First Year - Done & Dusted

Today marks one year in Australia for us......

.... so, we had a lovely dinner and opened a bottle of champagne and listened to our sliders rattle in their tracks on this blustery, rainy, miserable day on the “Sunshine” Coast. We started to talk about all we have learned this year and decide to share it with our fellow Yanks Down Under because no one else can *really* understand.

Let me preface our list by saying, moving to Australia has been the best experience of my life; it has also been one of the most difficult. It has been a year of laughter and tears, both the happy kind and the sad kind. When we made the decision to move, it gave us a change to fix all of those “if I had only known then, what I know now,” situations in our life. From the moment the plane touched down, I was presented with one of the best opportunities and the hardest experiences ever: to recreate our life. Here is a satirical, but mildly true recount of our first year in Oz.

Year One: 100 Things We Have Learned From Our Life In ‘Stralia.

1. There is life beyond ranch dressing, Monterey Jack cheese, dryer sheets, Hershey’s kisses, York peppermint patties, root beer, Bisquick, and Budweiser.
2. And when you don’t have things on the above list for a bit, you don’t miss them so much.
3. I am now keen to do things. Before, I was willing, able, eager and excited. But, now I am only keen.
4. Bob IS my uncle.
5. That a pepper is a capsicum and that the police will spray you with capsicum spray no matter how ridiculous that sounds. (Not from personal experience.)
6. Thongs are worn on your feet and not up your bum. Your bum is reserved for a G-string.
7. You don’t have to be a hippie chick to use tampons without applicators, in fact they are impossible to find any other way.
8. You do not want to make your television debut (de-boo) on Border Security for trying to bring in Fig Newtons, Pepperidge Farm Goldfish Crackers and Christmas decorations from America. (Once again, personal experience.)
9. Paper or plastic is a decision we Americans take for granted. Now, I own 500 envirobags for fear of killing a sea turtle because I never am able to remember my green grocery bags.
10. Koala poop is much like rabbit poop. (Gandow, the very cheeky koala at Lone Pine, and my elementary school pet, Flopsy taught me this!)
11. You can’t judge a book by its cover. A custard apple, although ugly, is still tasty!
12. Summer is actually winter. There is winter without snow and it’s not so bad.
13. Toilets cannot flush in the opposite direction with a dual flush system. (The Simpsons were wrong, the embassy does not supply us all with a special machine!)
14. Beetroot does not belong on hamburger under any circumstances.
15. A 1 page resume is not acceptable for any job, anywhere in Australia. For a mid-level management position, a 3-4 page resume is expected. Who knew?
16. Letter sized paper is A4, Legal sized paper is A3. No one tells you this, but when you select letter or legal from MS Office and botch up the printing “queue” in the office, they are all really mad.
17. No shirt, no shoes, does not equal no service here in Queensland.
18. Where ever you go in the world, you will find a 24 hour 7-11 operated by Indians (the ones with the dots, not the ones with the feathers, as my NZ officemate says. She offends everyone equally.)
19. And, there will still be Mexicans will be washing cars at the car wash. (I couldn’t believe we met Jose from Mexico City at the Hoppy’s in Brisbane.)
20. After living here a year, you will have one Kiwi friend who thinks New Zealanders have invented everything from pavlova to a cure for cancer and says “Bro” far too much. No matter how much you love them, a compliment on your new "jandles" will make you twitch a bit.
21. To swim between the flags
22. Big W is the evil empire incarnate – WALMART!
23. The spiders are big, hairy and will charge you. It is justification for your spouse to find you in a closet with flashlight, a magazine and bottle of wine, drunk off your bum! (That is from personal experience.)
24. Despite your political beliefs, Republican or Democrat, no matter how “American” you were at home, you still get misty eyed for the Star Spangled Banner & get a little angry when someone speaks badly about your President , no matter what faux pas he made this time or how much of a dumbass he appeared to be on CNN. It’s your homeland, mate.
25. It’s 5pm at work before you realize, it is the fourth of July, Labor Day, Memorial Day, Martin Luther King Day, etc.
26. For the first few weeks, you think there are a lot of homosexual people at your work with everyone talking about their partners.
27. It begins to pain you when MS Office tells you to spell: colour, centre, labour, paediatrics, utilise, etc.
28. You have to write the “post code” numbers in the boxes dictated by the envelope and it doesn’t work very well for internationally addresses. It’s a zip code and it is 5 numbers!!
29. Everything closes at 6pm except for late night shopping one day a week. It shouldn’t be a holiday when the local shopping centre gets Sunday trading hours! We had a parade for the first 24 IGA!
30. Those damn 2 dollar and 1 dollar coins. I didn’t use change in the U.S. When I paid for $50 of gas in singles, I felt like a stripper; now, I am just embarrassed to whip out all of that shrapnel. 31. While we are on the subject, being a Jersey girl, it pains me to break the motto of, “We don’t pump our gas, we pump our fists in Jersey,” even more so because the damn gas pump doesn’t have that click and hold lever system. You have to hold it the whole damn time. And you can't pay at the pump... or go to a drive through ATM, pharmacy. They make you interact with actual live clerks; how unheard of!
32. How bad is it when you ask the woman at Coles for the premature baby pack of cigarettes instead of the old lady’s eye?
33. It feels so damn good to receive a care package/mail from home
34. You cannot find a good pair of blue jeans outside of the U.S.
35. The Australian people (at least the one’s we have met) are the most accepting, care-free, loving, laid-back people we have ever encountered.
36. A pot is 285mL, a schooner is 425mL and a pint doesn’t exist here in Queensland.
37. Melbourne Cup Day is a brilliant reason to get dressed up like it’s the prom and put feathers in your hair!
38. Mid-strength can save your night! Berroco is a hangover cure-all.
39. Pokies are bad for your brain.
40. Speed cameras are a reality in Australia. This means, you can get a ticket without ever being pulled over. Jon accrued 15 tickets and had his license suspended before we even knew speed cameras existed.
