Surf and Sun(burn)

Meet the crew:

Yesterday (first full day) we spent all day walking around Newcastle looking for a place to live. I mentioned that we did get a cell phone which has helped us call real estate agents and other contacts. In addition to covering the city by foot, we rescued runaway dogs, met a lawyer, a doctor, lots of locals, met a guy from Kentucky who gave us his number to help out any way he can, ate our second meal at McDonalds (for free internet and cheap food) of course cheap is a relative term.

Needless to say, by the time we got back to our hotel we were all mentally and physically exhausted. It was the first time we realized how much it will require to find housing.

Today (Sunday) almost everywhere was closed to we have taken the day to relax and gather our thoughts for a busy monday meeting with realtors and making more contacts. We walked to the beach today and spent an hour or two watching canoe races from the beach. 4-man conoes with a cocswain would start on the beach and race into the huge waves, around a booy and back to the beach. It was entertaining because they had battle the waves to get out and back in. There were also kid races where they did the same thing on boards.

After the beach we made our first grocery store run. We had a little too much fun in the grocery store from the combination of hunger and mental exhaustion noticing all the similarities and differences from the US. A lot of the exact same products have different names and all cost more. The rest of our day will be spent gather our thoughts for tomorrow as we will head back into Newcastle to work on housing. Thats about it for now.

I've posted a few pictures on facebook if you're interested.