We have a House!!!

We found a house today. It’s an older home near Canberra City Centre in a suburb called Turner. It has a nice fenced backyard for the kids. It’s old but clean and well maintained. There are three bedrooms – only one bath with a shower but it will do. Wireless internet (that’s important) cable TV and it’s furnished. It even has a fully stocked kitchen i.e.;pots, pans, dishes, appliances, microwave oven, utensils, glassware the whole shooting match. The beds have linens and blankets and bedspreads. There are two TV’s one in the living room and one in a spare bedroom. The house is brick so it stays cool in the summer, gas heating (not central but it’s a smallish place) one in the living room and one in the hallway near the bedrooms. After all the crummy places I’ve looked at it was unbelievable to find such a nice place.

The house is just blocks from a neighborhood shop area with an IGA (grocery store), post office, pharmacy (more like a drug store), an assortment of other shops, and our very own pub. Yet we are only blocks away from Canberra Centre, a large mall with all the brand name stores – three stories high and about four blocks long.There are parks all around us, Australian National University is across the street (the Theatre Arts Centre on campus is within walking distance) and there are main parkways (highways) in all directions to get around Canberra. The hospital is only about 15-20 mintues away depending on traffic.

We are under the shadow of the Telstra Tower, which sits atop one of Canberra’s highest hills – I’ll send pictures once we get into the house. I plan to start moving on Saturday. Fortunately we haven’t accumulated too much stuff since we got here and we haven’t unpacked all our boxes yet so moving should be fairly easy. The address for those of you who have been asking is: 68 David St. Turner, ACT 2612 Australia. Overseas mailing is expensive so don’t write, email instead – I’m especially talking to you, Martin Thornton!

Fergus and I have never lived in a neighborhood before – this should be an adventure. We went out to celebrate at a great Spanish restaurant called Legends – tapas & Spanish rice. It was very good. This is in Manuka near where we are staying now. Once we move we will have other new places to explore. As they say in Aussieland “Ta”, for now.