While I don't know that our new place in Oz is anything to write home about, nor is it that different from an American home, but I know how curious everyone always is about living conditions in different countries, so I thought I'd share a few photos. Our apartment is on what is considered the "lower north shore" of Sydney. So relatively speaking it is on the north side of the harbour. The south side of the harbour is where you will find the Opera House and downtown Sydney or the CBD as you find Aussies more commonly refer to it.
While our main decision to live here stemmed from various distances Steve would commute to his office and client locations, it turns out it is also arguably one of the nicest areas to live in Sydney, especially with a family. We have some of the nicest views of the harbour and the city, we're close to the zoo and many great beaches for kids, its safe (keeping in mind that all of Sydney is very safe when it comes to comparison of most any other city of its size), and there are many great activities all while just being a short trip (which showcases fabulous views) across the "big bridge" as Emma calls it to get downtown.
Of course all of this comes at a price. The housing market is pretty absurd in Sydney and the lower north shore is close to the top of the list. It seems to be a constant topic of conversation here. While rental prices might seem high, the cost to buy in comparison to other major markets is even worse. Without a doubt it takes $1.5 to 2 million USD to break into the actual housing market in this neighborhood and at least half a million USD to buy a 2 bedroom apartment. I think our first clue to all this was the fact that rental pricing is done on a weekly rate here. What at first seems like a great rent is actually an outrageous one. And the rental prices don't even seem as outrageous as the purchase prices.
Without further ado here's what our 900 or so square feet, 2 bed/1.5 bath of Aussie living looks like to us...
Our apartment is part of a block of six that is up one flight of indoor stairs that leads to a quiet outdoor entrance.
Entry in the front door leads upstairs to the right, kitchen to the left and combined living/dining room and patio straight ahead.
Straight ahead into the living area.
Through the huge sliding patio doors to the outdoor area. I love this area for how safe and big it is for Emma to play. I strongly dislike this area for how noisy it is from the busy street below. At least we cannot see it and if you have headphones on you might even think you're in your own private sanctuary.
Back inside, more of the living/dining room. Every parent of a young child can now cringe when they see our table on carpet. Hence why we like to eat outside when we can...
More of the dining area with a view back into the kitchen.
An essential item, sofa bed for any future visitors. Also note the Christmas tree with 95% homemade ornaments is quite impressive.
One more view back to the entryway and stairs.
View into the kitchen. Strangely, nearly all the kitchen finishes are identical to our Zurich apartment.
In between the entryway and the kitchen is our teeny tiny half bathroom. If you thought our sink and bathroom was small at our most recent house in St. Louis, you'll have to check out this one.
About halfway through taking photos someone noticed what I was doing and started wondering why she wasn't the focus of all my photos. Keep your eye out for the girl in the blue Elsa shirt in a few more of the photos, it's kind of like Where's Waldo.
Upstairs you'll find two bedrooms and a full bathroom. One of the other selling features of this apartment was the fact that some might consider these "double" bedrooms because of their size. While they are far from being massive, let's just say that they are a whole lot bigger than some of the other bedroom apartments we viewed during our search. Here is the entrance to the "master" bedroom.
More large sliding doors lead to a narrow sun porch that has become more like a storage area for us. These windows are north facing like our patio downstairs which means they get the hot afternoon sun (remember we're in the southern hemisphere). Luckily the patio has a good overhang and stops too much heat from beating in downstairs. Not so much in our bedroom. So despite my love for natural light these dark blinds stay mostly closed right now during the summer. Unfortunately the lack of view out this window might mean they continue to stay pulled a lot during the winter too.
Our Ikea bed finally fully assembled after many phone calls and exchanged parts with Ikea (just come talk to us before you ever buy a Malm Bed with underneath drawers).
One more view of our room and closet. Built-in closets are not entirely standard here, but we found them in most bedrooms we viewed (unlike Europe where we had to buy wardrobes). Aussies seem to really like the massive sliding glass door style. Not exactly my style but I'm getting used to it. Emma on the other hand loves to looks at herself in the massive mirrors.