41. He also had to take 5 breath tests in one day while we were driving to Townsville for a diving trip. They don’t muck around.
42. To root means to have sex with, therefore, when you say, “I am rooting for the Patriots in the upcoming Superbowl,” you and Tom Brady are getting busy!
43. Shrimp are prawns, thereby you would never “Put a shrimp on the barbie.” No one ever says put a “prawn on the barbie.”
44. On the barbie, you can cook ANYTHING! Even pizza! or eggs!
45. Snags are sausages, LBDs is code for, well you know, Little Boys D**** and they are small sausages, BBDs are they are big boy’s LBDs...... The sausage all revolves around one image.
46. Fairy bread is white bread coated in butter with sprinkles (hundreds & thousands) coated over it. It sounds gross, but at 28, you can still feel like a little princess with a boa and crown eating fairy bread. I’ve tested this theory.
47. I am not so coordinated. I have been known to all out of my chair, or A over T, as my office mates like to call it. Translation: Arse over Tits.
48. That Union, League and AFL are very different games and if you are not Maroon you ar going to get the crap kicked out of you. (We are in QLD.)
49. Cricket is as boring as baseball, but it’s just as good reason to get very drunk in the stands. 50. Agro = angry, while avro = afternoon
51. The Ashes aren’t something from the Holy Trinity, it’s simply a cricket tradition.
52. My togs isn't as dirty as it sounds.
53. I shouldn’t have to pay 50 cents for my condiments. It’s simply un-Australian.
54. Hinterland is the land or district behind the borders of a coast or river, not somewhere over the rainbow.
55. Tomato sauce isn’t quite as good as ketchup.
56. The word Blackfella is like the N word in America; they can call each other it, but we can’t use it.
57. “Such is life” – Ned Kelly
58. A rock melon is a cantaloupe.
59. Funtack is called blue tack and it is grey in color. It is not really fun either.
60. A chook is a chicken and your friends aren’t quite as crazy as you think they are for having a pen of them in their backyards
61. Fair Dinkum isn’t used in general conversation half as much as you think it will be. However, G’day is and it will always make you giggle until you catch yourself saying it.
62. You never want to dob someone in. Bad things happen to tattle tales!
63. Stay away from things that are dodgy. Just do.
64. You will make the dog’s breakfast of your first year here and it’s okay. It is a complete mess, but you will figure it all out in the end.
65. You do not have to like sausage roll or meat pies to survive.
66. A doona is something wonderful to curl up under on a cold rainy day and yes, we do have them here in Australia (cold rainy days that is!)
67. A fanny is the front bits of a girl, while in the U.S. a fanny would be the back bits.
68. I am always flat out like a lizard drinking and it doesn’t mean I need to go to meetings!
69. Champers (champagne) and chardy (chardonnay) always make the day a bit better!
70. No one really knows what Australia Day is all about.
71. People say they can't understand you when you speak, but claim to watch prime time TV.
72. Jon kicks himself for not finding the subscription website where you can watch streaming major league games a year ago. (www.officialtvsports.com).
73. We could re-start that fake ID ring we ran out of our college dorms with the lack of security on the QLD license, but we would never do a thing like that!
74. You didn’t gain 20 pounds on the plane, the sizes are different.
75. Kilo’s to pounds inches to cm’s. You really do need math for everyday living!76. Kangaroos are a myth. Haven’t seen one yet in the wild!
77. Palm trees and evergreens should NOT be growing side by side. It’s weird.
78. I love choking on the sweet smell of eucalyptus when I go for a run.
79. Yoghurt does not belong on pizzas, even if Dominos tries to market it that way.
80. “Bris-Vegas” is NOTHING like Vegas.
81. People like Crocodile Dundee actually DO exist. It’s true. I’ve seen them.
82. Corks in your hat is actually a good way of keeping the mozzies away.
83. And yet..... They don’t have them in wine bottles. Go figure.
84. When it’s a minimum of 30C in the summer, shouldn’t air con be mandatory?
85. Apparently you need a drivers license to drive in Queensland. You wouldn’t know it to be on the road though. Merge does not mean to drive down an exit ramp and stop, then try to pull out into 110km traffic!
86. Why does it pour in the City and not a drop hits the dam? Who thought to put the damn dams there anyway!
87. The difference in time zones between here and home. My parents ask me every time they call what time it is....
88. And why can’t we all have daylight savings time? I want to play too! Why do Sydney & Melbourne get an extra hour?
89. I don’t need my secretary to tell me there is no 14th, 22nd or 31st month in the year. No wait, yes I do. I loathe the day-month-year format.
90. I have flown Trans-Pacific enough to know that if I cry while I am in the ticket line and while boarding, I get an exit seat with no one seated around me.
91. America and Australia are actually very much alike. It’s the little differences that get you.
92. There is no such thing as good pizza in Australia. No, Domino’s does not count, but it's as close as you will get.
93. You are hand feeding 100 kangaroos in a wide open, fenced in space with no supervision and you are thinking of the insurance liability. (I still say kangaroos in the wild are myths!)
94. Crisco for Christmas cookies can only be purchased from adult shops as a lubricant. What the hell is anyone other than Ron Jeremy going to do with 5lbs of shortening lubricant?
95. While it’s really nice that the lifeguards in Australia are being honoured for their 100 years of service but after a whole year of it, but that commercial.....ENOUGH ALREADY!!!!!
96. You can’t use the medical services here, but luckily you get the money back 2 years later. (10 months to process a Medicare Levy Exemption!)
97. You should know who is the president of New Zealand. When sitting in the Fijian airport chatting up a man with tattoos on his face thinking he is in the WWF, you should know he is a Maori terrorist and not the president of New Zealand.
98. Ian Thorpe will save us all from climate change.
99. I miss the seasons.
100. Writing this list made me thing about all I’ve learned and what a wonderful experience this has been and continues to be!
Year One - Done & Dusted.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!!!

