August 18, 2011

Our home away from home

Dave and I have officially had a place here in Newcastle, Australia for 5 days! It is located in an area called The Hills. The name is very fitting because any which way you turn on the streets you are bound to end up going up hill. This is exactly what Dave and I found out when we went  tried to go for a run earlier today. It turned into a walk up the hill, catch breathe at top of the hill, jog down for a bit, then walk down because it is to steep of a slope and then start all over again! We did however find a new park that is only 3-4 blocks away that we will probably be visiting more because it has a great view of the city. 

Here is a little tour of our apartment, so you can see the Shoave palace in Newcastle:


The place has turned out to be okay...nothing great. We have shelter and a place to sleep at night, that is the most important thing. Plus here we are FAR more cleaner than we were in the states, so that is a plus. It has to do with a fear of roaches, which I will touch on a little bit later!  If you don't feel like watching the video tour and hearing my voice sound like I'm 12..here are some pictures!

When you enter the door you come right into our living room

Kitchen off to the left. All appliances and dishes came with the unit

Living Room and Door. We bought the sheet and pillows to cover up the icky couch beneath.
We also placed bags from home up for easy grabbing, decoration, and to feel like we are home. 
Our bedroom. It had two single beds that we pushed together, pillowcases from home (they say Key to my heart). The room has some storage for our clothes, which is nice. We had our second encounter with a roach on the bed, it was the biggest one I have ever seen!

Our bathroom..where the shower drain barely works, when you turn on the hot water the cold water handle runs, and where I killed my first cockroach (it was a german cockroach..I've become an expert on roaches)

So this is our place here on Mosbri Crescent in Newcastle. We find it to be okay, but honestly we don't really spend to much time in the apartment. Our days usually consist of us waking up, getting ready, heading out for the day, and then coming home for the night, watch tv and check internet, and then head to bed. As stated above we have had a few encounters with the insects of Australia. I HATE bugs...they are sooo gross, so it has been hard for me to handle these roaches. I have learned that due to the warm weather here in Australia there really is no way to stop roaches, they are just a part of life. I don't know if I can have them become part of my life...hopefully we won't have to many more visitors! It does make it a good reason to clean up EVERYTHING and not to leave anything on the floor where they could hide. 

We just found the second roach tonight on Dave's side of the bed. This thing was HUGE, I even took video of it because we had to show people for them to believe us! We are also posting different parts of our adventures here in Australia on our Youtube channel, ShoaveRoberts. Check it out and see some of the videos, warning they aren't the best because I have NOOO editing skills!

Cheers!