We have been amazed by how most Aussies are seemingly eager to help us navigate our way through their systems. I guess that's why when someone isn't too helpful, it stands out like a sore thumb. Since people aren't falling over themselves to help us in the States, it can't be because we're so wonderful. I have to believe it's because the Aussies truly like Americans. Either that or our brand of pathetic in trying to figure out their world is just too much for them. Hmmm, I'd lay even odds on which one of those it might be.
We went to the Video store last week to rent some Aussie movies (more on that later) and the clerk violated their no-googling rule to see if one of their video games would work in our Playstation3 (the answer was no). They were very patient as we fiddled around getting the correct change and I'm sure if we had just dumped it out on the counter, they'd have been happy to do it for us. Okay, maybe it is our patheticness, but the help is very much appreciated.
One of my coworkers suggested a couple Aussie movies which I had never heard of before. The movies are "The Dish" and "The Castle". We were told "The Dish" was the story of Australia's role in the 1969 moonwalk. If you were guessing what kind of movie that would be, wouldn't you guess Drama? That's what we thought, but we could not find it for anything. Then Eric just happened across it in the Comedy section. Huh? We ended up finding "The Castle" there, too.
We watched "The Dish" first and thoroughly enjoyed it and what a view into the Australian psyche (albeit from 15 years ago). Neither Eric nor I knew that Neil Armstrong's first moonwalk video feed was received here in Australia. The movie had some comic relief, but I still think it was more drama than comedy in spite of their copious attempts to poke fun at themselves.
I'm not even sure what to say about "The Castle". The best way I could describe it is awkwardly funny. It definitely fit the Comedy moniker, but there was still a serious storyline going on about a family being forced out of their home. Good prevailed and all that, but it was strange (as in kooky), strange, strange from beginning to end.
We've started to notice an increase in wildlife activity. I guess they're gearing up for spring. More of their unusual birds are zipping about and making noises. They have so many different kinds of birds here, I can't even remember them all so I can look them up when I get back to the house. Some of them are so brilliantly colored it's amazing. I'm especially fond of the Lorikeets and their mostly bright green coloring. Pretty snazzy!
Wish our rugs would stay as colorful. We're finding the quality of their rugs to be rather suspect. In spite of washing the rugs in cold, the color still runs off them. I had to hang one up on the clothesline to dry and it was pretty faded once dry. I haven't used a clothesline in years, but it's what they do here and my guess is it's because the dryers don't work very well. All I know is it's another datapoint in the conversion to Aussieness. When I start going barefoot into the stores I'll know the process is complete!
I can't remember the last time I saw people barefoot in stores. It's pretty common here although I don't remember noticing it in Sydney. I'll check it out again this weekend since we're going to spend the weekend in Sydney sightseeing and getting me a Starbucks fix!!! Sad to say, that is the number one thing on my list of things to see and do! It's been 42 days since I've had Starbucks (not that I'm counting or anything) and surprisingly, the earth has not stopped orbiting the sun. We are planning to get an espresso machine because the coffee I've been having before I leave for work is just not cutting it. If Starbucks is relegated to a sightseeing event, then an espresso machine is my next best hope to find something that gets me to work in a conscious state.
I'll leave you with my Aussie phrase of the day - "come home with a wet sail" which means you've stormed to victory.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Thar She Blows!
We went whale watching today. Oh my gosh! The full set of pictures with all the amazing things the whales did are here: Whale picture album.
It was a magical experience because the whales were very curious about us, so much so that they came right to us and one even spyhopped to get a good look at us (see lower picture). They decided we were okay enough to really do some showing off and oh my goodness did they ever put on a show! In addition to the spyhop, they surfaced and swam around the boat, made amazing noises, did lots of tail wagging and smacking, waved fins at us, and one even rolled over onto his back and showed us both fins! The captain of the boat said it was fairly unusual for them to do that. He said it happened maybe one out of sixty times. All I know is we were extremely privileged to see such an awesome display from one of God's amazing creations.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Moving Shopping Marathon
We finally moved into our place on the 14th which was the signal to go into overdrive for the shopping marathon. We pretty much camped out in our new place from Saturday to Wednesday on borrowed air mattresses because there was nothing and I pretty much mean nada, zilch, zip in the way of furniture or appliances in the apartment. We "moved" in as in carried our suitcases to the 3rd bedroom and then took off to buy the appliances and get towels and sheets and $500 Aussie of other stuff (it's all a blur at this point).