Jon and I celebrated our first hot Christmas in Australia. We decorated our patio palm and the apartment with festive Christmas baubles; we even tried to bring home the evergreen smell of the fresh cut tree with some pine air freshner (sad, I'll admit) and we did a pretty good job of making it feel like home on Christmas. There was just one thing missing: our families.

We had a big Christmas Eve dinner with turkey and all the trimmings including Mum's beet root salad (or a feeble attempt at). Christmas morning, we woke up and opening our pressies: Jon's new surfboard and Siobhan's reading chair for the deck were the highlights.

After the phone calls home, Jon had to work in the ER around 1:00 and I relaxed watching movies for the rest of the day.

My folks sent me this picture of the pug man that had to be shared:

Wicked Winter Weather

For the first time in our lives, wicked winter weather didn't mean snow, ice, sleet and slush. It has been raining for weeks; it's very dreary, grey and very depressing. We are very lucky that we aren't getting the brunt of it. Northern Queensland is under water; flooding has emerged entire towns which is problematic enough, but throw venimous snakes and crocodiles into the mix and things get interesting.

We went for a walk on the beach in front of our house, which used to be a good 20 meters to the low tide line and it's gone. There is a twenty foot cliff that drops down to the beach. There are black volcanic rocks everywhere that weren't visible two weeks ago. It is shocking what a war Mother Nature has ravished on our little patch of sand.

O Christmas Tree

I have a "thing" about faux Christmas trees. I must have gotten it from my Dad; he insists every year that we have a real tree, while Mom grumbles about the needles and the carpet. I just can't bring myself to purchase an artificial tree.

So, being that there is a bit of shortage of the Douglass Fir type tree in our neck of the woods, I did the next best thing: