New things

One week down under and, what have we learned? Australians and Australia are very the same as us but so different in some unnamable way. The differences are slight, but they are in everything and everywhere just hard to pinpoint past the noticeable words like ‘crikey’ and  ‘ta’.  An easy country for us to travel in.

The most obvious difference for us is driving on the wrong side of the road. How did this originate is my question. It seems so crazy to have ever changed the side of the road everyone drives on, nevermind the side of the car you put the steering wheel on. We were the stereotypical  Canadian dodging traffic for a few days in Sydney. It is strange how hard it is to cross the road at first. After 4 days it came down to a rental car. We got a Holden, Commodore which is an Aussie made car. Who knew they made cars? It is actually quite nice, but I felt like we were given the no name version of a car. This was quite an experience for the first hour. Really funny anyway. We really were getting a good laugh out of how strange it felt to have to turn the corner or change lanes. It isn’t as funny anymore, but I think Tom has to really stay thinking and more aware than normal. I have to give it a try soon.

 

Sydney fashion is a bit different too. There are short short skirts and really long ones. And ruffles! There are ruffles everywhere I look. Tank tops, to wedding dresses.  The food prices are crazy for eating out. We were a little shocked at how much a meal costs. Entrees were $30-40 everywhere.

We stayed in a nice laid back area in Sydney called, North Sydney or more specific, Crow’s Nest. It was like Kits. There were lots of great restaurants young healthy people and close proximity to the down town. We bid on a room that was close to the city and ended up with an ok place for reasonable. Although we booked a place with a pool, the pool was ‘ Not open until summer’ What? It is summer, OK technically it’s not for a few days, but come on we want a pool! I think it is a lame way to get out of saying the pool is broken and we won’t give you a discount for not having it. OK I got over that and paying for inernet and enjoyed the view.

Max was still in Sydney and we got to see him for a short bit, before he headed to Adelaide. He is going to come out to the West Coast when we have a house out there.

Sydney has Oprah fever. And yes I did mislable the Opera house in my facebook pictures the Oprah house. I can blame jetlag. I think it will be the Oprah house for a few days this week when she is filming her show there. She is here with 4-500 others on a 10 day tour and the news has been ‘chockah’ with Oprah everything. There are banners downtown welcoming them, they closed the zoo for a day for them, and there is a huge O on the harbour bridge that lights up at night. I guess that was as close as I am going to get to meet her. That is much closer than I think I have ever been.

We have made some great setups for house exchanges while we are here from homeexchange.com. We will be at our first place December 21^st and they will be at our house if you feel up for spreading some hospitality to some Aussies this winter. We also had some people who offered us hospitality. We just stayed a few nights in the Blue Mountains with an Australian couple with a  5 year old  and a 6 month old boys. Nathan was in heaven with a boy his age to play with! We felt so at home. They filled us in on the Assuie way as they know the differences as they have lived in Canada.

We have had little problem getting our sleep back on track and the weather has been easy since it has been mild for Sydney. There has been a lot of rain for weeks and now southern New South Wales has a lot of flooding. We have seen very little rain even though it has been predicted for every day we have been here. We will see a good plant life display all the way around after all the rain. Now we are ready for the heat.

The flight was ok. Nathan did really well after he stopped asking ‘When are we going to be  in  Stralia?’ He did realy well with the flight, just the normal restlessness and lack of proper sleep.

Speaking of proper sleep, I am going to go off now. Please email at lmartin@pacificlandscapes.ca or call us on skype at lana.and.tom.martin

Cheers,

Lana, Tom and Nathan