July 19, 2003 Saturday
Moved in bright and early this morning. We are never going to be able to fill up all this space. We kept having to remind ourselves we are only going to be here for one semester so that we wouldn’t buy all kinds of knick-knacks and furnishings. “Rubbish” as Gareth would say. FINALLY got to unpack our suitcases. Good feeling. My closet has the oddest arrangement of shelve compartments. There are 3 sliding mirror doors, and some of the shelves can’t be accessed easily no matter which door is opened. This will prove to be a pain in the arse.
First order of business was to hit the mall for supplies. We planned on making two trips since we could only buy as much as we could carry. Luckily, we ran into Sean, Michelle, etc. at Target and they offered to take home what we had bought already. They are being really great to us. We are starting to feel bad when they do things for us. This helped out a lot because we wouldn’t have had time to come back to get groceries like we had planned. Everything here closes so damn early!! Stores close at 5:30 or 6 PM during the week. Thursday is know as “Late night shopping” day so the stores stay open until 9 PM and judging by the number of people out, it’s a BIG deal. Second order of business was to clean. The place was recently renovated (it had just been painted a few days before). That took a bit of work. No one had ever cleaned on top of the cabinets…until me, that is.  Mom would be proud.
Houses here don’t have any central heat or air conditioning. It is winter here, remember. It still gets pretty cold at night. We all bought a blanket (for $5 Aus., not bad), but that wasn’t going to be enough. Michelle left us an electric heater, which is great, but the girls get to keep that in their room. Luckily, Michelle also brought down some old comforters which did a great job…as long as I stay in bed. The rest of the house is still a freaking popsicle in the mornings. Colder inside than outside. And the way the house is oriented, it gets virtually no direct sunlight so the house never warms up. That’s good in the summertime, I imagine, but sucks right now. Only the back extra room (we have so many rooms some of them don’t even have names) gets sun so that one room is warm in the afternoon, while the other side of the house is freezing. I’m going to have to buy a little heater. I hope they aren’t too expensive.