The appliances arrived Tuesday the 17th. The delivery "subbies" (their word for subcontractors) were an interesting pair. Apparently I changed my name at some point because everything was darlin' this and darlin' that. Unfortunately, they were telling darlin' something that she did not want to hear and that was they weren't so sure they were going to get darlin's refrigerator up the stairwell. This is the point where you realize you are nearing true desperation because Eric and I were saying things like "so long as it works once you get it in there and you try not to scratch the front, we don't care how many dings it ends up with". We did care, but not if it meant we were going to be without a refrigerator for another day!
In the end they got it in there without any dings, but it definitely wasn't easy and darlin' endeared herself to them forever by giving them a big fat tip for their trouble. Since Aussies don't normally do any tipping, I'm sure they walked away thinking it was their lucky day. We were feeling pretty lucky ourselves and raced off to the Woolworths grocery store to de-Mother Hubbard our kitchen and refrigerator.
On Wednesday the mattress and couches arrived. A real bed! We also got to graduate from lawn chairs to a couch and recliners to watch the 5 channels on the TV perched on a box. We graduated to a bigger box a few days later when we bought the pots and pans set, but it still seems way too close to the floor. We have ordered a TV table along with a dining set, coffee table and a couple end tables, but they have given us the dreaded "3 weeks" for a delivery timeframe. In fact, what we have discovered from talking to others is "3 weeks" really means they have absolutely no idea when it will be available for delivery. Great, just what we wanted to hear!
Another one of their quirks is the stores keep next to no inventory. The refrigerator, dryer, couches, and bedroom set were all "floor models". I guess I should count my lucky stars, though, because I'm sure the alternative would be delivery in "3 weeks".
We got our home phone on Wednesday. It's not like we have anyone to call and especially not at 50 cents minimum for a local call, but we were excited anyway because that started the ticker for the internet. Aussies are very into processes and especially into following their processes to the letter even when they are woefully inefficient. The phone had to be connected on one order. This would cause another order to be created to check the line for DSL compatibility. If the phone line quality was sufficient, that generated a third order to ship us the DSL modem. Eight days after the phone went in we felt "processed" out, but we finally had that modem in our hands and even better, the magic of the internet at home.
This is why I have been so kind about not boring you with the gory details of our lives for the last two weeks. Things like the torturous shopping that I would have whined about incessantly since I'm not one who likes shopping. I'm sure I would have talked about the dichotomy of cheaply made stuff at outrageous prices and how it made it nearly impossible for Eric and I to pull the trigger on many purchases. Or the dolphins swimming by our house. You know, boring stuff like that! Guess I'll just have to save the wildlife for later.
Cheers!
The appliances arrived Tuesday the 17th. The delivery "subbies" (their word for subcontractors) were an interesting pair. Apparently I changed my name at some point because everything was darlin' this and darlin' that. Unfortunately, they were telling darlin' something that she did not want to hear and that was they weren't so sure they were going to get darlin's refrigerator up the stairwell. This is the point where you realize you are nearing true desperation because Eric and I were saying things like "so long as it works once you get it in there and you try not to scratch the front, we don't care how many dings it ends up with". We did care, but not if it meant we were going to be without a refrigerator for another day!
In the end they got it in there without any dings, but it definitely wasn't easy and darlin' endeared herself to them forever by giving them a big fat tip for their trouble. Since Aussies don't normally do any tipping, I'm sure they walked away thinking it was their lucky day. We were feeling pretty lucky ourselves and raced off to the Woolworths grocery store to de-Mother Hubbard our kitchen and refrigerator.
On Wednesday the mattress and couches arrived. A real bed! We also got to graduate from lawn chairs to a couch and recliners to watch the 5 channels on the TV perched on a box. We graduated to a bigger box a few days later when we bought the pots and pans set, but it still seems way too close to the floor. We have ordered a TV table along with a dining set, coffee table and a couple end tables, but they have given us the dreaded "3 weeks" for a delivery timeframe. In fact, what we have discovered from talking to others is "3 weeks" really means they have absolutely no idea when it will be available for delivery. Great, just what we wanted to hear!
Another one of their quirks is the stores keep next to no inventory. The refrigerator, dryer, couches, and bedroom set were all "floor models". I guess I should count my lucky stars, though, because I'm sure the alternative would be delivery in "3 weeks".
