We have a house!

We finally have internet access at our new house. There's a lot of catching up to do!

I'm going to try to pick up where I left off. We went back into the Lexus dealership on Monday, the Queen's birthday. We had decided over the weekend not to lease a car, but buy a used car, a relatively cheap one. We decided on a used Audi station wagon. I must admit, I had little interest in the car selection process. It's just hard to get past the steering wheel misplacement. Since Monday was a public holiday the finance department wasn't open so we couldn't leave with the car. Bernard let us take his car again!

As of Tuesday (two weeks ago) we were still in the apartment. We were approved for the house but we had a few ends that needed to be tied up. We finally got our money situation sorted out, at least well enough to get into the house. I was so excited to have a place. It meant we could finally start to really settle into our new life. The Relocation company contacted various utility companies to get the process rolling. On Tuesday I had planned to get the apartment packed up. But, the floodgates had been opened with all of our utility connections. I spent most of the day on the phone giving the necessary information for power, gas, phone, internet, etc. Mark needed to go to the real estate office to sign the lease and we had to pay the first months rent along with the bond. That was a bit of a hassle because Mark was already planning on leaving work early to go to the dealership to pick up the car. Now he'd have to leave even earlier. I had to meet him at the real estate office because I had had half the money we needed. We agreed to meet at 4:00.

I needed to assemble our new stroller so I could make the trek to the train station. For the life of us we have no idea why we sold ALL of our strollers before we left California. We didn't really use them anymore, except for the jogging stroller. So, it kind of made sense to get rid of the rest, but not that one. The store had a choice of 2 apparent jogging strollers--one was over $700 and the other was $1400. We nearly choked. If there wasn't soooo much walking to do I would have opted not to get one, but we end up walking a few miles a day and that just isn't fair to the kids. And, we (Mark) plan to do some races so we'll need a good stroller for that. So, we bought the cheaper one. Unfortunately when I was putting it together I came across the big warning--not intended for running. Oh well. There doesn't seem to be a good reason why it can't be used as a jogging stroller. It does seem like they have better standards for strollers here.

So we headed to the train station. I had to wake the kids up from their nap--they had only been asleep for about 15 minutes. Kessler was really pissed and uncooperative. I had to convince him to stay in the stroller by holding his hand while I pushed the stroller. I was also balancing Mark's dry cleaning in a sophisticated white trash bag. I called Mark just after 4:00 to tell him we were running a little late. "You're not going to believe this", he said. "The bank closed at 4:00." He was right; I couldn't believe it. Mark headed to the real estate office to see if we had any options. The "I'm gonna do as little as I can to get by" receptionist said that we could pay with a credit card, but there would be a 3% fee. We were happy to have the option. She couldn't help us at that moment though because she had to go to the post office. And anyway, one of the property managers was at the property because a neighbor called to report the blaring house alarm. So.. we waited. When he and the receptionist returned Mark was down the street getting food for the kiddos. We did finally get it all squared away.

Next Mark needed to go to the dealership to get the car--only he didn't have his passport and they needed that to seal the deal. So, the kids and I rushed to the train station then schlepped up lovely Hampton Street back to the apartment. I scanned the passport and emailed it to the finance manager at the dealership. (I'm so glad we bought the printer/scanner!). Everything was good, except it wasn't! The external finance department wanted 10% down now. As you know, getting our money here has been difficult. (At the time of this writing, we still haven't received Mark's last 2 months worth of paychecks from the states). So, Bernard lent us another car for the evening so that we could move our 20 bags to the house.

At this point it was dark, late and cold. We scurried through the apartment attempting to pack as much as we could to take to the house. Mark hadn't seen it yet except for a few drive-bys a few days earlier. I was excited for him to see it and to see it again myself, without the owners' boxes everywhere. So, we pulled up to the gate and pressed the button on the remote. Nothing. Again. Nothing. Again. Nothing. So Mark got out to inspect the gate. Nothing. We decided to just use the pedestrian gate which is slightly less convenient but not impossible. It's pitch black--we fumbled with the 20 keys on the key chain until the front door finally opened. We searched for the light switch and turned it on. Nothing. The power had obviously been turned off. That doesn't really make sense since the owners were in it over the weekend.

Oh well, there's still a job to be done. We realized that there's a beeping sound that hadn't stopped since we opened the door. A few seconds later we heard the blare of the alarm. At the property manager's office earlier in the day he happened to mention that you press 1 to stop the alarm. That's exactly what it does. It stops the blaring alarm, but it doesn't disarm it. So, every 20 seconds the alarm sounded. We know how to make friends with our neighbors!!