View from inside the bathroom. Fortunately we got used to only the one full bathroom in our 75 year old house in St. Louis. At least a bonus is that this one is newly remodeled and has a little more room than the last. It also houses two very important appliances - a washer and dryer (hidden behind the door). Unfortunately it also has one of those modern really flat sinks and the "half shower door."
Half shower door doesn't hinge open like many, and the tub is really long, so at least it doesn't leak out much water while showering. This also means that Emma likes to goof off in the bathtub and "hide" at the end where it is nearly impossible for us to reach her without also getting in.
Entry into Emma and baby's room. Thus far Emma says she is really excited about sharing a room... oh how I bet that will change.
While the crib is in place there is still some adjusting to do before baby arrives.
Emma loves to crawl into the crib or put her animals to sleep in it.
Emma's big kid Ikea bed. This big kid Ikea bed was something we have talked about with anticipation from the day we started talking about moving to Australia with her.
I have no idea where the month of November went, but I guess that pretty much sums up how I feel about the last six months or so. With Emma's help we have gotten settled in quickly... furniture assembled, playgroups joined, church found, endless exploration of every park in our area of the city, favorite nearby beach determined, the list goes on and on. While Steve has been very busy at work, I cannot say that we have been busy, but Emma and I certainly keep busy. We are tourists becoming locals in our new town. Other three year olds might whine for their old house or to go to the same place everyday, Emma instead whines when I say we might go to the same park we went to one day last week instead of finding a new one or demands over breakfast that "we must do something new and really fun today." Let's hope by the time February comes around that she's found a few favorite activities that are acceptable to repeat when her baby brother or sister arrives.
Enjoying one of many nearby parks.
Nearby Brightmore Reserve is an amazing scooter/bike park for kids, but it's better when your wheel doesn't fall off...
She insists on my taking a lot of videos of her doing who knows what.
I love the parks here for the gigantic trees!
It is still strange to think that we live in a tourist destination. While many people traveled to Switzerland, not that many actually made Zurich much of a stopover, at least not any more than a few hours between train changes typically. Instead we are reminded most everyday when we see one or two huge cruise ships in the Sydney Harbour how many tourists come through this city, especially during the summer (which was officially welcomed this week on December 1 and unofficially by the two or three November days we had that reached over 100).
A familiar sighting at Circular Quay.
The cruise ships often hide the beautiful Opera House on the side of Circular Quay.
An afternoon spent enjoying the harbour meant mostly goofy pictures.
A likely bribed "normal" photo.
My buddy.
And while I don't feel like most days we have done any big tourist things, I am reminded that people love to visit this city not necessarily for one specific thing to do. Instead, it is the atmosphere. It is the wonderfully friendly Aussies whom I am coming to appreciate more and more everyday. It is the amazing weather. It is the countless beautiful beaches, gorgeous skyline, and relatively laid back attitude about daily life (despite the terrible traffic and ridiculously high housing prices). It's hard not to feel spoiled at certain times, even when it is just a normal day. Take for instance an outing to the mall where I cannot help but greatly appreciate their attitude towards families and children. I feel spoiled by their ridiculously nice family rooms that seem to be the norm here where there are plenty of nice, clean changing tables, kid size toilets (right next to the adult one), private areas for feeding, and small areas for playing.
Beautiful, nearby beach, check.
As a result of all this, learning to live here just seems that much easier than it was in Switzerland. There is no doubt that I absolutely love Switzerland and it will always hold a very special place in my heart, but Australia is just that much more natural of a transition. They speak ENGLISH (well, most do, there is still a huge immigrant population and I hear many more languages spoken than I anticipated). Let's just say when you understand and speak the same language as most others do it certainly makes everything about daily life that much easier. And even better when they realize you're not from here they most of the time go out of their way to help you or ask how you are finding things. While there are still plenty of differences and things to learn, I do not think it seems much more extreme than it might if we had moved to the center of Los Angeles instead. Hopefully I will continue to say that over the next few months.
Here's a look, in mostly pictures, of everything else we've been up to the last month. It's nice to feel like we know Sydney so well already, but I am excited to do a little bit of traveling (in Australia) over the holidays. Stay tuned!
