My final week of freeedom before I start work on the 24th! This week has been less jam packed (which was needed) and I’m writing this on Saturday looking back at the week rather than writing short daily updates because I felt like last weeks was too repetitive and waffley – sooo Chloz in Oz week 3!
On Monday morning I woke up feeling rough with what looked like conjunctivitis in my eyes so I decided to have a pretty chillllled day reading and going on a walk. Nicole and Matt arrived in Aus on Sunday so they’re on the same timezone as me now (nearly) which feels good to have some family awake at the same time as me and now keep Nicole up to date with all my daily stresses, lucky her. The first of which being that when I checked the mailbox to see if my debit card had arrived I then proceeded to leave the key (Morna, if you’re reading this I’m sorry) in the mail box and then walk off. Halfway through my walk to Randwick I realised what I’d done and LEGGED IT back to make sure it was still in the mail box (obviously panicking and overthinking what I’d do if it wasn’t there). Thankfully it was still there, PANIC OVER lol. I was meant to be going out for some drinks in the eve but had to bail as I just felt soooo exhausted!
Tuesday the weather was pretty shitty (again). I think the weather in England is probably/definitely better than the weather in Sydney at this point. Sad times. However, I went to the gym, stopping for a coffee and read some of my book before going in which felt wholesome. Then on the way home I stopped by Vinnie’s and found a little paint set for $12 which I thought would be a perfect thing to do on a rainy Tuesday afternoon! So I went back to Morn’s and set myself up for the afternoon with a great pod (have been loving a good pod at the moment) and painting. At 6 we headed to pilates again, I felt so much more prepared for is this week! I still look very amateur when I do any of the moves and sometimes have to collapse on the floor for a while because my abs are burning, but I’m trying! Morna whipped up a delish risotto for dinner (forever in awe of her ability to put together tasty meals from nothing, that is not something I can do). Mum facetimed me as I got into bed to finalise packing the suitcase that she’s going to ship out to me (which she definitely told me to make sure was 100% packed before I left, oops). It’s crazy that even though I’m 10,000 km’s away I can still manage to annoy her, heheheheh.
Wednesday is… MOVE IN DAY! EEEEKKKK! Another slow-ish morning but I headed to the gym and then met Maddie to go and check out the apartment in Clovelly for the first time IRL! I really don’t know how we’ve managed to wangle such a big apartment, with 3 decent sized bedrooms so close to the beach, but I’m not going to complain and I’m feeling #blessed. Morns v v kindly drove me round in the afternoon with all of my stuff which be brought on our K-mart trip last week and my suitcases, so the rest of the afternoon was spent unpacking everything and beginning to make the apartment feel homely. My mattress (that I only ordered in the morning!?!) from Mr Yawns (what a name for a mattress delivery company) was also delivered so I had a bed to sleep in for the night which was ideal. When Mads finished work she moved all her stuff in too (sadly her mattress didn’t get delivered and she was sleeping on a blow up mattress for the night – less ideal) and we got take away pasta and a bottle of wine on Jimmy Brings (Aus’ answer to Gorillas/Getir, but this was started by one guy in lockdown that started delivering alcohol to people but has now become a big thing!)
On Thursday morning Mads had work so we went to scout out our new local coffee spot together before she started! I then headed to a yoga class, which was probs one of my fav yoga classes I’ve been to – she involved loooads of yoga poses that I’d never heard of or tried before which were quite challenging and it felt good! When I arrived home I arrived to quite honestly the most beautiful bouquet of flowers I have ever seen from mum and dad (thanks mum xxx) welcoming me into my new apartment. Is there anything better then receiving a bunch of flowers? My dad would definitely say yes, but I disagree. I then spent the WHOLE DAY getting buses all over the city to three different Bunnings’ to buy everything I wanted to upcycle my chest of drawers, only to end up not buying the things I wanted because they came to over $80 and I just couldn’t justify that right now. Brill. In the eve Mads sister came round and we had pesto pasta for dinner. We currently don’t have a fridge so making food is proving quite difficult – fingers crossed we get one soon! I think that will definitely help to make the apartment feel like a home when we can all cook proper meals!
Early morning trip to the gym and then spent some time catching up on what is going on in English politics (a shambles) before going to pick up the missing piece of the Clovelly apartment puzzle, our third and final roomie Amelia from the airport! We threw her straight in to activities and went to spend a small fortune in K-mart getting decorative bits for the apartment. We then spent the rest of the afternoon getting our DIY on and putting Mads new bed together (which we managed to do impressively quickly if I do say so myself). As soon as both of their mattress’ had been delivered we cracked open a bottle of wine and ordered pizza’s (the diet has been very questionable over the past couple of days – blaming it on the lack of fridge). The 3 bottles of wine resulted in an evening of oversharing (one of my strengths) and texting the past tenants and asking if they’d left the below ornament behind for us on purpose.
I am really losing track of all the days at the moment – a sure sign that I need to go back to work. But on Saturday Amelia and I walked down to Coogee to meet Mads when she finished work to grab a coffee! Me and Amelia did the coastal walk back to the apartment so I could show her the absolutely beaut beaches we have on our doorstep. It felt like it was getting warm so we headed down to Clovelly beach and quickly realised we’d made a bit of an error in doing so, the wind was cold and we looked like classic Brits (even Mads) holding on to the tiny bit of sun that would crack through the clouds every 10 mins. We did more house admin in the afternoon, sorting out the wifi and searching FB marketplace for more things for the apartment – I managed to get a desk so my room is pretty much all set now! In the eve we ventured to our new local – The Clovelly Hotel, aka the Cloey. We were only planning on having one or two drinks, but next thing you know we’ve made friends with two Aussie guys and they’ve invited us to a house party in Bondi (an invite we obviously couldn’t turn down) so we headed there! It was great vibes until two guys got in a fight and then it got shut down immediately (classssssssic Aussie boy behaviour I feel?) so we went home.
Sunday morning I really was living my best equal parts wholesome but fun life. A house party last night followed by a yoga class this morning, who is she?! Facetimed Maria on my walk there and it was so good to see her lil face and catch up! After yoga I headed to brunch in Bondi (again, who do I think I am!?!) to meet up with some girls that I have a couple of mutual friends with from the UK. After brunch we did the Bondi to Coogee walk because there’s a Sculpture by the Sea exhibition on at the moment which looked pretty cool (and was)! Spending the rest of the day getting my shit together for my first day at work tomorrow (aaaahhhhhh I am scared, how do I media!?!?).
Three thoughts from me this week!
- New Balance is not cool in Aus (maybe just Sydney tbh) – I mentioned to some people at the house party that I’d moved out here to work in advertising for New Balance and people were just not impressed!? The common phrase was ‘oooohhhh those grandad trainers’ and I kept having to be like ‘no no no, they are cool in the UK i promise!’.
- Aussies looooove a coffee – to be fair, I knew this before I came which is why for the past two months I’ve been training myself to like coffee (lol). But I didn’t realise the extent to which coffee is life in Aus. It’s an essential part of culture, socialising and day to day life, you literally can’t do anything without it! I’m slowly but surely learning the ways and am now an Oat Flatty girl rather than a vanilla Latte gal #progress.
- English banter is elite – sorry but how good is English banter. It’s actually weirdly hard to keep up with everything while you’re the other side of the world but I got my friend to explain the political lettuce banter to me the other day, lol. How iconic.
This was accidentally way longer than I planned but hey ho!
Thanks for reading!!!
Chloe x
Chloe Cripps 