We were all beyond exhausted at this point. Mark had to return the car to the dealership by 7:30 the next morning. We still had 2 more loads to bring over from the apartment. Mark dropped us off at the apartment and made one more trip. We needed cleaning supplies for the apartment as well so he had to add a trip to the supermarket on his to do list. It was 10:00 p.m. at this point.

I did a bit more packing and got the kids in bed then crashed myself. Mark finally turned up after his late night errands and he was finally able to sleep as well.

We decided that Mark would drop me and the kids off at the house on the way to the dealership--we'd take our last load then. I had to be there for the delivery of our new mattress between 8:00 and 9:00. It actually was kind of lining up well, in theory anyway.

We rushed to get everything unloaded because Mark had to drop the car off and get to work by 9:00. We still had no power and it was freezing!! I spent some time unpacking but my fingers were so numb I couldn't feel them anymore. Besides, every 20 seconds I had to turn off the alarm. The rest of the time I had the constant beeping reminder that I'd have to turn off the alarm in 19, 18, 17.. seconds.

Mark had bought a loaf of banana bread for us the night before. What a life saver. We dug in, literally. At about 7:45 I realized that I had no cash, cash I needed to pay the delivery driver! There are so many things that I have been desperate for the last several weeks--one was definitely our new bed. The mattress at the apartment was extremely hard; I woke up aching everyday. I called Mark as if he could do anything. He had returned the car and was on the train to the city. There was nothing I could do but hope that I could sweet talk the guy into letting me drop the money off the next day. They showed up promptly at 8:00. I delivered the bad news.. he was more than understanding. Looking back I realize how pathetic I must have looked. The house had hardly anything in it. I was freezing; still only in a T-shirt because I just hadn't gotten around to finding something else to wear. It was so cold you could see our breath inside; in fact it was colder inside than it was outside. Then there was the constant beeping and blaring of the alarm. He told me not worry about bringing the money to him; just put it under the mat and he'd pick it up on the weekend. Thank you!!! With relief I closed the door and attempted to lock it. Hmmm.. you need a key to lock the door from the inside. Okay, I retrieved my keys and locked the door.

I went back to the kitchen because we had brought some milk over from the apartment; I wanted to make sure it made it to the fridge. That's when I realized our fridge is just that; a fridge with no freezer. How is that possible? I also realized that we didn't have a dryer. It said in the lease that one was provided. So, I called my relocation specialist, Fiona.. wonderful Fiona, and had her add that to the list of rental furniture that we were having delivered later in the day. I noticed a binder on the counter in the middle of our stuff. It didn't look familiar. I decided to investigate. It contained everything you ever wanted to know about 5 Plunket Street.. but specifically, how to turn off the damn alarm!!!! YAY!!!

I entered the code and the beeping stopped!!

Now, the kids had been feral since we arrived at the house. They couldn't move from one point to another without running, jumping and screaming. At least it was keeping their body temperature up and it wasn't the slighted bit annoying on my frayed nerves. I was too cold to do anything else so I decided to make the bed and.. get in!!! We had bought linens over the weekend.. which included the dooner (queue evil music). A dooner is a pristine white blanket on which you must put a dooner cover. Which is like a big pillow case with buttons. Similar to a duvet, but doonerare extremely common here. I set out to put the dooner in its cover with the dexterity of a fence post, cursing non stop. Dooners were invented by the devil. After several minutes of wrestling with the bastard I was able to button it; mind you the corners of the dooner were no where near the corners of the cover.

I convinced the kids to get in bed with me. That lasted all of 6 seconds. They kept finding excuses to get out of the bed, letting all the warm air out from under the dooner. We went outside for a bit because it really was warmer out than in. Only, I had to find the keys to unlock the front door. I decided to leave them in the door, which was a good idea until I needed to get out the back door. We came back inside; I think at this point I made the startling discovery that all the door handles and light switches were nearly at my eye level. The kids can't reach them. I know this because I heard screaming from somewhere within the house. In a panic I raced to save them only to find them standing on their tippy toes trying to reach the door handle. I spent the better part of the day opening doors, closing doors, turning on lights, finding keys to unlock doors, wiping bums, lifting kids to wash their hands. Any bets on how many times I asked myself, "what the hell have you done moving here!??!"

