Welcome to our new home...

Very humid greetings from Darwin!

I hope you are all well, and recovered from Christmas and New Years feastings!

Apologies again (this seems to be all I do on this blog), I know I said I would try to blog more often, and I promise I will. Am waiting for our ADSL connection to happen at the moment, so using dial up, hence the lack of blogging. Also having problems accessing hotmail, so apologies to anyone who I have been innocently ignoring!

I’ve only been here for a week now, but it feels like a month. The last week has been pretty busy.

The day I left Melbourne was a hectic one. I got two fillings from my local dentist (instead of the four fillings the stunningly blonde dentist at Smile Solutions had prescribed – long story, most of you have already heard it). Then set about trying to get all my stuff to weigh in under the 35kg limit, after which the cost of excess baggage is phenomenal. Finally rocked up at the airport with my trolley loaded with a bicycle, large suitcase and my trusty backpack… which totalled to 35kg exact! Luckily the new Virgin rule of having to weigh your bike did not apply to me because I booked before the 1st of Jan, and the bike (plus accessories) weighed in at a mere 5kg. Double bonus was that because my trolley was so overloaded, they let me go straight to the front of the luggage queue – sweet!

Very lucky girl that I am, Gideon did all of the hard work and looked at about 25 apartments and townhouses before I got up here. Then on the morning after I arrived we had a look at 3 places and signed the lease that afternoon. The next day all our furniture was delivered and we have been unpacking ever since! All extremely quick and stress free… for me anyway.



The apartment is awesome. The only complaints I would have is that the two car spots we have are only under shade cloth (still working on finding a dry place to put my bike, it’s already getting rusty out on the verandah, a new bicycle may not be far off!), and the bathrooms are definitely on the pokey side.



But otherwise, it fits all of our requirements.

It’s a short walk to the city centre, ie. The cinema (approx. 500m), and there is a Video Ezy and a Dominos just around the corner. There’s a lap pool which has been a divine treat after each day of unpacking, the water is always warm and welcoming.



The apartment itself is big enough that both of us can be in the apartment at one time and not know where the other person is. Best of all, it’s large enough to fit all of our junk! The cupboards and storage space are phenomenal – Gideon tells me that in general Darwin places tend to have a lot more storage than Melbourne. We have a spacious living area (plenty of room for the trolls!)...



...and a pretty decent kitchen, apart from the electric stove (seems to be the standard here).



There are 3 bedrooms, one of which we are using as a study. The other is a dedicated guest room, and we can’t wait to have our first visitors. So please take that as an invitation!

Gideon has gone back to work this week, so I’m at home by myself during the day trying to be a dutiful house slave. Don’t know if I’m being all that successful as I keep getting distracted by computer games (Icewindale II). Believe it or not I have been getting up quite early, 7am today – as I’ve been getting up with Gideon and trying to make use of the day. A bit of job hunting, more unpacking, some errands and then making dinner – and there you go, the day is gone!

Still getting used to the weather, but starting to get better. I think switching between air conditioning and the humidity outside is going to take some time. Finding my bearings around Darwin hasn’t been too difficult, as there really isn’t that much of it. Our unpacking has finally got to a respectable level too. There are still some boxes still to unpack, but at least there is not a box at every turn now. Will send on more photos once we have gotten rid of all of the boxes. Hope to hear from you all soon.

Love gayle

PS. Photos from the Christmas & New Years to follow, once I have access to a better connection.
PPS. And some movie reviews, of course!

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MOVIES
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Night at the Museum: 2.3/5

Cast: Ben Stiller (Reality Bites, Zoolander)

In a Nutshell: Fun bit of puff, kiddie silliness

Brief Synopsis: The new night security guard at a museum has to learn to deal with all of the models and dinosaur skeletons in the museum coming alive every night.

Nothing particularly outstanding about this one. In the vein of Jumanji, there are a few laughs and some adventure, and the main character learns more about himself in the process of sorting things out.


The Holiday: 3.75/5

Cast: Kate Winslet (Eternal Sunshine…, Titanic), Cameron Diaz (Charlie’s Angels), Jude Law (A.I., Cold Mountain), Jack Black (Hi Fidelity, Nacho Libre)

In a Nutshell: Overcomes a bad case of overacting at the start with some funny and touching (read mushy) moments.

Brief Synopsis: Two lasses do a house swap to the other side of the earth to get away from their boy troubles.

Surprisingly it is Winslet and Diaz, both normally stunning and lovable sheilas, who make the movie painful to begin with – I don’t think I have ever seen such an atrocious case of over acting. But if you can get past the first 15 minutes, it is worth it. Nancy Meyers follows a similar formula to her previous movies, Something’s Gotta Give and What Women Want, throwing in some good humour with some human emotion and gets it mostly right. Jack Black is a puzzling choice as a romantic lead, and well, unfortunately it does not work. However, where Black lacks, Law makes up for it. A completely biased point of view, but Law was definitely the best of the actors, oozing natural charm, boy next door qualities and just general shaggability. I want to watch this again. Probably more for the chicas though