On Moving to Australia

On Moving to Australia

• Tuesday, 18 September 2018

Before heading to our new home in the Gold Coast, Jonny and I spent a couple days in Sydney with his brother, dad and two of his uncles. Exploring the city was loads of fun and averaging 18,000 steps per day meant I didn’t feel so guilty about all the junk we ate. Boys; we flew to another country and all they wanted was KFC. Having heard about Australia’s brunch culture however, I was on the hunt from the minute we arrived, and did manage to find an incredible smoothie bowl one afternoon when I went for a wander whilst they were at the pub. 

Our stay in Sydney was short but sweet and soon enough it was time to catch our flight to the Gold Coast. Jonnys best friends, Leon & Seamus (they're twins) have just bought an apartment at a holiday resort and we've moved in with them. Fully furnished (double bed, dining table - it even came with champange chutes so I have some to drink my prosecco out of), en suite, swimming pool and the beach down the road; it's perfect!

They're the first people my age I know that have managed to save up and buy a house for themselves and I think its pretty amazing; such an investment for their future. They even showed us this handy calculator from SunLife that shows how much house prices have risen in recent years, something they're excited about. 

Still, all their talk of mortgages goes right over my head, along with how to use the washing machine so even though I've been thinking about it, I still think I've got a little way to go.

I love waking up to, what I only know as holiday weather every morning and that there is always music playing when they're home. I love eating breakfast on the balcony overlooking the pool. I love that we finally have a real kitchen since we lived without one in Auckland and I love that one of the bathrooms has a huge corner bathtub.

We're within walking distance of a Ben and Jerry’s, Baskin Robin’s, Movenpick, Gelatissimo, Mcdonalds and my new favourite - Royal Copenhagen so thats where most of our money goes nowadays. Seriously, our cash got stolen over the first few days here and we decided to spend the last of it on ice cream. 

Having trialled all of the gyms in the area, I was going more or less 7 days a week for almost a month. I signed up for my first ever membership and promotly stopped going altogether as my Uber Eats application got accepted the next day. I now spend all my spare time cycling.

Talking of which, Jonny bought me the most beautiful mint green bicycle for my birthday! He also took me out for breakfast, ice cream and to a carabaret show where we both got very drunk and then had to cycle along the gold coast highway home.

We had our 6 month anniversary which we celebrated at the arcade. I might have lost at Guitar Hero but I did hit a 1000 ticket jackpot so who won really Bae?  

All three of the boys work the supermarket night shift and one of my two jobs is usually a10pm start so we spend most of our spare time messing around when we all get home at 4am. On top of that, theres uber which we all do very competatively; I worked 68 hours last week. So as you can see, it’s been all go since we got here sixe weeks ago. Sure it's been hard work but I'm loving it so far and am very excited to see what the rest of our time here brings! 

*Collaborative post