Thursday, September 27, 2012

Home



We are back on Aussie soil, living with my best friend Jenni since we arrived, until the house next door that her parents own, is vacated by the current tenants. We will rent the house from her parents who were our landlords many years ago when we lived in Caulfield. It’s been a very strange feeling since we arrived. We are super happy, like we finally crossed the finish line after the marathon of a lifetime. At the same time we have so many things we have to get done, like the paperwork for official things needing address changes, getting mobile phones, Medicare cards, Center link, Vic roads, and picking up our personal belongings from the Customs Center. We also have so many people we want to visit, but I am not confident enough to drive too far yet, at least until I get a GPS cause I forgotten where to go and lots of the roads have changed. It feels so strange to know all the roads but not remember where they connect to. I was lost one evening just driving locally and felt so awful because I could not remember, that brought on my first melt down since arrival. 

We had a BBQ with Tim’s family at his parent’s house last week and we saw our first flock of wild cockatoos fly by since we arrived. We love listening to the gargle of the Magpies and smell of the freshly mowed lawn. It is also so weird to hear ourselves speak as we refer to things in the American way and catch ourselves then switch back. The hardest things to get back into saying are mobile phone instead of cell phone, Ta instead of thank you, Chemist instead of drug store, shops instead of store, milkbar instead of deli, bottle shop instead of liquor store and rubbish instead of trash...the list goes on and on. I love being reminded of the Aussie slang like “you beauty, where’s the dunny, you little ripper, fair dinkem, no worries, grouse and she’ll be right mate”. 

Cain is settling in well, he has his drivers learners book to read, loving watching the footy and met up with a band already who was looking for a bass player. Dylan is appears to be very happy and much more out going since we arrived. We have introduced him to Jenni's nephew today and they seem to be getting along well. Plan is they can start high school together so Dylan will have some more confidence to the whole "lets try school again" thing. He is experiencing all different Aussie food he had forgotten about. We have eaten fish and chips, red rooster and meat pies and I didn’t realize how much I had missed prawn crackers from the Chinese shop! Then when I went to Coles (supermarket) I lost my mind with filling the trolley (cart) with all the snack foods and drinks we had missed, like cordial, twisties and bbq shapes. I even found that Milo have a cereal now, had to buy that! Tim and I have spent most of our time outdoors, it’s great to have a garden to sit in again. Next week we will be preparing the house next door for us to move into, we need one of most things, but once we have an income we can slowly build up again, third time is lucky hopefully.