Where to start? I guess I'll need to give you some background first. Earlier this year, Andy's boss came into town to review the Melbourne office, and decided that Andy would be more useful in California, asap. After much soul-searching, we decided that wanted to stay in Australia longer. We just weren't ready to come home yet!
The first year was difficult and required far more adjustment than I had expected. But we survived, and really settled into life here. After getting through the hard part, we wanted to enjoy Australia. We found some friends, the kids were settled into activities, and we hadn't seen enough of Australia yet!
Andy began a job search, contacted headhunters, put the word out, and started interviewing. I was concerned about the likelihood of success, given the declining economy in Victoria. One father at school has been out of work for a year, another for eight months. In the meantime, we took a trip to Sydney in March, and planned a trip to the Great Barrier Reef, just in case. The deadline to be in California was August 1st.
It was an emotional roller-coaster for us, not knowing if we'd be heading home or not. We moved forward, living life as if we were staying, but dealing with moving companies who were coming to itemize our belongings and give moving quotes. We didn't let the kids know, so they wouldn't worry and/or get their hopes up.
By the time we left for a holiday in Queensland on July 9, Andy had three job offers. Pretty exciting. He chose a great international company, and he started with them at the end of July.
Leaving his company means a lot of things. First and foremost, we're staying in Australia for another year or two. When we told the kids, we were thrilled and gratified when they told us they didn't want to go home "just yet." While we all miss family, friends, favorite foods and the weather (I am SO done with the cold, wet Melbourne winter!) we want to stay here just a bit longer.
It also means we had to move. Before we left for Queensland, we put in our one-month notice on our house, just in case we were moving back to the US. We wanted a cheaper place regardless, and had some concerns about the house. We couldn't do anything while on holiday (you can't apply to rent a place without having seen it) so as soon as the vacation ended I began searching for homes. We had just over two weeks to get into a new place!
Now, the house rental process here really deserves its own blog, but since I'm already well behind in my blogging, I'll just give you an overview. The online search was very straightforward as we had a few non-negotiable requirements: in the same suburb, four bedrooms (or three plus loft/study), and cheaper than our other place. I then called the agents for the listings we were interested in, hoping to schedule a viewing. Only one agreed to show me the house. All the others said to attend the scheduled inspections.
So, the inspections. These are scheduled for exactly 15 minutes, no longer, as agents often have 10-15 open houses in a day. Two houses open at the same time? Tough luck, or drive fast between them!
I made a list of properties we wanted to see in order of showings, and mapped them all out, and we set off early on Saturday morning to look at nine places.
Most, we could rule out almost instantly. A huge, gorgeous art deco house on an enormous corner lot just two blocks from the girls school sounds great, until you learn that the bedrooms are upstairs, only one teeny awful bathroom downstairs, and there's no heating! Another house had three large bedrooms, each with it's own large bathroom, and only one tiny living area, that certainly wouldn't have accommodated our family room much less the living room or loft or office stuff. And many of the houses didn't even have garages. We didn't care about parking our car there...who puts their car in their garage? It's meant for storage and/or a workspace, right.
With the clock ticking to the end of our lease, and with our desire to stay within walking/biking distance to school, we had to compromise. Poor Andy, the house has no garage. Fortunately it has an extra bedroom downstairs, along with two sheds in the back, that we can use for storage. We love the vaulted ceilings, and the huge backyard is a bonus--even has a slight slope, perfect for a slip-n-slide. Might even have to get a trampoline!
We knew we wanted a used car, given the insane car prices here. We lucked out (which in Oz actually means the opposite, that you didn't get lucky, which actually makes more sense than our meaning of getting lucky, but I digress) and found a great deal on a low-mileage, er, kilometerage? Toyota Avensis at a nearby used car lot. Everyone in the family liked it, the price was good, and they offered us a better finance rate than our credit union. I did think it funny that the add-on lady (you know, the one who tries to sell window-tinting or undercarraige-coatings or pinstriping or car alarms for incredibly marked up prices) asked us how many other kids we had. Mini-vans aren't very popular in Oz, so I think she assumed we had more than just two kids. Regardless, we were relieved, thinking we were about to become car owners.
Little did we know. Everything conspired against us at that point. They couldn't process the loan Saturday because it was late and we hadn't brought financial documents since we didn't expected to finance through them. We couldn't come in Monday because Andy started his new job and had to spend the whole day in Geelong. We couldn't come in Tuesday because the salesguy wasn't working that day and you can only sign paperwork with the seller (???) Meanwhile we went back and forth with their finance guys trying to prove our income, which was challenging because Andy's previous job was paid into a US account in US funds by a US company, and our Aussie tax returns hadn't been completed, and he just started a new job. On Wednesday I was told to just go with our credit union financing, but I couldn't reach Andy during business hours because he was at a job site and hadn't gotten a company phone yet.None of it would have mattered too much except that I had an 11:10 am appointment with VicRoads (think DMV) on Thursday to get the vehicle registered. Vehicles don't come with registration, and if you want the dealer to take care of it, it costs an extra $500! No thanks. Instead, I made an appointment on the Monday after we settled on the car, and the earliest I could get in was Thursday. If we missed this appointment, most likely we wouldn't have a driveable car until the following week. Not good when we were moving that coming weekend, and didn't have a car! We'd already returned Andy's company car the previous Friday.
When Andy got home Wednesday night, we came up with a crazy plan, and prayed that it would work.
Thursday morning, we got up extra early. Andy bought a three-month car insurance policy online, as we needed proof of insurance. I had lunches packed and breakfast set out for the kids, and we got them started on their day, but left them to walk to school by themselves (which wasn't far.) I bundled up and put on Andy's heated vest, gloves, scarf, and the warmest coat I had, and we took his motorcycle into the city. We got to the credit union right as it opened at 8:45 am, hoping to get the car loan processed. The bad news was the loan officer we'd been working with wasn't in, and the paperwork takes two to three days. The good news was another person helped us get the temporary funds with minimal paperwork, and the rest could be completed later. We finished there at 9:30, and I made a call to the dealer explaining our timeline and asking them to get everything ready.
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At 11:00, they finally handed us the keys. Andy went back to work on the bike, and I sped off to VicRoads, which thankfully was only 10 minutes away. Just made it, and all was well until it came time to pay the rego fees. My bank card didn't work! I almost lost it right then and there, but I held it together and called the credit union. I just needed to use the card as credit instead of debit. Phew! I paid the fees, screwed on our new license plates, and headed home so I could start packing up for our move.
Somehow, we got through it all, even the move, which we did ourselves. The distance was about one kilometer, so with lots of trips in the mini-van and the truck Andy rented, and with help from two of his rowing buddies, we did it. And though nothing is perfect, we're pretty happy with Andy's job, the car, and the house.
Probably the biggest bummer about the new job is that we lost our free tickets back to the US. We're all extremely disappointed that we won't be spending Christmas back in SoCal. We'll really miss the fondue dinners, volleyball games and brunches at the beach, cheap shopping, favorite restaurants, and of course, visiting with friends and family. Fortunately, Pap and Gram are coming to visit over Christmas, hooray! The girls are counting the days until their arrival. And we also got word that perhaps another family might come, so we're excited to have some visitors.
So there you have it. Now tell me, what's new in your world?
Holy cow Alexi - that was quite a winter!! I'm exhausted just having read that! ;-) Glad you got through it all and came out the other side in one piece! See you soon ...
ReplyDeleteMe too! Thanks for lending us your car and boxes, that really helped :-)
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