Flat whites and flat hunting

We spent the first week flat hunting and absorbing the Australian obsession with coffee. There are very few chain coffee shops here, but hundreds of nice independent places. Since it was raining rather a lot in our first week we dived into quite a few lovely little cafes when the flat hunting got just a bit too soggy.

And that's how we've come to love the flat white. Just so much better than a latte or a cappuccino.

After looking around a few areas that had been recommended to us we narrowed our flat search down to a handful of areas. It's a very different process to the London first come, first served system that we're both so used to - here, the house is opened by the agent for 15 minutes and anyone who is interested pops along at that time, fills out a form and then the landlord chooses who they want. Some of the flats we viewed with just a handful of other people, some with 20 other couples, but on a very, very rainy Thursday morning we handed in our paperwork for a lovely little house in Surry Hills...and we got it!!

Our new house - on the far left with green door

Also different to London, the houses are pretty much always rented with no furniture. So with all our furniture in a storage unit in Sheffield and with a week still left in the apartment we were staying in, we set about gumtree, hired a man and a ute and found an interesting mix of furniture. 

It looked rather empty when we first moved in!

 Our new little house is only a 30 minute walk for us both to work and about 40 minutes to the  Opera House. It's a lovely area with lots of restaurants, cafes and bars so plenty of places to indulge in flat whites.