After leaving the meth hotel we (the grumpy rental agent, who'll I will call Rhonda (as in Rotten Rhonda) and I) are on our way to property number 2, another Bondi beauty with water views! During the short drive Rhonda assured me that this property was much bigger. We pulled up to a building that was light colored brick on the outside and shaped like a perfect square, I would estimate it was built in the 60s or 70s. We entered through the front doors into a retro (or old) common area where the mailboxes are located. This apartment was also on the fifth or sixth floor so we trudged up the stairs (no lift). We arrived at the apartment door just as a really, really, old man came out of his apartment, I wondered how this old man made it up five to six flights of stairs on a regular basis - more power to him.
Rhonda unlocked the door to what I soon realized was a disco paradise. I am pretty sure that if Quentin Tarrantino was looking for a location to film Pulp Fiction 2 he'd end up at this apartment. There were wood paneled walls, olive green colored fixtures and there was brass EVERYWHERE. The place was much bigger than the last but it was just a mess. The kitchen had pineapple tiles and yellow appliances, the bedrooms had "built ins" but they were all mirror and that is TOO much mirror for me - it was the equivalent of an entire wall of mirrors in each bedroom. The bathroom was baby boy blue with brown and RUST - I have never seen such rust, there was rust in places I didn't even think could get rusty. It was the type of place that no amount of sprucing up would really help, you'd need a major overhaul AND it smelled.. kind of like mildew, mothballs and Electric Youth perfume that went bad, basically the smell of nightmares.
To be fair the view was pretty amazing, there was a small deck that viewed Bondi beach in the distance, but was that worth it? Was the distant view worth everything else? There was no air conditioning or washer/dryer (you'd have to share with the building) and it wasn't really all that close to the beach, it would still be a good twenty plus minute walk. In terms of neighborhood it was very residential, there were no grocery stores, restaurants or any signs of retail life in sight. All of this combined with the hefty price of $850/week made me shudder.. I knew these were only the first few places I had seen but I started to get a real feeling of dread, where the heck were we going to end up? Luckily Rhonda had one more property to show me in a totally different area so I had some hope.
The third place was VERY nice. It was a modern building with a lift, woo hoo! The apartment was brand new, central air, gorgeous bathrooms, a nice terrace, laundry room, stainless steel appliances in the kitchen, no complaints at all.. except the neighborhood. Our neighbors would be either car dealerships (high end at least) or hotels. There was no beach in walking distance or even restaurants. The closest grocery store was a cab ride away and the building was so big I didn't think we'd be able to "sneak" Brady in. It just didn't feel like "THE" place so the search was still on. I thanked rotten Rhonda and told her we'd be in touch and I zipped off to grab a cab to see another property.
The next few days were pretty similar to this. I saw a TON of properties in Paddington, Surrey Hills, Coogee and other neighborhoods. I fell in love with a terrace house in Paddington. It was SO cute and had tons of character, there was a nice patio and it was three stories. The problem was that the stairway was soo narrow that the only way you could get any furniture into the top two floors was through the windows and even that was iffy. I really liked the place but did it make sense for us right now? We needed a place that was semi modern because if we bought all of our furniture at an IKEA typed place it needed to look decent - if we were in a really old terrace house with molding our furniture would just look cheap and random. I was also torn about not living close to a beach. The neighborhoods I likes so far Paddington/Surrey Hills were great but they were close to the CBD so it felt like we'd be living in NYC again, not in Sydney and if we're only here for two years shouldn't we live up the beach lifestyle? I just couldn't imagine looking at one more place in Bondi and the places I saw in Coogee were not much nicer.
Luckily on Thursday I had an appointment scheduled to see a place in Bronte. Bronte is a great beach town that is close to Bondi but is more under the radar. The beach is gorgeous and is across the street from a park so it feels more secluded than the hussle and bustle of Bondi. I took a bus from the CBD and got off in this really cute little neighborhood that I immediately fell in love with. There was a little grocer, a flower shop, a veterinarian (woo hoo), a pet shop, gift stores, it was adorable. When the realtor showed up I prayed I liked the apartment because I already fell in love with the neighborhood. The apartment was PERFECT!!! Three bedrooms (one is tiny), two full baths (with heated towel racks and heated lamps), gorgeous wood floors, internal laundry, HUGE built in closets, CENTRAL AIR, a HUGE private patio with flowers/trees, totally enclosed, a dishwasher, everything was so new and modern, I wanted it!!
I called Sean from the patio and couldn't even make complete sentences I was blurting things out like: "Close to beach" - "Three bedrooms" - "Private Patio".. blah blah - he was so great - he basically said if I wanted it to put a deposit down and we'd grab it. I told the Realtor I wanted it! It all went pretty quickly from there. I took the applications, figured out the money I'd have to transfer and took a ton of pictures. By the time I left the apartment my head was spinning but I decided to take a walk down to the beach (15 min door to door from the apt) and I fell in love all over again. It was a perfect day, sunny, blue skies, warm but not hot and when I stumbled down the hill onto the beach I knew it was one of those really lucky days you get sometimes in life when things just work out - despite yourself.
I had brunch at a little cafe looking out over the beach, that would soon be "My beach" and felt really lucky and grateful.