It was time to eat. The banana bread was gone. All we had left was regular bread. The kids wanted nothing to do with this. I finally decided they'd eat if they were hungry enough. Then wonderful Fiona turned up with hot chocolate and pastries! I told you--she's amazing. We jabbered on and on and we started talking about the power. She was surprised it had been turned off. We talked through it a bit and I recalled being told by the power company that I needed to turn off the main power switch before the power could be transferred. When I spoke with the people that arranged all the utilities connections, they said not to bother. It occurred that maybe the property manager had turned off the main power. Then the light bulb went off. Just this past week Fiona had power issues and had to turn the main breaker off at her house. So, she knew it would be outside. I never would have guessed this. So, we headed out to find it. And wouldn't you know it the main switch was off. As soon as we flipped it the outside lights came on! We raced in to turn on the heater! Woohoo, we had heat!!

Fiona did a walk through of the house to make sure all the scuffs and scratches were noted on the move-in sheet. Then she was off. The furniture rental people came by to drop off the dryer, 2 twin beds, a sofa set and a desk. Things were looking up. But, we were starving. The kids finally ate the bread.

...to be continued.

So, let me tell you about our weekend...

Friday night Mark and I prioritized what we needed to do today. Saturday morning we woke up and realized we were all wrong. We need a bed, washer, dryer, linens, but we forgot about a car. So, we decided to head to the car dealership (car yard as the locals say) and get a car. There's a string of car dealerships right next to one of the train stops, so that part would be easy.

When we arrived at the train station, Mark bypassed the ticket buying machine. This is a capital offense in my book. You have to get your tickets ASAP because there's nothing worse than having the train come and go while you're still fumbling to get your money out of your pocket. It's a 20 minute wait for the next train. As I was trying to get the money out of my purse Mark called me over to the tracks to show me the men working up ahead. Damn. Then, over the intercom we hear the announcement that the tracks are being worked on--go catch the bus. We look up and see the men in orange jackets beckoning to us to go to the bus stop.

We waited about 15 minutes for the bus. Apparently when the trains go down, the buses go from train station to train station, unfortunately, we only knew our stop based on a visual from the train. I decided that Mark was capable of sorting it out until after a few stops Mark pops out of his seat and runs up to the driver. Then the driver promptly pulls the bus over. Mark responded, "no worries" and beckons to me that "this is us." And he was right; we quickly reached the string of dealership.

Over the last several days we've discussed how we will acquire a car. We decided we'll either buy used or lease a new one depending on the terms. We were burned with Mark's last car; it was worth far less than what we owed. My Landcruiser retained its value much better than Mark's BMW M3. It was disheartening. Anyway, we agreed to just start at one end and go to the other end until we find something reasonable.

The first dealership was Lexus. They apparently have good hybrids and since gas (petrol) is so expensive here it was worth checking. As Mark was talking with the girl at the front desk, this older, bald guy walked up to us. With an extremely thick French accent he told us that he had an appointment in about 10 minutes. He asked what we were driving to which we answered, the bus. He said, "Oh no, there will be none of that. You will take my car for the weekend." I was certain I misunderstood him, either way, we kind of want our own car. He gave us a brief rundown of how much it would cost to lease a new hybrid--much more than we wanted to spend. With a bit lost in translation we agreed to wait for him until he was done with his client. We checked out the used cars on the lot and played in a little kid area they had set up. He told us it would be about 40 minutes. He checked on us a few times and in about 40 minutes he was done.

He told us that he would like for us to make an appointment with him for Monday so he can have time to properly discuss our options. He insisted we take his car for the weekend. So, we did. He and Mark went to go pick it up. Then Mark drove to the apartment to get the car seats for the kids. Though, Bernard suggested that we could buckle the kids in the back seat and just drive carefully, if we wanted. I'm not sure if he could see my eyes bug out of my head, but he promptly said, "well, maybe not."

So, we used Bernard's Lexus all weekend. It felt a bit funny, but boy what a relief. We used it to drive to Southland mall; and what a mall it is!! We went to one of the department stores to buy a printer. We do have a decent printer coming across the sea with the rest of our stuff, but we've found not having a scanner/printer to be quite a pain--from wiring money, to signing leases, to doing my immigration paperwork, we are severely debilitated without one. Waiting 6 weeks for the rest of our stuff just isn't an option. Anyway, we couldn't find anyone to help in printer department so we moved to the washer/dryer task. Talk about daunting. The cheapest washer/dryers were about $600 each and they looked extremely cheap. The salesman said they were. Don't expect them to last more than a couple of years. The best ones are made in Germany, and they cost about $2000 each!!! Homes aren't typically built with a venting system so you have a range of ways to deal with that. We decided to push that task off as well.