We're "Zoo Friends" (members) at the nearby Taronga Zoo, and of all the animals Emma could see, petting the bunnies and seeing the pigs are her favorite.
She was only semi-impressed with the bush walk and the close-up encounter with this fellow.
Her joy at visiting the three little pigs.
This zoo has the best view of the lions when they lounge. Don't worry, there was glass between us.
Feeding time!
This is the image that stuck in my head from my first visit to this zoo 12 years ago... the giraffes have the best view!
Emma is really into "looking" at maps lately, she must see us doing this a lot...
When she's not reading maps she's reading Ikea instructions.
A view from nearby Cremorne Point at night - absolutely stunning!
Cremorne Point by day.
Every now and then we run into these gorgeous birds at nearby parks.
Although a larger fridge/freezer than I anticipated having here, I'm not a fan of how low to the ground the whole thing is. Just a short stool needed and someone was finding herself ice cream on her own when she knew she wasn't supposed to have any.
November started with my birthday and several doctors appointments as a part of navigating the Aussie health care system... 25 week check-up for the start of my 33rd year.
Part of my birthday festivities included a trip to one of Sydney's many great markets, the Sydney Fish Market. I think this was Emma's "I'm impressed" face.
Love looking at all these sea creatures, I have no idea how to prepare most any of them...
Especially not sure about eating these guys, but evidently it can be done.
I stuck to the prepared food... salmon and scallops and a whole lot of cheese in a huge shell!
Emma was my partner at the fish market. While she's taken to eating calamari, she stuck to just french fries this day or just "chips" as the Aussies say.
I think these monstrous live lobsters were her favorite. At $50 - $60 per pound I don't think we'll be buying one anytime soon.
I felt like this was a scene out of the Little Mermaid...
I tried to convince Emma to take her photo standing next to this guy, but I don't think she was completely convinced he was dead.
It might have been my birthday, but someone else got majority say to the type of ice cream we shared.
Darling Harbour's playground is amazing. I know, I got to spend two hours there on my birthday. Emma insisted Steve climb with her.
The zipline!
Unplanned birthday dinner "date" of Korean BBQ and Emma passed out in the stroller. We got to have our own conversation and didn't even have to hire a babysitter!
She really wanted to get me flowers on my birthday but we never stopped anywhere, so she was very excited when we got some the day after. She said next time we have to tell her earlier so she knows it's almost my birthday. So sweet!
She wants to do EVERYTHING in mommy and daddy's kitchen - needless to say I wasn't after a perfectly frosted cake.
The month of November brought Emma's first haircut after seeing daddy getting his haircut she started insisting that her hair was too long and would get in the toilet (a little paranoid?)!
She just happened to be dressed up as Sophia and I said I wanted to try to clean the patio and she turned into my own Cinderella.
She's also become the resident barista.
On our first "long" train ride an hour north of Sydney to the Hawkesbury River this is how she wanted to act.
Emma loves to check the mailbox and is sad when we don't get any mail (somehow we manage to get hardly any junk mail - at least so far), but she was so surprised when she got an envelope full of drawings from her friends at her school back in St. Louis! We miss The Berry Patch!
My sous chef for Thanksgiving has a lot to learn when it comes to proper etiquette while cooking.
She was so excited for all the food she helped make!
Since Thanksgiving is obviously not a holiday for the Australians their Christmas festivities seem to start extra early. Emma loved her playgroup Christmas party, and I was especially impressed by the simple, but super cute party food.
A party doesn't get any better than one where you have your face painted. Oh and Santa coming with a gift was pretty cool too.
Our Christmas tree has a long way to go, but Emma seems to still think it's pretty awesome, at least for this year. Don't mind the lack of lights and so far only homemade ornaments that she has placed on the bottom third. We found a star that makes it almost touch the ceiling!
We still have a lot to learn about the rules of cricket, but it's fun to see all the parks on the weekends filled with players in their all white!
It was either buy her the inexpensive pink sparkly tie sneakers or the super expensive light up Skechers and somehow I won, although Emma will likely have the last laugh over the next few months while we work on learning to tie these things...
