IKEA

We are getting ready to furnish our apartment (which we still have to find) so today we went to IKEA. The visit to IKEA was supposed to take us only a couple of hours, but we ended up leaving the store five hours later, tired and hungry. That was the biggest IKEA that I had visited so far. Excellent selection of items!

The plan for today was to pick out the main items for the apartment, so that when we are ready to move in, we can just go into IKEA, select the items and then have them delivered to our apartment the next day. My biggest concern was that we would not find anything we liked at IKEA and would have to end up buying furniture from various stores. Well, there was no need for concern as we were able to find the essentials for every room in the house.

We found a kitchen table and chairs, bed frame/matress, pull-out sofa, TV stand, computer desk and chair, fridge, kitchen plates and utensils, and lots more. House furnishings are pretty expensive in Australia, so it was a life-saver to find a store with nice and inexpensive options. Our place is going to look great!

I am going to view several apartments tomorrow morning so wish me luck!

First week in Sydney

It has been a week since we had arrived in Sydney, and we are wiped. Carla had a ton of orientation sessions to go to for her school, and then we would go walking and exploring the city. It is winter here now (high of 18/19 low of 9) but not a winter that I am used to. :-) Few days ago, the temperature went up to 24 C. You have to understand that July here is the equivalent of January in the Northern hemisphere, so I am delighted with their version of January weather!

On Saturday, we went to several showings of apartments for rent. Actually, we saw seven apartments and were very disappointed with the selection. The apartments were either expensive and small ($450 per week) or cheap and disgusting. It looks like we might have to start looking away from downtown. It would be acceptable to find a place on the train line (their version of subway) as the trains run frequently.

People that we met in this past week have been so friendly. They are so easy going. We have already gone to Bondi Beach. You can still see surfers there, trying to catch a wave. Amazing. Surfing in the winter!

Right now, our main focus is finding a place to move into as we don't want to stay in temporary housing for too long. Carla has started school today and will be pretty busy with that for the next 3.5 months. Once we're settled in, I can start focusing my energy on finding a job.

One last thing. The sky here is amazing. On a clear day (which we've had quite a few in the last week) the sky is HUGE and is so blue. I cannot show it to you in pictures, you have to see it!

In Sydney at last

We got into Sydney early in the morning and we were TIRED! This was my third and definitely the worst flight to Australia. The airline that we flew was Delta, and I will never make that mistake again.

Delta had just started flying to Sydney 14 days ago so they had a brand new plane for us. But the plane's in-flight entertainment system and power plug-ins did not work. I usually would not complain about things like that, but when you are stuck on a plane for 15 hours, you need entertainment! To add insult to injury, Delta's service was non-existent. I thought I was being served by Croatian servers! lol I actually miss Air Canada.

Back to the main reason for my post. WE ARE LIVING IN SYDNEY!!!! I love it here. The sky was blue, temperature around 20, and this is their winter. Ahhhhh! I am finally home.

I made Carla go to me to the Circular Quay so that I could see the famous Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It was a beautiful site, so I had to share it with you.

Last day in North America

We are just leaving our hotel and will be on the plane for Sydney in 11 hours. Sheesh! Still does not feel real.

These past three weeks were great, visiting family and friends. Over the last few days we were visiting with my brother and his family. His little boys called us Uncle Onion and Auntie Cawla. Cute!

Well, I just finished weighing all our luggage, making sure that each suitcase is under 50 lbs, as the overage fees are steep, and unnecessary.

We have a place booked in Sydney for the next four weeks. We are staying with a family, and we intend to find something less temporary in a month. Have to leave for LAX now!

Studio tour

While in LA, we decided to visit a Hollywood studio. There were a few to choose from but we decided to visit the Warner Brothers studio, as the reviews were pretty good. I did not expect much from this tour but wanted to go and see how much I could learn about how movies were made. Surprisingly, I came away impressed by the tour and would recommend it highly to others. The tour cost $45 per person, and you also had to pay $5 for parking. Reasonable price considering what you get to see and experience on this 2-2.5 hr tour.

We were first shown a short movie about the history of the studio and the movies that were made there. Then we were taken on a tour of their 'fake' city, where facades of buildings are made out of fiberglass with painted on brick. Even the pipes were made out of fiberglass and painted to look rusty. This fake city was used in a lot of different movies and TV shows, including Annie, Spiderman, Gremlins, The Mask, and many others that I cannot remember now.

Most of the 'buildings' on this street had no rooms behind the facade. It was pretty cool to see the setup, as this 'fake' city set was built in the 30's and 40's, and has been kept up to date. We were shown other fake neighborhoods and town squares that get used in quite a lot of movies/TV shows (Dukes of Hazard, Eastwick, Gilmore Girls, etc.) It was really neat to see them changing leaves on a tree in the town square. They were replacing the green summer leaves with red fall leaves, all fake. Weird!

We were then shown to a Warner Brothers museum, containing costumes from the latest Batman movie (including Batman and Joker costumes, and Joker's helper's masks), The Matrix, 300, The Watchmen, and many other movies, including the Oscars that studio movies have won. The second floor contained costumes and equipment from various Harry Potter movies.

