Jens

I couldn't leave the kind hospitality of JB & ES without a post concerning Jens, their very adorable dog.  His name is Jens, named after the cyclist Jens Voigt, but his name is frequently affectionatly lengthened to Jento (as in Ianto) or Jentle.  He's a crazy dog, but very friendly, always pleased to see you, and generally out to lick any piece of bare flesh he can lay his tongue on.  He enjoys making you open the back door so he can go outside and then want to come in (with a hilariously adorable two legged frantic scrape against the glass pane), only after he can no longer see you waiting with the door open for him. He hates being left alone, is petrified of being in the car, even when we are taking him for a walk.  And when he's on his lead he has a very frantic excited attitude, pulling you along, running from person to person to check we're all there and then bounding off as far as his lead can carry him (about 2m) before attempting to run along on his hind legs, his fore-legs waving in the air being held back by the collar on his neck.We've had some good times over the past three weeks, especially playing tug of war with his favourite toy.  He doesn't let me win very often! I'm going to miss him!

Also, its been a fantastic three weeks with JB and ES, they've really helped me settle in to Australia and Canberra.  They've applied no pressure in finding my own place, letting me find somewhere that I actually think is a nice place to live.  I also feel as though I've been introduced to Canberra from the local perspective rather than the student one, which is always a great alternative viewpoint from which to learn a new city.  I wonder how many international students ever end up with as much local knowledge as I already have, having spent three weeks in the real world!  I am very grateful to them.

JB and ES also had a cat called Bentley, but frankly its Jens who'll always have a special place in my heart!

The meaning of Manchester

The lack of posts over the last week has mainly been due to me moving house.  I'm finally into a new place, my own place.  Its in the suburb of Lyneham, one of the more studenty districts, but the place is close to the suburb of Dickson and Dickson shops, a larger shopping area than most of the suburbs have, with an entire street of asian restaurants, multiple Japanese, Chinese, Indian, Malaysian, Lao, Thai etc etc.  It even has three, yes three, different Vietnamese restautants.  Plus a host of Oriental Supermarkets.  Its much more bustling atmosphere than quiet family friendly Hackett kind of makes it the Cowley Road of Canberra, and its pretty much where I've ended up. (Not that its at all *like* Cowley Road but you get the idea).  I ended up making two huge (over $100 dollar) supermarket runs to get suitable food stocks, plus another to buy some Manchester! Manchester here is bedding, pillows, pillowcases, duvets (or dooners, or quilts), basically all bedroom linen and soft furnishings.

To go with my "Manchester" I've got a new mattress, which required the help of JB and his car just three days after leaving! It came from Kambah, a suburb thats outside of Inner North so a chance to take a look at one of Canberra's other "towns".  I didn't quite realise how spread out the eight or so towns that make up Canberra are.  Inner North, the one I'm in is spread-out, nicely spacious and low density, full of parks and wide verges, but its not overly spread-out.  Neither are the other towns, but the gaps between them make Canberra a really spread-out city and one you couldn't ever hope to traverse without a vehicle. You really can't see many buildings from the larger parkways that link these towns.  They could be, and to a certain extent are, completely separate entities.

Unfortunately the mattress stank of cigarette smoke. So far it has taken an entire bottle of fabreeze, and three days outside and the smell is beginning to fade.  Another bottle of fabreeze should do the trick, then I'll have a mattress that actually fits my new bed! I've been lucky in that JB and ES have loaned me some furniture, a bed and a desk that were sitting unused their garage, until they need it back.  If it weren't for this I'd be spending a serious amount of money at the moment.  I've still been spending loads, just not quite as much as I could have. Very few rooms in Canberra come furnished, which is frustrating, but it does mean that anything I do buy is mine for the full duration while I'm here, rather than face leaving stuff when moving house.  Makes life easier for landlords too I guess.

My shopping spree continued in Civic (the centre of both Inner North and Canberra as a whole), where I picked up all kinds of various bits and pieces you never normally think about, but are actually pretty necessary.  Things like clothes-hangers and a bin. I did get a nice fruit-bowl though! Plus I've finally got my replacement pair of jeans after ripping a brand new pair when I came off my bike last week.

