Leaving Home, Finding Apartment and Moving

After almost 7 weeks at home, I was sad to leave. I have said a few times before that sometimes I feel lonely when I'm by myself, I realize now that it's homesickness, because that 'loneliness' is not helped by talking to friends or doing exciting things, only by talking with or being with family does it help. I think my little sister has it figured out, she will go to uni in Perth and will most likely stay in Perth afterwards. 

Everyone went to the airport to send me off. Air NZ introduced a restriction of 23 kg for checked in luggage, which is rather annoying considering mine weighed 25 kg. So I put some things into my carry on luggage. During this, my dad kept on saying how bad the service is to the attendant. Idk what he can achieve by doing this (other than venting his anger) because 1. the weight restriction is placed by the airline and not by the attendant 2. talking badly to service people can have repercussions. The said repercussion indeed happened...For this airline, I could choose my seat for the flight from Perth to Auckland online, but not the Auckland to SF flight. I asked the attendant if I could choose my seat for the second leg. She said, yes, we will get to that. Soon, she printed out the boarding passes and asked whether aisle seat was ok, I said yes (that's what I wanted), although I thought it was strange that she didn't ask me to choose the seat myself. After I boarded the flight heading for SF, I discovered that she had put me next to the toilets, with people squeezed next to me, even though it was a half full flight! I thought it was ridiculous yet unsurprising, and indeed funny that people do such things. I asked the flight attendant if I could switch seats. I ended up sitting away from the toilets, on the aisle with spare seats next to me. And that was a pretty good flight as far as flying goes. Oh yes, I decided to try the low fat meals. I'm glad I did because they are the type of food that I normally eat, without all the fat/oil/salt. The quality of the food is good. If memory serves me right, one of the meals was a piece of chicken breast with beans, asparagus and baked sweet potatoes, cf to normal meal selection of either beef gravy or pasta. I think the special meals on the economy class, ie low fat, for diabetics etc are the same as these that are served on premium economy and perhaps even business classes. During the flight, I saw several movies, don't remember them much but I really enjoyed Horton hears a Who, funny and sweet. 

After the 32 hours of flying plus layover, I waited for 2 hours in line for customs, then I caught a taxi to get my car from the storage facility and to grab a few essentials from the storage unit. Walking into the storage unit was sad because I could clearly remember when my mum and little sister helped me to move everything in there weeks ago. I could also clearly remember thinking that I would be sad to come back here without them. Anyway, I quickly left the place and drove to my hotel, contacted a few apartments, then took the much needed rest. I looked at over 8 places. There was one which I always go back to because of their wooden floor. And what do you know, I'm living in it now :) The move was exhausting. There were so many things in the storage unit and they were so heavy. Carrying the boxes I thought I might faint. But as soon as I got everything into my apartment, suddenly I was no longer tired, perhaps it was a mental thing. Initially, I was going to get furniture from Ikea, but I thought perhaps I could get better quality pieces that would last longer and also look better. So I went to other furniture stores. I walked into one store and immediately saw a white leather sofa/chair. It looked great, simple yet classic. I just couldn’t stop looking at it nor get over it. It’s very expensive (supposedly a famous design), yet I knew that I had to get it. It's like how I knew that I have to live in this apartment (but without the guilt of spending so much money). I ordered several other things from them including a bedroom set and a bookcase. They will all arrive next week. 

I'm now sitting on a cushion on the ground, with my laptop on a makeshift table listening to music and admiring my new bike :) It arrived today in several pieces. I placed them together in about half an hour. Not sure how well they are put together. I will get it checked out tomorrow at a LBS and also to get it fitted for me.