The same sales guy helped us look at TVs. He took 20% off of a floor model that was already on sale. When he went to sign us up for delivery, Mark said, "can you throw in a DVD player for free." He laughed. When he was done he gave us the receipt--on which was a free DVD player.

We left feeling quite good. We headed to another computer store, but the printer selection was dismal. While I was at the restroom Mark took the kids for ice cream--no wonder he's the favorite. We decided that the first store did have the best selection of printers; Mark should just head there while the kids finish their cones. 20 minutes later he was back with the best printer they had. It was $498. Mark initially said no and agreed on the next model down, but they didn't have any in stock. The sales guy again pleaded his case as to why the $498 machine was the best. Apparently, the printer cartridges last an extremely long time--something like 28,000 pages. Insane. He said it would pay for itself in no time. Mark agreed but asked if that was his best price--he knocked the price down to $409!! Mark came out of the store beaming at the deal he just scored.

Next we headed to look for mattresses. An hour or so later, Mark received a phone call from the printer sales guy. He told Mark that he screwed up, the printer actually comes with an additional $100 rebate AND if we buy another set of printer cartridges, we'll get an additional $100 rebate on top of that! It was too late to make it back to the store before they shut so we went back today and got our rebates!! Best of all, we won't need to buy anymore ink until the kids are in college!!

Pretty exciting stuff! Though, I'll never be able to buy big ticket items by myself because I just don't know how to bargain!

What a great weekend though! And tomorrow is a public holiday for the Queen's birthday, so it's not even over!! :) The dealership visit should be interesting as we are feeling pretty indebted to Bernard. I'm sure that was what he was counting on, but it really made our lives a lot easier!!

Exactly

I was explaining to the kids for the trazillionth time how not to fight, scream, yell or otherwise interrupt mommy when she's on the phone. (This is particularly true because I have to concentrate when trying to decrypt what these Aussies are saying.) Anyway, as I was talking Kessler went over to the power outlet and started flipping the switch (they have switches to make the outlet hot). I immediately told him to never, ever do that. It's dangerous, even more dangerous than back in California. Makena asked if it "could make you dead". I confirmed. She said, "Just like onions, if you eat a bunch of them, right?" Exactly.

And then there's the fall out..

Our relocation specialist, Fiona has been absolutely amazing. I'd ask her to marry me too if I didn't think it would scare her away! Besides the fact that she's done exactly what we hired her to do--find us a place to live, she has done it with so much compassion and sensitivity as well.

It turns out that her and her family moved to San Francisco for her husband's work, then to Switzerland and back to Melbourne. She said it was so tough; she knew when her youngest of three boys was in school she'd find a job where she could help people relocate. I can't say enough positive things about her, but I'll sum it up with one great example. She took me house hunting on Tuesday; we found a great place. We were one of three applicants again--but while I was viewing the property the property manager came up to me with a big smile on his face and a framed picture in hand. He handed me a photo of a husky as he gleefully said, "The owners have 2 huskies!!!" Fiona had called ahead of time to chat him up to make sure we weren't turned down because of the Merlie-dog.

But, that's not the reason she's great. I just thought that was a funny story. The reason she's great is because we were scheduled to view more homes today which was obviously unnecessary. Rather than cancel our time together she came and got me and the kids and took us for coffee/lunch at a place with a playground. She's just so pleasant to talk with. It's soooo nice...

That had to be said.. now, on to the fallout. So, YAY! We have a place to live but we have to come up with several thousands of dollars to get into the place. We have money in a few different places in the states; this shouldn't be a problem. Well, our primary bank won't let us do a wire transfer unless we are physically there to fill out the form--convenient. The new online bank that we have will--so I transferred the money from Wells Fargo to Ally. Cool. I called to do the wire--not possible, I'm told. They don't have our signature cards on file. For no less than 5 days I carried around the signature cards--ready to mail them as soon as I could remember to do it. When the time came where we had to go to the post office before we left, I couldn't find them. Strike 1.