We got our home phone on Wednesday. It's not like we have anyone to call and especially not at 50 cents minimum for a local call, but we were excited anyway because that started the ticker for the internet. Aussies are very into processes and especially into following their processes to the letter even when they are woefully inefficient. The phone had to be connected on one order. This would cause another order to be created to check the line for DSL compatibility. If the phone line quality was sufficient, that generated a third order to ship us the DSL modem. Eight days after the phone went in we felt "processed" out, but we finally had that modem in our hands and even better, the magic of the internet at home.
This is why I have been so kind about not boring you with the gory details of our lives for the last two weeks. Things like the torturous shopping that I would have whined about incessantly since I'm not one who likes shopping. I'm sure I would have talked about the dichotomy of cheaply made stuff at outrageous prices and how it made it nearly impossible for Eric and I to pull the trigger on many purchases. Or the dolphins swimming by our house. You know, boring stuff like that! Guess I'll just have to save the wildlife for later.
Cheers!
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
The Former Good Speller with an Accent
I used to consider myself pretty good at spelling and even won a spelling bee or two in my ancient history. However, this has all changed at work as my work computer is set to Australian English rules. I now get that disconcerting red squiggly line in Word documents that shouts at me "Ha! You've messed up! I know the right answer, but won't provide it unless you right click the mouse over me or run spell check". Okay, so maybe that's a bit of a paraphrase, but that's what it feels like. I have been put in my place with enough words now that I've lost count of my ineptitude. I thought I was getting the hang of it (anything ending in 'or' like color now ends in 'our', an 'ize' ending is 'ise', and the 'er' ending is quite often 're' as in 'centre'), but I discovered there are some other one-offs that keep catching me. The word today was installment. Apparently in Australia it only has one 'l'. Then there was totaled. In Australia it has two 'l's. Huh? How do I ever remember which words have an extra 'l' and which ones have one taken away? I already have to remember to stay on the left side of the road - what more do they want from me?!
One of the more fascinating things about being in Australia is they like to hear our accent. I thought it was just me who enjoyed listening to them talk, but they have told us on several occasions that they like hearing us talk. Weird! Eric and I are hearing their accent enough now that it's beginning to sound normal except for a few who must come from somewhere that has a much stronger Australian accent. We may be understanding the words now, but we are sometimes a little slow on the uptake with some of their everyday phrases or choice of words. It does make for some "interesting" conversation.
We move into our place on Saturday. I think it will take us about 10 minutes to move in give or take a minute. With no furniture, unpacking will consist of moving the suitcases somewhere and leaving them open on the floor. Voila! Done in a snap. The furniture will start arriving on Wednesday so we'll be roughing it until then. Guess we'll be doing our own version of Ethan's term for it - urban camping. We'll have all the comforts of camping with the exception of having electricity and bathrooms (oops, proper word here is toilets or restroom).
As I keep saying, we'd love to have visitors, but be advised we might need some time to make it just a bit more livable!
One of the more fascinating things about being in Australia is they like to hear our accent. I thought it was just me who enjoyed listening to them talk, but they have told us on several occasions that they like hearing us talk. Weird! Eric and I are hearing their accent enough now that it's beginning to sound normal except for a few who must come from somewhere that has a much stronger Australian accent. We may be understanding the words now, but we are sometimes a little slow on the uptake with some of their everyday phrases or choice of words. It does make for some "interesting" conversation.
We move into our place on Saturday. I think it will take us about 10 minutes to move in give or take a minute. With no furniture, unpacking will consist of moving the suitcases somewhere and leaving them open on the floor. Voila! Done in a snap. The furniture will start arriving on Wednesday so we'll be roughing it until then. Guess we'll be doing our own version of Ethan's term for it - urban camping. We'll have all the comforts of camping with the exception of having electricity and bathrooms (oops, proper word here is toilets or restroom).
As I keep saying, we'd love to have visitors, but be advised we might need some time to make it just a bit more livable!
Friday, August 6, 2010
In English Please!
The number of things in Australia with completely different names is sometimes amazing. We all speak English, right? Apparently we don't. We find ourselves trying to define things for them until they spit out their word for that item or we have to ask for their definition of some word we see on a menu. Examples:
- Tomato sauce with sugar is catsup, right? No, that's tomato sauce. Makes one wonder what tomato sauce without sugar is, hmmm.
- Green peppers are capsicum (oh yeah, I was just about to say that!).
- Flat white is coffee with milk.
- Long black is black coffee.
- Short black is black coffee without all the water as in a concentrated shot of espresso (ordered this thinking I was getting a small cup of coffee and barely suppressed my giggles when I saw just how "small" it was).
- Serviettes are napkins
- Beetroot are beets (sometimes it's an easy guess).
