Yay – I finally finished my project, so now I can start acting like I’m on an adventure on the other side of the globe. W00t!
I’ve also ordered a sim card from Virgin Mobile who seemed to have the most reasonable deals (10 cents per minute is actually the same as I would pay in Denmark, and 10 cents per text message (20 cents for international) is also ok). But the site thought that having a landline phone number was “Required in case we need to speak with you about your order” before they would sell me a telecard. Sounds like they expect therapy sessions to be frequent enough to warrant such precautions. Apparently they don’t really want my money, at least not until I jump through a couple of hoops for them. Guess they dislike costumers who, say, are buying a sim card because they don’t have a landline phone… Anyways, I managed to cheat the regular expression with a suitable amount of zeroes to look like a phone number (I hope it’s not an emergency number or anything), and finally succeeded in giving them my money. Ah, the joys of system-centric user interface design…
Being able to place phone calls at a reasonable price should come in handy in the coming days of house hunting. Also there seems to be house-hunting initiatives during the orientation (introduction program at the university), which is in one month, so even if I don’t find anything now I’ll still have some chances. But I still think finding something now would be a good way to avoid the “house hunting rush hour” at the start of the semester not to mention help me to not worry about it.
Incidently, it seems that a large part (maybe 50%) of those looking for flatmates are looking for women only, mostly asian women. Are non-asian guys just notoriously bad tenants or what? Or maybe the posters are in fact non-asian guys looking for some cultural diversity :) Anyways, if they want to avoid me, then I’d probably be better off avoiding them anyway, so I don’t mind being discriminated against. I definitely think whom you live with is as much a concern as the facilities (internet a must, pool and gym would be nice) and the price (seems to be in the 150-350 AUD per week range).
Yesterday I also met a Canadian family outing in the hostel – brother, sister and cousin travelling together. They were playing guitar, which they let me borrow for a while – I never realize how much I miss that until I start playing :) I’m looking forward to going out and getting my own, but it’ll have to wait until I have an apartment to keep it in.
Oh, and the jet lag is finally getting better – I slept until 6.30 today, and I managed to stay awake during the afternoon without the aid of caffeinated drinks :)
A final note. In Denmark I’m used to paying for everything with my card, dankort, which is also a Visa card. And if I need cash, I can just pay extra with the card in the grocery store and get money in return – this also avoids the fee of using an ATM. In Australia things don’t work quite like that. Most stores require that you make a purchase of at least $10 to use a card (nice trick, since most of my purchases would otherwise be about $8). And while many apparently allow a “cashback” (similar to above) you can only get it using a debit card, not a credit card – which for some reason my Visa/dankort counts as, even though it came with my bank account.
Well, looks like I’ve written another behemoth for my friends and family to peruse – enjoy!
