....hello? hello? Baby, you called I can't hear a thing....

Tuesday March 23rd, 2010.

Hey there guys, a while back we promised we wouldn't be bad bloggers anymore. That we would regularly update you on our lives here in Aussieland. Well, once again, we lied. We led you on to believe we are better organized, more interesting and all around better people than we've proven to be lately.

Well, that will be no longer. After exactly 2 months of being away, and maybe 2 or 3 blog posts in that time frame, we are back and better than ever! Think of this as a new beginning, a clean slate for us to keep you in the loop as to whats been going on in our lives.

Shall we start from the beginning??? Well, exciting news #1: we found an apartment!!! And its perfect! We have views of the Sydney Harbour, the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. Shear luck (and our fantastic social skills) landed us an apartment better than we could have imagined!!!

Exciting news #2: We have a roommate! Our friend Luke has moved in with us, he has lived in our building for a while but was looking to move out of his apartment and coincidence and fate brought us all together.

Exciting news #3: We will be having visitors!!! Our friend Sara is coming next week Thursday and Lindsay's mom and aunt will be here for the whole month of June! That's right, people love us and miss us enough to fly to the other side of the world just to get there fix.... : )

Aside from all of our exciting news, we have been busy touring the city and all that it has to offer. A few days ago, we went to the Blue Mountains and it was fantastic. We did yoga on the top of a mountain, wandered through a rainforest, went on the world steepest railway and saw the Three Sisters rock formation. We were promised a date with some kangaroos, but we're beginning to believe they are nothing more than a urban legend that doesn't exist....we'll keep you updated on that.

....halfway around the world lies the one thing that you want....

Thursday, February 11th, 2010.
Days in Sydney: 6 days

After a week of jetlag and sleeping at the drop of a hat, we actually had our first productive day in Sydney yesterday. We spent the day in search of the perfect apartment we have been envisioning ourselves living in for months. After the inspections, we arrived home feeling deflated and underwhelmed.

There were some nice apartments out of our price ranges, some scary apartments and some that were just "so-so". We have decided to apply for 5 of the 6 apartments that we viewed yesterday. One in particular we particularly loved. Its still occupied right now, but the couple that lives there now has put a lot of care into the house and its decoration. Another that is a serious contender is in an area called Balmoral. It is up the hill for Balmoral beach (2 minutes walking distance) but also right on a main road. The price is just up our alley so its a definite possibility.

Its going to be harder to find an apartment than we had originally thought. Since we have no jobs and no income, it will be difficult to secure an apartment. We are contacting the property managers to see if we can bribe them but we've yet to see if our attempts will be successful.

In the meantime, we've decided to FINALLY go to the beach today. We've reached our limit of productive-ness for one week so now we are back to our irresponsible ways. Time to soak up some sun for the first time down under!

Perpetually Dreaming,
Linds & Naz

...oh my god I can't believe this, I've never been this far away from home...

Tuesday, February 8, 2010.
Days in Sydney: 4 days!

Our lack of internet and the fact that we've been on more airplanes and flights than we can handle has kept us from updating in a while, but the big news is....WE HAVE FINALLY ARRIVED IN SYDNEY! After months of planning and talking and daydreaming it is real and we have to pinch ourselves sometimes to believe it.


Our welcome to Australia didn't go as smoothly as we hoped. There was an intense case of motion sickness / food poisining, the threat of getting quarantined at customs as well as torrential downpours - but we have not been deterred! We KNOW there is so much for Sydney to offer and cannot wait to explore it all!! We've yet to make it to the beach, but that will change tomorrow as we are heading to Bondi for the day!

Our gracious hosts, Kae and Alex have treated us fantastically. They've taken us on tours of the areas in Sydney we might want to live. Its a hard process finding an apartment in a city you don't know. But there have been a few areas we both like and can afford (Neutral Bay, Crows Nest) so they are high up on our list.

We plan on taking much more pictures, now that we are a little more settled and are no longer victims to jet lag or sickness so expect some more updates soon!!!

Perpetually Dreaming,
Linds & Naz

....now the party don't start, till I walk in....

Friday, January 22nd, 2010.

Countdown to LA: 1 day!!!

Countdown to Sydney: 12 days.

Wow. Time has flown so fast we don't even know what to do with ourselves anymore. It feels like forever ago we sat down with a list of themes, determined to find the best one for our goodbye party. When we settled on "Almost Famous", we weren't sure we'd be able to pull it off. Truthfully, everything we know from the late 60's/early 70's we learned from that movie (among a few select others). While it may not our era of choice for music, we learned that the clothing definately was!

The turnout was amazing, all of our closest friends came as well as a lot of people we hadn't had the chance to see in a while! Nothing like a going away party to reunite you with long lost friends!

With the cosumption of alcohol and the fact that we were leaving, we were positive the tears would be flowing along with the Champagne. Surprisingly though, we didn't shed too many tears!!! I still think it hasn't hit us yet, we are so focused on going to LA that it really just feels like an extended vacation. All that will change as it's our last night in Canada and there is still so much to do and so many goodbyes to be said.

That being said, I really should get back to packing. We will update from the airport in the am.

Perpetually dreaming,

Linds & Naz

...don't you wanna be the life of the party?.....

