Days 3, 4, and 5

So the last few days haven't been near as exciting, though I feel I've gotten a lot more comfortable with driving and suburbs of Brisbane.

Friday was pretty relaxing, I did not have anything planned exp to go see 1 house at 3:30 in the afternoon. In the morning I did some shopping and a bit of driving around just to try to get more comfortable not only with driving up also with the surrounding area. At 3:30 i drove out to see the first house on my schedule. I showed up 30 minutes early as i had no idea how long it was going to take to show up and where the house was. Once I got there a did a little walking around and it was a nice location up on a hill will a view of the Brisbane Skyline in the Distance. So at 3:30 i go up the door, didn't see anyone around but never know they could have gotten there while I was walking. No luck, as I'm waiting another person looking at rentals also showed up. They filled me in on how "fun" looking for houses are while we wait, finally at 10 ten 4 I left with no Agent showing up. Come to find out this is normal behavior over here. With so many people looking for rentals/houses and not that many choices around its allows the Realtor to be quite unreliable.
After my first failure in the house hunt decided to go out for a bit of a drive and find something to eat somewhere beside my hotel restaurant. So i drove and drove in the suburbs for the next hour and half with no luck. All i found where Hungry Jacks (Burger Kings) and McDonald's. Come to find out later that there aren't many places out around here and have to go to the city to find them or there just aren't many like in the states on every corner.. So with my second failure of the day i ended up back the hotel restaurant at $50 a plate. I've vowed that this is my last time eating there as its just WAY to expensive. I'll be broke before Chrissi gets here.
Saturday, I woke up early again. Been getting tired around 8:30 most nights and I'm up between 4 and 5 most mornings. After looking online at houses again I decided I wanted to go driving even though I don't have any inspections times, just to see the houses to see if they are even worth getting a Realtor for inspections. I got to about 5 and then my GPS battery died so had to return back to the hotel. Just a note the houses i did get a chance to drive by I liked every single one of them, they are in great locations and look like decent houses from the outside.
I got a little date time with Chrissi on Video chat, though she was about falling asleep on me, it was great to see her and get a chance to talk to her, we might not be able too again until next weekend because now my work week starts.
At 4 PM on Saturday, John and his wife picked me up for the Barbie being put on by Johns boss Ian. there where about 10 people at the cookout including wife's/husbands of some of my future co-workers. It was a great night of drinking beer, eating fantastic food, and just great conversation. I was home sometime after 11. I'm really looking forward to going to work on Monday. I've been pretty lucky to once again fall in with some really great people to work with/for. But not it was time for bed and tomorrow was going to be a long day of driving around looking at 30 houses that I had selected to take a look at before calling up the Realtor.
So I woke up Sunday got to catch the Cardinals beat up on the Cubbies - boy that Albert Pujols guy is something else. I was then out the door with my computer, GPS, and a list of 30 houses to track down. The next 8 hours where spend driving and driving and driving. The more I drive the more comfortable I get. And after it was all said and done i got my list of 30 down to 12 potential houses to take a look at. So I'm excited about some of the houses - just hope they are available soon so can feel like i'm really over here and not just in a hotel room.
Tomorrow is a big day. First day in the office and I'm really excited. 10 more days and Chrissi is here which is even more exciting as then I'll get to share all of this with her.
Till next time.