Yet despite all this activity, its been a pretty boring weekend, all of my new housemates have been away at some point.  Its been a second successive three-day weekend, which would normally sound good, but when you've been doing as little work as I have in the intervening week is actually pretty pointless.  I now can't wait to get back to work tomorrow and get some stuff done.

Progress

On the housing front its been nice to actually be getting somewhere.  I saw more houses over the weekend and a couple this week.  All of them have been so much better than (all but one of) the ones I saw last weekend. And at reasonable prices this time, hooray, I will be able to eat! Why was the quality so bad last week, its really strange.  But yeah, lots of places I'd be happy to live in and I couple I actually want to!  Now all I have to do is choose between the cosy one with a wood-burning stove and cushions and the like and a dog and a hot-tub or the bright airy one with homebrew, a cool garden, and a Wii.  Its a tough choice!

I thought towards the end of last week that the weather had turned for the better.  Its been a lot warmer during the days, reaching mid teens.  But the thing about Canberra is that, because its not coastal in anyway, there's a big diurnal temperature range, so its still absolutely freezing at night. Plus of course, weather never really turns instantly and we've had some more rain.  But it does feel as if Spring is on the way.  Blossom is out and I even had lunch outside (albeit with my coat on!).  Its now two layer weather!  I've got some good photos of weather related stuff over the last weak. It makes landscape shots more interesting!  All of these are on my commute in and out of ANU, which is a nice way to travel.  I hope I don't have a hideous commute wherever I end up.

And work has been going well too, though I'm remembering how I work, and just how rubbish I am in the afternoons at getting everything done!

I have a pidge! That little hole in my heart has been filled! And a student card (finally) and the like.  Certainly starting to be a bit more settled.  Now if only I could remember people's names!

Rain, rent and relatives

Canberra is a pretty dry city, usually.  What we had on Saturday was a once in a couple of years rainstorm, which lasted pretty much all day.  If we hadn't have had four consecutive days of something similar in the UK a couple of weeks ago after our own particularly dry summer I'd say it was unusual.  Unusual weather for Australia, well maybe just weather as opposed to climate!!! So it rained, and the storm drains had all of a metre of water in them and there was some wind and some trees fell over.  Wuss trees. This morning was back to one of the clear crisp winter mornings that Canberra is meant to be famous for, and it was pretty good.  Its a bit strange being catapulted back into Winter again in early September but in a way its quite nice.  Still can't get over the combination of tropical birds and contemplating gloves! We went for a walk on Saturday afternoon with the adopted family (!), the kids huddled and moaning at the (at worst) blustery weather, the dog (who practically deserves his own post) being mildly confused.

With the adopted family I've kind of been catapulted into a social life, which is no bad thing, its good to talk to people, rather than hiding away in a hostel room which was very nearly my fate!  Went to a dinner party hosted by David Cameron who kept saying far out, in a way that seems very mid-90s but is probably just Australian!  And on Sunday I was introduced to one side of the extended family for a 2-year old's birthday party.  Its been quite surreal but to be fair, I'm pretty thankful for the human interaction at this point!

I've also begun my search for a room in a shared house.  Canberra's housing stock is fairly rubbish.  Most places are pretty poor, and the people and fairly uninspiring.  Some places are all-right but the people aren't great. One place was pretty much a slum with one of the tenants living in a caravan outside the front.  A lot suffer from that Oxford affliction of being a normal sized house with an ill-advised extension on the back adding extra rooms and blocking all light to the rest of the house. There's not much out there at this time of year (houses will become available in about three months or so and the big rush is in February).  If I was willing to up rent from a third of income to a half then there might be stuff out there, but its not exactly the most sensible financial strategy!  I guess it would be too much to find a 57 East Avenue type house again, but its kind of what I'm holding out for.  I've been told there is good stuff out there (other people in the department say they pay similar rent as the places I'm looking at) but that people tend to hang onto it.  So still hopeful and we'll see what the next week brings.

So yeah, thats about it, I've just realised I might have sounded a bit moany in this blog, its actually been good so far!