Moving into our nation's capital

"Our nation's capital"- Sounds very impressive for a largish country town I think. Mind you, the other day I had to quickly pull over to answer my mobile, and suddenly realised I'd parked smack inbetween the US embassy and the French embassy.

We got here Monday at 1pm, and are staying in a tiny apartment that is across the road from Parliament house- one street south of there, actually. If you remember, it was stinking hot that day, (as it has been every day since- weird to think it was snowing last week!). We went grocery shopping, had a nap and settled in that afternoon. In the evening we went for a drive to one of the suburbs we've been considering moving into- it has lots of blocks of flats, is comparatively cheap, and close to work and the city. We drove past the shopping mall (Southlands), parked the car to take a look around and what do you suppose we found??? A baseball ground. (Picture Scott in seventh heaven). Actually, there is quite a bit of nice parkland around, which is particularly handy if you are living in a block of flats. The shopping mall was nice too. Two second hand bookshops, discount liquor, far too many hairdressers, little outdoorsy cafes, a cheap greengrocer, etc. Also found that meat and veg in the woolworths there is a third of the price of the supermarket in trendy Kingston that we shopped at yesterday.

Tuesday, Scott started work. The Commission is only a five minute drive from here, 7 minutes in peak hour traffic. I did some study in the morning and in the afternoon I went down to Woden plaza. Apparently, at these apartments, their idea of "internet access" (as advertised in the brochures) is limited to the presence of a phone jack in the apartment. So I had to find a prepaid dial up internet starter kit. I thought I'd try the telstra shop and get a bigpond one, but the guy there said they didn't stock them (although they do apparently exist), raised an eyebrow at me and asked scornfully why I wanted dial up. I put him in his place by saying I was only going to be living in the apartment for a month, so I wasn't too keen on a 24 month contract. He said to try Dick Smiths.

Last night we went for a drive up Red Hill, where there is a beautiful view of the city. There was a couple sitting up there drinking glasses of red wine. We thought: "What a good idea! We just bought a cask and it's in the boot." Then realised we had no glasses. I don't mind drinking from a bottle when the occasion calls for it, but even I couldn't come at the idea of drinking directly out of a cask. Came home and sat in the garden (a big garden with picnic benches shared by all the apartments) and had a glass of wine, read the paper and ate a green Thai curry. Very nice. I could get used to this.