They do like their beetroot here. I had a beetroot salad the other night. It featured three kinds of beetroot (purple, orange, and one called a target beetroot) and aside from the goat cheese and hazelnuts, not much else. It was actually quite good and must have looked inviting, too, because Eric was suddenly offering to share some of his food (no ulterior motive there!). My bite of his kingfish was tasty and I think he would have accepted as much of my beetroot salad as I was willing to share which wasn't much!
Another thing Australians are quite fond of is pumpkin. Pumpkin soup, pumpkin in their stew, pumpkin alone, and strangely, not a pumpkin pie to be found. We had a very nice time eating dinner at the home of a couple from the church on Monday. Ren and Glynis were excellent hosts and fixed a nice home-cooked Australian dinner for us. We had a roasted chicken with potatoes, pumpkin (of course), onions, sweet potatoes, stuffing, peas, and green beans. For dessert Glynis fixed a traditional Australian dish called Pavlova. It has a creamy inside, a slightly crisp meringue outside, and fruit on top. It was delicious. We can't wait to get our place so we can have them over and fix them some of our fare.
The next thing on our plate, ahem, is to shop for appliances. We've got to get a refrigerator, washer, dryer, and TV. As soon as we accomplish that we have to start populating a completely empty kitchen. I can just see our shopping cart (I mean trolley) at "Big W" now. Filled to overflowing with toaster, mixer, plates, bowls, glasses, utensils, pots and pans, can opener, knives, measuring cups and spoons, mixing spoons, and, are you kidding me?! I can't even list it all. If there's room I guess we'll get some food, too. Okay, two trolleys might be better.
A.J. will be arriving the 16th. I managed to navigate the Boeing Australia system to get his Boeing-provided airline ticket (I love my company!) bought. I can't wait for him to get here.
Eric walked out to Nobby's Head today. It has the lighthouse into the Newcastle harbor. The view out there was "cool bananas" as he could see all of Stockton Beach (it's 20 miles long) and then further on he could see the headlands into the Port Stephens bay where we will be living. It was a bit more of a walk than he thought so he was a little tuckered out afterward.
We've heard that dolphins swim by our home-to-be in the morning. We can't wait to see this for ourselves. The whales having been heading up the coast and we saw one when we were here last month, but we haven't had a chance to spend any time looking since we got here permanently.
The weather has been much better since the storm. It has been quite sunny with temperatures as low as 5 (that's 41 in Fahrenheit) in the morning and in the high teens (60s) in the afternoon. That one day aside, so far I love their winter weather!
Guess I'd best wrap this up before it turns into a book. Take care and know that we miss you all!
- Tomato sauce with sugar is catsup, right? No, that's tomato sauce. Makes one wonder what tomato sauce without sugar is, hmmm.
- Green peppers are capsicum (oh yeah, I was just about to say that!).
- Flat white is coffee with milk.
- Long black is black coffee.
- Short black is black coffee without all the water as in a concentrated shot of espresso (ordered this thinking I was getting a small cup of coffee and barely suppressed my giggles when I saw just how "small" it was).
- Serviettes are napkins
- Beetroot are beets (sometimes it's an easy guess).
They do like their beetroot here. I had a beetroot salad the other night. It featured three kinds of beetroot (purple, orange, and one called a target beetroot) and aside from the goat cheese and hazelnuts, not much else. It was actually quite good and must have looked inviting, too, because Eric was suddenly offering to share some of his food (no ulterior motive there!). My bite of his kingfish was tasty and I think he would have accepted as much of my beetroot salad as I was willing to share which wasn't much!
Another thing Australians are quite fond of is pumpkin. Pumpkin soup, pumpkin in their stew, pumpkin alone, and strangely, not a pumpkin pie to be found. We had a very nice time eating dinner at the home of a couple from the church on Monday. Ren and Glynis were excellent hosts and fixed a nice home-cooked Australian dinner for us. We had a roasted chicken with potatoes, pumpkin (of course), onions, sweet potatoes, stuffing, peas, and green beans. For dessert Glynis fixed a traditional Australian dish called Pavlova. It has a creamy inside, a slightly crisp meringue outside, and fruit on top. It was delicious. We can't wait to get our place so we can have them over and fix them some of our fare.
The next thing on our plate, ahem, is to shop for appliances. We've got to get a refrigerator, washer, dryer, and TV. As soon as we accomplish that we have to start populating a completely empty kitchen. I can just see our shopping cart (I mean trolley) at "Big W" now. Filled to overflowing with toaster, mixer, plates, bowls, glasses, utensils, pots and pans, can opener, knives, measuring cups and spoons, mixing spoons, and, are you kidding me?! I can't even list it all. If there's room I guess we'll get some food, too. Okay, two trolleys might be better.
