The bare bones apartment

On my last day of being a lady of leisure, we were super busy! We went back to Ikea to order the couch that was out of stock when we there on Saturday, we mapped out my route to work, we went by the property management office to get our apartment keys, and we found our Australian Target. All of this was a little of an adventure and it took all day. We are wiped out!

A couple observations from the day:

• So far, Ikea is the only thing in Australia that is exactly like it is in the states. And I mean it is exactly the same! It's kind of funny that if we want to feel like we're home, the closest thing might be an Ikea!
• The Australia version of Target is definitely not the same as in the U.S. My cousin warned me about this, but it was still a blow to see it in person. ;-) I would say the Target reminded me more of a cluttered K-Mart or Meijer, but with a lot less selection. They still had some cute clothes but everything else was a little sadder.
• The shopping mall at Bondi Junction (of which Target is part of) is amazing/horrifying, depending on whether you hear about it from T or me. After being in all these little shops, it was somewhat comforting to see that we could find the American shopping experience somewhere. But it was also a little overwhelming since it is A LOT of stores in one area. I'm sure I'll brave it again someday and then I'll do a detailed post on it. =)

And.... the apartment

So here's a few quick pics I grabbed from the apartment. It's all empty now, but someday when our crate arrives, it will look more like a home.

The apartment came with a TV, which is Toby's favorite feature! Here he is checking it out.

Toby in his area

And in case anyone was laboring under the illusion that this is a spacious one bedroom, I'm standing in the bedroom area as I took this picture. =) Good thing we like each other!

Here's the view of the bed area and the balcony. The balcony overlooks a road, a quiet park, and the train bridge. I think it's a nice mix of nature and urbanscape. T has other thoughts...

Bedroom & balcony

And the kitchen:

We're quite lucky to have an almost full-size fridge. Some of the apartments we saw had only half/dorm-size fridges!

And the bathroom... This is another interesting thing we've noticed - most of the showers have half doors like this one and the other half is all open. It sure seems like water will get everywhere, but maybe not?

The only other interesting thing is the laundry area. Like the apartment we're in now, the dryer is hung on the wall upside down. I'm starting to think this might be a standard thing?

As long as it works!

So that's the place! I'm not sure when we'll officially move in, since our Internet won't get hooked up for 2-4 weeks. (Which seems like a crazy long time to wait!) But I'll post some updates as we get settled in and it becomes our home base.

Thank you to everyone who's been asking about our apartment search and sending good thoughts our way!

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