Our account is relatively new with them so we haven't used it. Our ATM cards haven't been activated and we don't have the PIN numbers. I called to activate the cards--not possible. I must call from the home phone. No worries, I'll change the home phone number in my profile to be my Skype number. That's not allowed because I have the mail being sent to my mom in Virgina and the zip code doesn't match the area code of my Skype number. I got them to manually change it. I called to activate them--not possible. I spoke to another customer service rep who desperately wanted to help, but he regretted to inform me that the original number entered when opening the account is the only number you can ever call from to activate the card. NO WAY! yes way. Strike 2.

But, there is a solution; just go to an ATM and request a balance printout. And you'll recall, we don't have PIN numbers. I called today to make sure the PINs were sent when I asked for them last week and of course, they weren't. So, I requested that they please expedite them. So, the plan would be that once we are able to activate the cards and use the PINs, we'll withdrawal our daily maximum each day until we reach the amount we need. Only, I'm not sure how long we can put off the property manager.

In the end, all I can say is--thank goodness for parents-in-law!!!!

Just in time..

This morning started off a little rough. I haven't been sleeping well to begin with, but Kessler woke up in the middle of the night. That's never good; it usually means it's going to be a sleepless night for all of us. I decided to just bite the bullet and sleep with him in his bed, his twin bed. It was as pleasant as you are imagining.

Anyway, both kids got up incredibly too early. I tried to convince them to let me sleep; that didn't work. I finally decided that my denial was not going to help matters and got up. They bickered much of the morning and Kessler decided to throw a shit fit when I asked him to take his pajamas off. After quite a bit of negotiating we were all dressed and out the door heading to a new park. The park was probably over a mile away. Both kids walked, without complaining! It was cold so we didn't stay long. We stopped at the supermarket about halfway home. We needed the essentials like milk and toilet paper. I also got some snacks, a clothes hamper and a 24 pack of AA batteries for the kids' Leapsters. I thought the clothes hamper was brilliant. Load it up with the stuff and we'd be golden for the walk home.

Well, you know how all the packaging in the states requires a blow torch or a chain saw to open, like the package for batteries? Imagine my surprise when the pack of batteries fell out of the hamper and all 24 batteries started to roll all over the supermarket floor. I stood there for several seconds in disbelief--this can't be!! First I was thinking, damn! This sucks! Then I was thinking, cool! No heavy equipment required to open the package when I get back to the apartment. The kids and I started scrambling to pick them up with the aide of an employee. We headed to the register to get the heck out of there. We left with an extremely full hamper!!

A few minutes into the final leg of our journey, the handle broke on the hamper. Sonofabitch. I gave the pack of toilet paper to Makena and the pack of paper towels to Kessler. I carried the milk in one hand and tried to hoist the hamper onto my hip for the rest of the walk. We had to have many breaks--specifically because the kids were trying to balance Juney and doggie on top of their respective paper products. That takes time, obviously. At our last break Kess tried to climb onto a chair outside a restaurant. He miscalculated and fell off onto the ground. It scared him far more than anything. I tried to console him, but at this point I desperately wanted to get home. The cold weather became quite hot and the jacket I was wearing was becoming a torture chamber. I couldn't hold his hand. Finally, I decided to take a few steps to see if he would come. He responded with a resounding HELL NO as he stood there screaming and stomping. I retreated, laying down my hamper full of sundries, toilet paper, paper towels (the kids had abandoned them) and the milk and attempted the consolation again.

It wasn't going well, at least not until an angel, dressed in an Nando's (some restaurant) uniform appeared offering the kids little gingerbread men. Kessler snatched up the treat but didn't skip a beat with the crying. The fellow said, "What's wrong, mate?" Kess said, "I felled down." "Oh no, mate. What did you hurt?" "My buuuuummmmm." "Aww, your bum, well why don't you give it a rub." Like a switch, Kessler started laughing. I nearly proposed to the Nando employee on the spot. What a catch after all, given how I obviously have my shit together--walking down Hampton Street with a broken hamper full of batteries and paper products trying to coax a crying 2 year old. He'd be a fool to decline!

It's only been a week..

Mark had to be in Australia so soon; we barely got the minimum done in order to pull it off. We have to sell 2 houses, sell 2 cars, find homes for 2 cats, get Merlin squared away to join us, sell 80% of our stuff, arrange for movers to come with no notice, sort through what we were going to throw away, give away, sell, take with us to survive for 3 months and send with the movers to arrive in 3 months, visit family back in Virginia. My passport was 5 months, 26 days away from expiring--4 days too many to travel on. Makena's American passport was to expire in June. She could travel on her Australian passport but because she's a minor, her American passport could not be renewed in a foreign country. Kessler needed his Australian passport; he could travel on his American passport, but he would have to leave the country and reenter on his Australian passport in order to stay in Australia. It wasn't pretty, but we did it.