A.J. will be arriving the 16th. I managed to navigate the Boeing Australia system to get his Boeing-provided airline ticket (I love my company!) bought. I can't wait for him to get here.
Eric walked out to Nobby's Head today. It has the lighthouse into the Newcastle harbor. The view out there was "cool bananas" as he could see all of Stockton Beach (it's 20 miles long) and then further on he could see the headlands into the Port Stephens bay where we will be living. It was a bit more of a walk than he thought so he was a little tuckered out afterward.
We've heard that dolphins swim by our home-to-be in the morning. We can't wait to see this for ourselves. The whales having been heading up the coast and we saw one when we were here last month, but we haven't had a chance to spend any time looking since we got here permanently.
The weather has been much better since the storm. It has been quite sunny with temperatures as low as 5 (that's 41 in Fahrenheit) in the morning and in the high teens (60s) in the afternoon. That one day aside, so far I love their winter weather!
Guess I'd best wrap this up before it turns into a book. Take care and know that we miss you all!
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Westerlies
We've had many misunderstandings since we've arrived. Some have to do with people not understanding our accent (what's up with that?!) and some are us making some really bad assumptions. Case in point, work luncheon last week. I thought I'd order an "Open Works Burger and Fries" thinking "Works" meant cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, and a pickle or something along those lines. Oh it was so not that. There was at least a burger there, but "Works" actually meant a few thick slabs of their bacon, a semi-flat poached egg, and a nice big slice of beetroot to go with the tomato and lettuce. As if that wasn't enough, it was absolutely huge! And they gave me enough fries to build a replica of parliament or clog my veins from here to eternity. Some day I'll know how to avoid these embarrassments over here, but until then I guess I am great entertainment for them.
Another thing we didn't quite understand is what they meant when they said the "westerlies" come in August. We thought they were some nice breezes that blew in from the west, but found out it was another case of Aussie under-statement. The wind was howling through the windows and a month's worth of rain back home was going sideways. It was so nasty that none of the fighter jets took off today from the base. It is our sincere hope that this is not how all of August will be weather-wise.
We are very excited to sign the lease on the place tomorrow and we will be taking possession August 14th which will be a super-happy day since we're pretty tired of the hotel. It's getting so bad the hotel people are saying things like, "Are you still here?" and they don't even need the car tag to know which car to bring anymore. We amuse ourselves now by longingly listing the things we can't wait to fix once we have a kitchen (not sure how we're going to do this with a completely empty kitchen, but dreams don't have to be logical, do they?).
Last weekend we shopped until we dropped for furniture. We put money down on a couch and two recliners, found the mattress we're going to get, hunted endlessly for the right dining table without success, and found the perfect bedroom set - that is until we saw its price tag. Dang! Oh well, just have to keep looking.
We got to Skype Amber, Steven, and A.J. properly with video on Sunday. It was nice to see their faces (and Zuzu, too!) and chat with them. It definitely helps keep the "missing them" part from getting too bad.
We are definitely starting to miss everybody. Please come visit!
Another thing we didn't quite understand is what they meant when they said the "westerlies" come in August. We thought they were some nice breezes that blew in from the west, but found out it was another case of Aussie under-statement. The wind was howling through the windows and a month's worth of rain back home was going sideways. It was so nasty that none of the fighter jets took off today from the base. It is our sincere hope that this is not how all of August will be weather-wise.
We are very excited to sign the lease on the place tomorrow and we will be taking possession August 14th which will be a super-happy day since we're pretty tired of the hotel. It's getting so bad the hotel people are saying things like, "Are you still here?" and they don't even need the car tag to know which car to bring anymore. We amuse ourselves now by longingly listing the things we can't wait to fix once we have a kitchen (not sure how we're going to do this with a completely empty kitchen, but dreams don't have to be logical, do they?).
Last weekend we shopped until we dropped for furniture. We put money down on a couch and two recliners, found the mattress we're going to get, hunted endlessly for the right dining table without success, and found the perfect bedroom set - that is until we saw its price tag. Dang! Oh well, just have to keep looking.
We got to Skype Amber, Steven, and A.J. properly with video on Sunday. It was nice to see their faces (and Zuzu, too!) and chat with them. It definitely helps keep the "missing them" part from getting too bad.
We are definitely starting to miss everybody. Please come visit!
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