February 8 2006

Now that I am feeling a lot better I can sit down and do some writing. I have already described in my email how I was feeling so I am not going to go into that again. Instead I will describe where we are now living.It is a first floor apartment. There are only 4 apartments in the house. It has very high ceilings which help to make the place seem so much more spacious than perhaps it is. It is a one bedroom place but we have heaps of room to put all our stuff, admittedly we don't really have that much stuff for now, but enough to make the place feel homey and lived in. In the living room there are two comfy leather chairs, they are kind of like the chairs that are at reception at Mission Australia (for those of you who know what I am talking about). I usually spend most evenings sitting in them reading with a light throw over me. You could most definately be able to sleep in them. Both the bedroom and the living room have large bay windows in them and even though the weather is usually overcast they still let a lot of light in so during the day I don't usually have to turn the lights on. In the living room there is a table and two chairs in the window. So on the weekend we can sit at the table and read the paper. Andrew likes to read the guardian whereas I prefer the independant. The independent usually has free stuff with it. Last weekend they had a free learn to speak Spanish cd and book. So I am doing the course. They reckon it should take 6 weeks. It is called learn spanish rapido. Anyway, back to the house. We have a bath which is great. The shower is over the bath. The pressure from the shower head is pretty dissmal but it gets the job done. There is a little cupboard over the sink. The kitchen is great. It is big enough for 2 people to stand in there and be cooking. We have an oven and stove top as well as a microwave. The only downside is a tiny fridge with hardly any freezer space. We had to transport quite a few bags of frozen vegies into the new place and not all of them fit in the freezer, so for the last few days I have been living on just vegetables, I hear you all say 'how healthy of you' I say that I am so sick of vegetables it isn't funny, the sooner they are gone the better. There is so much storage space as well. There are built in cupboards in the bedroom and we have only taken up about half of the space. They are fantastic. So all in all it is a great place and we both love it. The landlord is really nice as well. We met with him a couple of times and he pretty much said we could take the place straight away. It was so good to move out of the shared house. I think that may have been part of the reason why I got so sick.The weather is beautiful today, nice and sunny with only a few clouds. This place is so nice with the sun out. Every street you walk down is full of trees, it is all very romantic and with the sun out it makes everything shine. I am finding the people really nice and very helpful. The other day I was in the city holding my lonely planet guide looking very much the tourist and a lady stopped to ask me if I was lost and could she help me. She then told me about the free buses that run around the city centre. She was very nice. Down at the pub, andrew seems to know almost everyone, they are really friendly as well. We usually go there once a week to hang out with everyone and have a good time. There is a lot of singing and drinking happening. There is an odd assortment of people with scottish and irish as well. It is funny sometimes because they often all have a go at each other about all kinds of things, mostly sport. England has not let up with the fact that they beat us in the last ashes, and now we find out that the Aussies will get first look at the tickets for the next ashes, every news break all we hear is that Aussies will get a three week head start on the English for tickets. This place is soccer mad and I ma learning a lot more about the sport. You have to have a team to support and then be careful where you are when you tell people who you support. We haven't actually picked ourselves a team yet, but we are kind of leaning towards Manchester City because we are pretty much living in there territory.