While in the museum, we got to meet Danny Pino from the TV show 'Cold Case'. They were filming the show but as Danny did not have any scenes for the day, he went for a tour of the museum with his friends. Cool! I would recommend visiting the studio during the fall or spring as there would be more action and more stars to see, if you are into that kind of thing.

The tour took us through their plumbing, carpentry and artistic departments where they make all kinds of props needed for the movie. It is really amazing what these guys can make. As we pulled up to another studio building, we saw a parking full of vehicles from famous movies. They had a Batmobile and Batman motorcycle from the last Batman movie, Dukes of Hazard car, Harry Potter blue car, and Gran Torino that Clint Eastwood had driven in the movie 'Gran Torino.' Super cool! Then were taken to a room where they have the whole set from the TV show Friends, including the famous sofa, bar, and the Central Perk window.

On our way back to the entrance, our guide snuck us onto the set of Ellen Degeneres show. Very, very cool. All in all, the tour was very worth the money and time invested.

Celebrity Watch

During our first day of sightseeing in LA, we stopped at a local coffe shop near UCLA and Carla said that she felt like watching a play. We have done the same in London, Toronto and Chicago, and thought that watching a play in LA would be a good idea. Carla found a play that she was interested in (Farragut North) so I pulled out my GPS to find where the theater is located and discovered that the theater was just a block away! That was just too much of a coincidence, considering how HUGE LA is. To find a play that happened to be only a block away had to be fate.

The cool thing about play was that two famous actors were in it. Chris Noth who played Mr. Big from Sex and The City (he was also in Law and Order http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0636562/) and Chris Pine from the latest Star Trek (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1517976/). As we were lining up at the theater to wait for the cheap tickets ($35) Chris Noth walked right by us into the theater. Cool!

The play was really good, both due to the quality of acting and the strength of the story. The story centered around a presidential campaign and the tricks that campaign managers pull to get ahead in the campaign race. Almost makes you think that it was not a fictional story but a recounting of events that actually happened.

As we were leaving the theater, we recognized another actor. We could not remember his name but he is one of those actors that always plays bad guys. Looked like he was there to with his friends. LA is amazing that way. All the actors live and work here so you are bound to run into them at some point.

What a day! In one day we visited the Hollywood sign, Beverly Hills, rode a mechanical bull and saw a play. FUN!

Update from LA

We have been busy traveling for the last week that I did not have a chance to sit down and write.

Last Friday, we arrived in Sacramento and had a great visit with Carla's aunt and uncle. On Monday, we drove to San Jose, cruised around on Stanford campus and spent a night at our friend's place. After a fun visit with them, we were off to San Luis Obispo area, driving down highway 1. The views were amazing! Reminded me a lot of driving along the Croatian Adriatic coast, except that driving was safer here in California. :-)

Yesterday, we visited Santa Barbara, Malibu, Santa Monica, Venice Beach and a few other places on our way to our hotel in Redondo Beach. We will be spending three nights here before we go down to San Diego on Saturday.

So far, the sights of California have been beautiful. Beaches, hills, houses, all very amazing. The traffic, on the other hand, is terrible. Next time we come here, we should rent a helicopter. :-)

We are very happy with the Ford Escape we rented. Originally, we were supposed to get a Ford Focus, but with 4 pieces of luggage, an SUV is a lifesaver. It is also very fun to drive, surprisingly.

Today, we did a lot of LA things like, the Hollywood sign, Sunset Blvd, Beverly Hills and Bel-Air. We stopped at this cowboy bar on Sunset strip for lunch and I noticed a mechanical bull in the middle of the restaurant. I just had to try it! Carla thought that I was crazy. She was probably right. :-) I rode the bull twice and it was a FUN experience. It always ends the same way, your body thrown to the floor after a quick battle with the bull. The bull was pretty rough on my legs, so I am barely able to walk now. It seems that every groin muscle is sore. All I want to do now is sit and not move, as each attempt at getting up is met with searing pain. Oh well, the pain will go away but I will have this memory forever!

In the USA

We finished our visit to Regina yesterday. Lots of visiting and seeing family and friends. Regina has certainly expanded in the last few years. The east end of the city is inundated with strip malls and big box stores. If you want it, you can find it there.

I have to stop taking the 6 am flights. They kill me. First, I have to get up early (4 am or something crazy like that), then I keep waking up throughout the night and have the worst sleep. The flight from Denver to Sacramento was the tightest flight I have been on in the last few years, and I have flown a few times this past year. :-) The Denver airport was surprisingly crowded. It is one of the hub Airports for United Airlines, so it gets a lot of traffic.

Another thing I noticed while in Saskatchewan and California is that Internet providers don't have download quotas. This was a surprise to me, after experiencing Australian militant enforcement of download quotas. In Sask. and California, the way they charge you is by how fast your connection is. In Saskatchewan, the local cable provider offers a 25Mbps connection for $88 per month, and has just now introduced a 100Mbps connection for $250 per month. Amazing! Almost makes me move back to Saskatoon. Just joking! :-)

Well, I will go and try enjoy the 4th of July!