House-hunting blues

Hello. I'm still here and not going in to hibernation!

I'd love to say I've had a great first week here in Sydney admiring the harbour views, knocking back beers, basking in the sun and watching some of the live sports on the box while Ric tends to the barbecue but it hasn't quite panned out that way. It is great to see my family again; they are being so kind to put us up, and now Ric's sister Charlotte has joined us here with her boyfriend which is fantastic, but all the same, we're not having a lot of fun yet.

Sydney hasn't yet lived up to my few but fond childhood memories of it or the rave recommendations friends (those who don't live in Melbourne that is) and the media have variously given it. So far, all Ric and I have had is bad weather and bad luck. Not even my lovely family have been able to lift our ever-plummeting spirits as we delve deeper in to the gruelling business of house-hunting. Sorry. I do sound rather glum.

Perhaps my expectations were excessively high and somewhat squiffy but I thought that after week's worth of looking we might have found a place by now. I thought hunting for a flat in London was hard work but here it's a nightmare! Long gone are the days when you could rock up at an agency, give them a few details and get them to drive you round to show you what they've got on offer or even call you up when things become available.

Your best bet here now is to get up early, have your phone at the ready, fire up your computer and scan the real estate sites all morning until you secure some viewing slots. Most of these seem to take place on Saturday mornings, are just 15 minutes long and involve a scrum with up to 30 other prospective tenants, all of whom are as desperate as each other to find a place to live and are often willing to offer more than the asking price just to ensure they do. Then there are the registration forms, character references, proof of identity, residency history, employment records, amongst other off-putting legalities. Yes, if you want to rent in Sydney you have to be determined, focused and very well organised! Tomorrow we have just two hours in which to madly zig-zag across the city to see four different flats with four different agents. If it wasn't for Ric and his trusty compass I'd wouldn't have a hope of doing it.

On the plus side, we seen a fair bit of residential Sydney now, as well as the busier commercial districts, although we haven't yet been to Bondi, and I've been so busy thinking about flats that my OCD has been temporarily shunted to my mental side-lines, although I am still panicking a lot more than I was back in London (I'm still confident this will change once we've settled in a bit).

I like certain things about this place very much already, including the fact that it is smaller and therefore more walkable (if hillier) than London, that many of the major stations have a mini shopping arcade in them (very useful), that the trains are fairly cheap and clean (although quite errtic at times when you get out to the suburbs) and that even on a weekend night in the busiest areas of town there don't seem to be nearly as many people, specifically the drunken idiot types you find staggering round in certain parts of London. Oh and the fact that I can always find falafel and hummous when I 'need' it.