We finally had a second to breathe once we got on the plane--if only we it had been relaxing because as soon as we landed it all started again, only on the flip side. We had a place to stay for 6 nights and Mark had a job which he started in 1 1/2 days. And, that was it. The hotel was great, but it was a hotel. Makena threw up every hour the first night. She is an amazing little girl because Mark and I were so exhausted we couldn't take care of her like we should. At times she got up and took herself to the bathroom and threw up on her own. Then went back to bed, without saying a word. The next day she woke up from her nap with a fever and an ear infection. We hauled the kids up hill several blocks to the doctor. Then there was the normal hotel stuff like having to round the kids up to get out of the room in hopes that it would be cleaned when we were gone. Sometimes that worked. Breakfast was $75-that's with the kids eating for free. We mistakenly did that once--then it was cereal in coffee cups for the remainder of the time.

I attempted to house hunt online, but quickly got discouraged knowing that in 4 days we'd have no place to live. By discouraged I mean Mark got "The Call". Actually, it was more of the pre "The Call"--an extra courtesy I've given Mark so he doesn't have to suffer through my wrath without plenty of warning. It went something like this, "Mark.." continuing with an extremely shaky voice, "I can't do this. Heed the warning." We had already hired the relocation specialist who is beyond amazing, but the clock was ticking. Last Thursday was our last night in the hotel. They held our 18 bags while the relo specialist took Mark, the kids and me on a desperate hunt for a semi-permanent house and short term accommodation. We bombed on the first front, but found a furnished apartment in a great little town called Hampton. Of course, when you have 18 bags you don't realize when a couple are missing, at least not for a few days. So, we carried ourselves back to the city to retrieve them, not that it's far, but I'm feeling dramatic at the moment. Lucky enough we were able to catch up with Mark's uncle, aunt and some cousins who just happened to be in town.

The immediate pressure is off now. Though, we really would like to be settled where we are going to be. I really want to get Makena in school and Kessler in preschool. I'd like to find a gym as well so I can burn off the 2 months worth of anxiety that has been accumulating. And I need to sort through the differences of things I've taken for granted--like limited cell phone data plans and internet service! It seems like we have so much left to do, and we do.. but it's only been a week!

There are Crows Everywhere.

We had an appointment to see an apartment in St. Kilda a few days ago. The unit was on the third floor of a building that resembled an American motel. One of the ways to get to the apartment was by way of an enclosed concrete stairwell.

We arrived ahead of the agent. We called the agents office to make sure we were in the right spot, so he knew we were waiting. A few minutes later we hear someone yell out, "Mauwwk, Mauwwk". Mark does nothing. Finally I responded. Mark looked at me and said.."Shit, he was calling my name. He sounded like a damn crow squawking. "

We were laying in bed laughing about it. Mark explained that there are 4 Marks at work, "there are crows everywhere." It cracks me up how accustomed he has become to the American R.

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Hotel

Here's the view from our hotel window. It overlooks a great 4 story indoor mall. I'd stay here forever if it were half the price and allowed dogs. Minor details, really.

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Droid

I'm obviously a cell phone whore as I've had 3 in 2 years. I went from my blackberry which I loved to the iPhone which I loved to the Droid which I'm trying to love. In my defense, the iPhone was a gift from Mark. Since our American phones won't work in Australia we had to get new ones anyway. I had planned on getting another iPhone, but CNET reviews, Mark, and the Telstra sales guy convinced me to get the Droid.

I like the physical feel of it better. It has a rubberish shell which creates more friction so it doesn't slip out of your hands so easily. It seems like it'll absorb a bit more shock if it's dropped, and unfortunately, it will be dropped.

It's open source so there will be oodles of apps, but some aren't out yet--like my favorite, Kindle. But it's apparently coming.

The screen has amazing resolution. I think I will love it as well once I get passed the learning curve.

And the reason I'm dedicating an entire blog post to my cell phone when I have a boatload of other stuff going on? Well I have been up since 3 am and I needed to find something to entertain myself that wouldn't wake the family. So, I found the Blogger app!

PS-They call them mobiles and message banks here, not cells and voicemail.

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