The final viewing:

It’s an independent flat, located in Greystanes (great name, eh?). The pictures were beautiful on the ad – stylish modern furnishings, lovely construction. Somehow we managed to miss the fact that it didn’t come with a bed.

Anyway, it took us a good hour to bus/train/bus there from Viive and Ian’s place. We walked down a lovely street with lovely houses and lovely yards. We found the house where we were supposed to meet the realtor… but no one was there. We occupied ourselves by peering in the windows and examining the landscaping. It’s been worked on a lot, and looked freshly redone. Nice driveway, nice siding… quite nice looking even on this grey windy day.

The owner of the house eventually let us in to the back area – apparently he was working in the back yard while we were snooping, and the realtor had called him to let us in.

The back patio of the main house was kind of incredible.  A large covered area with dining settings and a flat screen TV mounted on the outside of what we discovered was the flat we were going to look at. There was an ashtray on the patio set. And small children’s toys in the walkway.

The little flat itself was fairly nice, as shown in the pictures, but as I mentioned, no bed. And it was one room, plenty of room for the modern kitchen and the sitting area, but the only logical spot for a bed to go… was opposite the large sliding glass doors that faced the main house’s entertainment area. Right next to the flat screen tv.

Bed next to glass doors and late night entertainment plus bed next to glass doors where small children play = well. Not my ideal. Plus, they smoke.

I think the disappointment of the lack of privacy along with the reality of just how long my commute would be swung Ben solidly in the direction I wanted: right towards the lovely little granny flat we’d seen on Wednesday! Our minds were made up. We just had to wait for them to email and tell us whether it was still available.

The realtor kindly gave us a ride back to the train station, though I think she knew we weren’t interested (Ben emailed her later in the day to let her know), and we headed back home.

…

Part two, in which Adrienne discovered Nirvana.

With half the day left, we decided to finally head further into Sydney! We’ve been here 5 days and we haven’t set foot in Sydney proper. Lame.

The day, hinted at earlier in Greystanes with the breeze and cool drizzle, got a bit more rambunctious. I hadn’t thought of Sydney as cold, but coming straight out of Michigan summer meant I was doing an interesting shuffle-hustle to try and work some heat into my core after we disembarked the train. Ben and I both quickly concluded that we’d be happy spending our first few hours in Sydney inside, somewhere warm, preferably with a hot drink to keep us company.

First we found lunch, at an interesting looking Thai place (THAI!) where we both ordered medium spicy and had our mouths melt out of our heads. The key, we found, to a few moments of relief was to hold a mouthful of water for as long as you care to, and only when you swallow will your tongue continue to smolder. Ben got a basil chili noodle dish. I got a salad. A beef salad. Which was amazing and perfectly textured with hard little slabs of cured (?) beef in an awesomesauce sauce.

On our next jaunt, refueled, we encountered The Chocolate Room, and I could only follow as Ben made a beeline for a hot stack of chocolate pancakes, or a chocolate sampling plate, or a pot of Italian hot chocolate, or… I asked him to get me a mocha, and had a seat, breathing into my hands to warm them. He reappeared with…

How can you argue with that? I got my mocha (yummy) plus half of this monstrosity, which I discovered was a giant cream puff covered in chocolate mousse.

We spent the afternoon sipping and reading/writing/being warm. It was great!

Once we decided to break cover we headed further downtown, and that’s when I found it… Victoria’s Basement. I know where my home is now.

Victoria’s Basement is kind of like the small kitchen section of Tj Maxx blown into even more awesome.

We got a large cutting board, in anticipation of our hopefully new awesome granny flat. And two bowls, of interesting design, that called to me.

One of the things that I was saddest to leave behind in storage in the US was a set of two large cutting boards that Ben’s dad made for us out of an old table which was in turn made out of butcher block material. Those things were fantastic, and lived permanently on our counters so that we and whatever sous chefs were visiting could all chop together in harmony.

We didn’t find a replacement, but we did find a large stand-in made out of rubber wood that will suffice until we can return to our true love cutting boards. This cutting board, along with my wonderful knives that we brought with us, will make wherever we are home.

I was forced to leave Nirvana because it was closing, which is lucky for Ben, because I might have bitten his fingers off as he tried to drag me out to go get food or something.

…

Our future landlords emailed!

“We were due to have our final person though to look at the place tonight, however they have cancelled. No problem however, as B and I thought you and Adrienne were great and I would like to now officially offer our Granny Flat to you two.

Feel free to move in over the weekend at your convenience, we will drop the fridge, kitchen utensils and anything else we can find into the flat that may be of use to you.”

Did I mention they’re letting us use a dorm fridge and some pots, pans, and dishes? Did I mention that I love this place, and the landlords that come with us? I’d go “EEEEEEEE!” right now, but it’s late, and I don’t want to wake anyone up.

These are the pictures from the ad for the flat:

“eeee!”