On Friday, I got to pick up the rental car. This was rather exciting - I put Rowan in the front of the double stroller and his car seat in the back seat (the double stroller is handy in oh so many ways) and we headed out. I did this as Cyp had two work calls Friday morning and I couldn't imagine him juggling two kids plus two calls. With Ellis, all he has to do is give him his iphone and then he won't be bugged. I found Hertz (first step) and installed the car seat - thank goodness if had latches (a lot of cars here don't) and I was off. Almost backed into the car behind me as I was leaving and then hit the windshield wiper to signal. Something that I continued to do all weekend. got honked at a bit this weekend - mainly people were annoyed that I wasn't signaling. I was - they just couldn't see the wipers going I guess. I also made Cyp flinch a lot as I tried to scrape the left hand side of the car off. I did note that he kept trying to get into the driver's seat. Yes, it was role reversal this weekend.
Got the car home and drove Cyp to work. Traffic wasn't outrageous as we were going against it - it was heading to the city, we were heading south west.
After I dropped him off, I headed to the Carindale mall - this is in another popular neighbourhood so I thought I'd better check it out just to see what it was like. Got there in the nick of time as I got one of the last parking spots. The mall was huge and it appears everyone in Brisbane was there and there was only one elevator. I bought a few things (Ellis made sure I got dishcloths and cookies) and we were off again. When we got back to the elevator, he had a fit as he wanted to go up (and I wanted to go back to the car). There was no way I was going for extra rides on this elevator as I mentioned, there was only one and it took forever. As I left, there was a lineup for my spot.
Yikes - I guess people go to the mall as it is air conditioned.
Yikes - I guess people go to the mall as it is air conditioned. I had made another house inspection appointment so we headed off to find the house. This one was in Norman Park. It looked promising:
but it was bizarre to say the least. Plus, the house is for sale as well as for rent. A waste of time. At least we didn't walk there.
I headed home and we puttered around for a bit before heading out to what we hoped would be our new neighbourhood. Got out, put the boys in the stroller and tried to walk down the street to find the park that the previous tenant had mentioned. Uh - could barely walk down the street is was at such an angle. When I got to the end, I encountered some stairs - asked some people just going into their house - do those go down to a park?
"well, there is a bit of a grassy patch by the river at the bottom and don't worry, they've kicked the tramps out."
oh.
ok - that is not where the park is. I hoofed it back up the hill, went down another street, found another set of steep stairs. Ok - no so walkable with a stroller this way. Imagine San Francisco type hills. So I packed us back into the car (Ellis was wondering what the heck we were doing) and drove to find the park.
Found it! It's at the city cat stop - 2.9 km downhill from our potential new house. Darn. Nice park though - right on the river. There goes our plan for Cyp to take the citycat to work though.
Ellis of course wanted to get out and play so we hopped out again - what was that smell? Ah yes, I'd left the emergency brake on.
"I don't like that smell mommy."
Soon it was time to go and get Cyp at work. There are basically bridges near the city and one two lane bridge south of the Uni. So we had to drive back towards the city, cross the river and then drive back towards the Uni on the other side. Cyp would not be driving to work from our new place. There is a green bridge (for bikes, pedestrians and buses) that would make his bike trip 2.9 km. That is the way he would go.
We picked him up and then went to see another house. Again - it was another case of deceptive advertising. In this case the house was one house away from the inner city bypass. It was behind one of those highway walls that you always think "wonder who lives on the other side of that"
Nice house, bad location. To make matters worse - we couldn't get out of the street - took us four lights. Loooonng lights.
Oh well, we were looking just in case. We were pretty sure we had the Highgate Hill house.
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