Home Sweet Home

Ah.......we're in our apartment!

We moved in yesterday (Thursday) morning. We're on the 16th floor of a high-rise in the heart of the CBD (central business district). If you want to "Google map" us, we're at the corner of Elizabeth and Albert St.

We're also 1/2 block from a large Irish pub and 2 blocks from a Borders Books. How dangerous is that??

We've got a reserved parking space (!) for the car we only use on the weekends. Given my pitiful depth perception, especially in parking garages, I'm not even sure I want to try to get it out of the parking garage!



We've also got access to an outdoor "barbie" (BBQ/cookout area), an outdoor hot tub, 'playing around in' pool and an honest-to-God separate lap lanes pool, all outdoors. If it wasn't raining this morning, I'd be in it.

We need a special fob to get, well, everywhere in the building. This is more security than I'm used to, heaven knows, but I'll adapt.


The apartment is good. A real kitchen. It may look small in the pics but, trust me, it's 2-3 times bigger than what we saw in other apartments! A reasonable living room with a pull-out sofa (in case you're thinking of visiting), and an amazing balcony/porch/sunroom.




There are floor to ceiling glass doors that separate the living room from the balcony. The balcony is maybe 8' x 8' and it's where the dining room table resides. It has floor-to-ceiling windows on two sides, overlooking downtown and giving me a view across the river to the south bank.

The top half of the windows slide open 100%! Without screens, bars, or any other kind of safety device. How positively un-American! I could throw a horse out that window (though I don't know what I'd be doing with a horse in my apartment, I don't think one would fit in the elevator, and why would I want to throw a perfectly lovely horse out a window??).

Now, I don't know what we do if the birds Get Ideas and decide to set up an aviary -- with accompanying mounds of bird poop -- in my apartment. I haven't seen any birds this high up but I don't suppose there's any reason they couldn't make it.


I think I'll just choose not to think about that, OK?

While I love the beds at the Marriott (mounds o' pillows, big fluffy duvet), it's so much better to be in our own place.

I have our luggage about 80% unpacked. I'll finish the rest of it today.

I need to go to the grocery store today. The kitchen is 100% empty. We have salt and pepper shakers, for example, but no salt and pepper.

I would like to pick up a few things from the Target-equivalent like little drawers for the closet. There is, mysteriously, no chest of drawers or drawers of any kind in the bedroom. Do Aussies hang their socks and underwear from clothes hangers? We could use a little stick-on shelf/basket in the shower.

We desperately need more adapters. And, if we ever intend to actually eat on the dining room table, I'm going to have to find a table for all the laptops and geeky equipment.

But it is ours and I am happy. Our address is:

1604 / 108 Albert St.
Brisbane QLD 4000
Australia

Yes, they put the apartment number in the front of the address, which I find strange but it's not my country so I don't get to set the rules.