the (new) state of gareth...

... is now in ACT.
(Australian Capital Territories, that is. Technically its a Territory, and not a state, but who's being technical?)

Julie and I arrived here two weeks ago. It all happened so fast, so i guess i can back-track some:

The Canberra Journals #1: The prologue
We were exploring working overseas for a bit, tried Seattle, went and got jobs, but the not-so-friendly Dept of Homeland Security wouldn't play along when it came to Jules' visa. So, in the midst of our despair, Julie's cousin (a famous/infamous rugby player) happened to give her a call. "Hey Cuz, we've been looking for someone for our company, the Aussies are not good enough, and we want YOU!" he said, sounding a lot like pre-war Uncle Sam posters. So, we thought about it, and fought about it, and wished it were anywhere but Aus-land.

In the end I got over my issues with Australia, we appeased our shocked friends, and decided to give it a go. The tome of visa papers went in, and 10 days later we had an email in our inbox telling us we had a 2 year 457 working visa. Wow. We weren't too sure what to do with it intially, as it came so soon. But, being the intrepid adventures that we are, we looked at our calendars, Julie resigned from work, I finished CPE, had a week at home with respective parentals, said goodbye and boarded flight Quantas flight QF64 to Sydney on June 1 2008. (phew)

The Canberra Journals #2: The arrival
We disem-boarded in Australialand 17 hours later.

The Canberra Journals #3: First steps
And here we still are! The first few days we allocated to sight-seeing. We covered all the sights in an afternoon and then slept for the next 3 days! I'm exaggerating a bit, but it is a small city and after a few days we pretty much had the inner north, south and civic sorted. Julie started work Monday last week with Healthfutures, and that left me to deal with the cut-throat world of the Canberra rental market. It's crayzeeee! On Thursday we secured a nice little apartment for a not so nice price (prices here are exhorbitant) in Turner - a suburb in the inner north, a couple of block from the city centre, and two houses down from the Quaker meeting house! We move in there on the 24th, sans any furniture or anything! We will start with a matress on the floor and paper plates. Things can only get better from there so watch this space!