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.
