both be returned at the end of the day. She wants a GPS so we'll need to get that. But we were told she'd have to drive a 4x4. That isn't true they have Corolla's and Yaris's. The 4 door types we have in Canada.
I'm sure when we come back to Canada to visit she'll have lots of stories to tell and maybe she can come in to Peel CAS and do a powerpoint presentation. Ok I'll do the powerpoint and she can talk. But she has described some large differences in the system here.
It seems to buy alcohol you have to present id which they scan. If you had any alcohol or violence issues no booze purchases for you. Although that doesn't stop you from buying for friends it seems. My dad would say it was like that when he came to Canada you had to get a license to purchase alcohol although they didn't have scanners in those days.
Luna says their computers are the old fashioned ones, what I think she means is that they are not laptops. No working from home, although she's been late 2 days already and she's only been at work 2 days. I guess social workers curse.
I see I have 3.45 gig left of my 5 gig that I bought. so I have to use it up before 90 days which I can't see that as being much of a problem. I can't watch youtube videos as much or upload them. I had grand plans for YouTube but that's on hold. Maybe when we get home interent it'll be different. But for now we're pretty much information limited. There is free interent at McD's but dial up was faster. I have not checked out the downtown area they say that it's free there. One of the libraries also has it but the one we go to only offers 1 hour computer use and YouTube is blocked (curses).
For people at Emergis (Jeff, Vu) and Peel CAS (Vi, Monique) I only have a few people there on my list. If you can think of people that may want to read this email please forward it on. If you received this email forwarded it to you please email us and we'll add you to this list so we can keep in touch.
You can email Luna at lunas.perils @ hotmail.com
And me at pauls.perils @ hotmail.com
To be safe just email me at pauls.perils @ hotmail.com that way it'll get looked at and if it's for Luna I'll tell her about it.
Take care all we miss and love you all, but mostly I miss the 60gig internet allowance (and to think I hated Rogers).
Paul & Luna (although she's at work)
http://paulandluna.com
I hopefully have BCC you all so you don't get a wack load of other peoples email addresses.
Well it's week 2.1 here in Oz it's Wed so we've been here officially 2 weeks. We have been looking for cars and apartments. As far as cars the tsunami in Japan has severely hampered any chance of getting a Japanese car so it's down to just Kia and Huyndai, and they are really the same car company so the car we are looking at is small, cause gas is 1.51 a litre here. But it must be white and automatic.
Apartment shopping is interesting most places come with on or the other applicance missing. Usually fridge and washing machine. Some have outside laundry, like in the outside. And others have communial laundry. I wonder if you have to fold other peoples underwear ?
The weather here is nice every day and should be like that until Oct. They say we may not get rain until then which explains why the google street view of Darwin looked pretty dry.
We are in a unit which is not bad and our car is a boat, it's huge and takes $75 to fill it.
If you didn't hear food is expensive here except McD's ice cream cone which is 50c taxes included. So $30 of fruit and veg is on small bag here. Banana's 12.95kg. But we're over that now. The internet is expensive and so is phones. Although to call canada is only 4c a min on a phone chip/plan/whatever it is. So that's reasonable.
I was complaining about the price of coke but I broke down and bought a case $14 for 24. I don't know what pop companies have against Darwin but coke is $3 in McD's. Thank god milk is cheap if you buy the store brand $3 for 3 litres.
It was my birthday the other day and I have put up a video of me getting a birthday cake (doughnut). It's on http://youtube.com/muddcliff
Doughnuts, a Canadian can't survive here. They are $3 each. Now they are fancy and all but 3 bucks folks. We got a deal the other day 6 for $1, which was 1/2 price at the Coles. Oh the 2 places here are Coles and Woolworths. They are the grocery store, they also between them own Kmart, Big W, gas stations and the government. Someone said 30c from every dollar goes to Coles I think it was.
Someone upstairs keeps playing this song "Miss Jones and me", don't know who it's by.
Luna is at her 3rd day at work. I'll try to describe it as it was told to me.
1st day got a desk, it's a big workspace she says, got a log in for her computer. Logged in, logged out, couldn't log in againk, had to get IT to fix it. Sounds like Luna with her computer luck. She isn't sitting with her team just yet they are shuffling desks around. Guess no point just yet they need to see if she'll stay. One lady we were emailing went back after 2 months we don't know why.
2nd day went in for training, she says she can do things here without the clients permission, call welfare, call family. I'm sure I'm missing things but that's idea. The indegnous can have their payments forced onto a card 70-80%. This is then like a bank card that they can only buy non alcohol stuff with. But it doesn't have their picture on it so any one of the same sex here can use it. They seem to get good welfare payments here Luna has a client with 3 kids gets free housing and (not sure if I can say amount) but it's damn good. Her first client seems to be an easy one, in my opinion at least and they want her to get it off the books quickly 12 weeks she says.
One thing is she cannot bring anything home no case notes nothing. They supply a car and a phone and they have to both be returned at the end of the day. She wants a GPS so we'll need to get that. But we were told she'd have to drive a 4x4. That isn't true they have Corolla's and Yaris's. The 4 door types we have in Canada.
I'm sure when we come back to Canada to visit she'll have lots of stories to tell and maybe she can come in to Peel CAS and do a powerpoint presentation. Ok I'll do the powerpoint and she can talk. But she has described some large differences in the system here.
It seems to buy alcohol you have to present id which they scan. If you had any alcohol or violence issues no booze purchases for you. Although that doesn't stop you from buying for friends it seems. My dad would say it was like that when he came to Canada you had to get a license to purchase alcohol although they didn't have scanners in those days.
Luna says their computers are the old fashioned ones, what I think she means is that they are not laptops. No working from home, although she's been late 2 days already and she's only been at work 2 days. I guess social workers curse.
I see I have 3.45 gig left of my 5 gig that I bought. so I have to use it up before 90 days which I can't see that as being much of a problem. I can't watch youtube videos as much or upload them. I had grand plans for YouTube but that's on hold. Maybe when we get home interent it'll be different. But for now we're pretty much information limited. There is free interent at McD's but dial up was faster. I have not checked out the downtown area they say that it's free there. One of the libraries also has it but the one we go to only offers 1 hour computer use and YouTube is blocked (curses).
For people at Emergis (Jeff, Vu) and Peel CAS (Vi, Monique) I only have a few people there on my list. If you can think of people that may want to read this email please forward it on. If you received this email forwarded it to you please email us and we'll add you to this list so we can keep in touch.
You can email Luna at lunas.perils @ hotmail.com
And me at pauls.perils @ hotmail.com
To be safe just email me at pauls.perils @ hotmail.com that way it'll get looked at and if it's for Luna I'll tell her about it.
Take care all we miss and love you all, but mostly I miss the 60gig internet allowance (and to think I hated Rogers).
Paul & Luna (although she's at work)
http://paulandluna.com
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Monday, June 6, 2011
Friday, June 3, 2011
Thursday, June 2, 2011
2011.06.02 Happy Birthday Marina
A friend of ours Marina is having a birthday and since we couldn't take her to Thai Pepper our favorite restaurant we decided to ruin her eardrums by singing Happy Birthday.
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