Thursday, January 14th, 2010.
Countdown to LA: 9 days!
Countdown to Sydney: 20 days!!

As our time in Canada winds down, I am starting to feel more and more physically prepared, and less emotionally prepared. I have finally starting packing and getting everything together for the move. But I just can't seem to get myself together. I am nervous to leave behind my comfortable life, with familiar friends, family and places. It will be odd to not run into an old friend at the coffeeshop and spend 20 minutes catching up over a Grande Cinnamon Dolce Latte (soy, naturally).

That being said, there are still a lot of things that still need to be done. We have the best of intentions to do them but an odd thing has been happening to us lately. For some reason, even the most simple, mindless tasks has been tainted by roadblocks that makes it take longer than it should. This is frustrating because, as stated before, we procrastinate a little. We leave things to the last minute so when something happens to delay that, it affects everything else we've pushed to the side.

We are, however, making progress on this front and my list of things to do is slowly dwindling down. I highly doubt we will accomplish everything by Jan 23rd, but I will do the best that I can.

Now, onto our goodbye party. We decided on our theme a while back while watching Almost Famous. We felt that the late 60's/early 70's was a neglected time in terms of theme parties so we decided to change that! So, bring on the tie dye shirts, fringe vests and peace love and happiness!!! Our party will be the reincarnation of Woodstock and all the good things that era brought!

Naz and I are making jello shots and our famous, crowd-pleasing, intoxicating Sangria. We are meeting up to compile our playlist, which is a feat in and of itself. Any suggestions of great party songs? It can be from the hippie era, or any decade for that matter. Just stuff that will ensure everyone is dancing and singing drunkingly....

Perpetually Dreaming,
Lindz

....she's a brick.....Hooouuuusse.....

Tuesday, January 12th, 2009.
Countdown to LA: 11 days!
Countdown to Sydney: 22 days!

O-M-F-G!!! 11 days......eleven short, hectic days. Thats all we have left in Canada and we need to put our "house hunter" hats on. Our list of prerequisites has grown exponentially from our first blog post way back on the eve of Halloween. Since then we've discovered that our house MUST include the following:

-internal laundry
-2 bedrooms
-close to the city (and beach, and Uni and clubs and restaurants, etc....)
-on a high floor to deter bugs and spiders
-partially furnished
-under $600 per week (we will be starving students/driftes after all)
-in a "un-sketchy" part of Sydney
-NOT in a quote un-quote quiet neighborhood
-hot neighbors, preferably brothers (double preferably twins - only if we can tell them apart, if not, who cares? Its all fun)

So with this list in mind, we set out on ANOTHER search of the perfect apartment....so far, these are the top 2 contenders:

Apt #1:

Pros:
-furnished
-very pretty
-we LOVE the one red wall
-cheap ($575 per week)
-in the heart of the city
-2 floors

Cons:
-the bond is high (over $3000)
-the tiles in the kitchen (we plan to re-tile)
-the couch (but we can get a cover)

Apt #2:

Pros:

-the pullout couch

-close to the Uni

-downtown

Cons:

-theres someone lurking in our kitchen!!!

-high bond

Next step: finalizing our goodbye party on Saturday. There is soooo much to do!! We need to organizing the playlist, guestlist, drinks, decorations, drinks, costumes, food and drinks.....we promise to keep you updated on all the fun!! Did we forget to mention the theme??? It's "Almost Famous", think, hippies, woodstock, rockstars and band-aids.....2 words come to mind : Penny Lane....

Perpetually Dreaming,

Linds & Naz

...they'll name a city after us and later say its all our fault...

Tuesday, January 5th, 2010!!!!

Countdown to LA: 18 days.

Countdown to Sydney: 29 days.

Happy new year!

It all seems real now (as it should, only 18 days to go!). I think it really started to hit me after my family trip to the Dominican Republic. DR by the way was beautiful. The clear ocean, the white sand and time spent with my family. I got to go parasailing and swam in a real cave for the first time in my life. Not to mention started a pretty awesome base tan for the year ahead.

Now, the fear, anxiety and excitement has taken over. Anxiety mostly about the many many many things I have yet to do (apply for my visa, pack, open a new bank account, pack, get an OHIP letter, pack, buy a laptop, pack etc.). The fear of leaving everything familiar and secure that I've been around all my life and starting over from scratch. And the excitement that I'm finally doing what I have wanted to do for 23 years! Now, whoever said moving half way around the world was easy.....?

I've been getting sick, I keep hearing bad news, and everything is taking a lot longer than I thought. Everyday just seems like a bad day but I know it is completely worth it and that's what is getting me through it all. Though I must say I would be having a complete nervous breakdown right now (we're talking 5150s and strait jackets) if it weren't for Lindsay. She has to deal with my daily mini erratic breakdowns along with all the stress she's under. So I'm sorry and thanks for keeping me (relatively) sane Linds! Couldn't and wouldn't be doing this without ya <3>

Now its time for a new year and a new life. Luckily, we got to spend New Years Eve with some of our friends for the last time in who knows how long...

Some pics for your viewing pleasure:

This quote by Alan Cohen is what I will be taking with me into 2010:
"It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power"