Yep, it's been a while....
Hello again, this time from sunny (and disgustingly hot) Perth, Western Australia. I know I lose mega-points for not writing since last December, but I have been relocating (via a few cities) and have only just settled in to a life of study, part-time work, planning an overseas wedding (mine! giggle!!!) and planning another relocation, this time to Europe in November after I have finished my final year at uni. Let me fill you in on what's been going on so far:
Our collective families joined us in Auckland for the graduation. After five minutes in our cardboard box of a house, my mother declared it unfit for even rats to live in and marched down to the school to express her disgust that the school would let us inhabit in such a place. Needless to say, they offered their usual excuses and tried to claim that they tried "very hard" to fix it... I've never heard such crap in my life! Anyway, I'm over it and was very happy to leave Auckland for a fun-filled trip around the North Island. Two days later, I regreted immediately trying to organise two families travelling together and tried to keep the peace while everyone wanted to do something different. Finally splitting up, everyone was kept pretty happy and we reconvened for dinner most nights. Happy days...
We left NZ (just as my sanity was reaching it's tether) and set off for a trip to France for Christmas. We went via Germany to visit my side of the family before heading over to Paris to spend Christmas with the Frenchman's family and friends. Apart from the lack of French speaking skills on my part, most tried hard to speak the little English they knew to welcome me, and it was touching. Christmas was really nice (wow, descriptive I know!) and I was included in the Frenchman's festivities. That is until Christmas dinner where the lovely Escargot and Fois Gras was served. To give me some credit, I did try one of those slippery little slimy things also known as Snails, and predictably it wasn't really my thing. Very chewy, weird texture and they didn't really pick up much flavour from the garlicy-butter it was cooked in. I didn't mind sopping up some of that lovely butter with my baguette, but I couldn't be convinced to eat the fois gras, much to the offence of the Frenchman's very traditional grandfather. Everything in my head was telling me to just eat the damn thing but being the stubborn-arse that I am, I didn't do it. And thus, causing some sort of scandal within the family and was quickly shunned by the grandparent. Nice introduction. Great!
Other than that, Paris was great but overwhelmingly french-speaking (duh!!! what a genius I am!). Our plans to eventually move here were crushed slightly because of my fear of being able to communicate in French. I wasn't going to subject myself to that without knowing at least how to understand people and construct sentences by myself. So Paris as our next living-destination was put on the backburner (at least for now).
So arriving in Perth (via Auckland again, just for 1 night and Canberra to say hello to the family) we came face to face with hot hot weather and a brick wall. While I was away, Perth has boomed and prices for almost everything has pretty much doubled. My sister and I paid $200 a week for a nice 2 bedroom apartment in 2005. Now, it costs us $280 a week for a one-bedroom apartment (which we had to fight almost 3 weeks to find and secure after many apartment inspections, phone calls, emails, and train travels). So we finally got into our place after the disaster of a place we had originally secured while we were still in Auckland (me being organised and arranging things in advance to make things easier - ha!). That fell through so we had to find something else, while outstaying our welcome at a family friend's house. What was "could we stay for a couple of days?" turned into a couple of weeks while we spent over 3 hours daily on trains/buses to attend house inspections that were snapped up immediately by others. Argh! Since when is Perth so popular??
So here we are in sunny (very sunny) Perth until I finish my degree in November and then we are outta here (once again!) to FINALLY settle somewhere... so far London is on top of the list and Paris as a backup.
