There are more than 150 million sheep in Australia, and only some 20 million people.

Quick correction from last week: Andrew's car is a manual, not automatic

Another busy week coming to a close. Last Saturday Andrew and I went to the wedding of one of Andrew's best friends, Will's, sister. It was a lovely ceremony outside at one of the local universities. That evening I went out Kate for a night with the girls. We had dinner and went to a few drinks. It was really nice to have girl time. And at the end of the night we were a bit hungry again so we made our way to the glowing light of a 24-hour Mcdonald's. Much to our excitement they told us that we couldn't come in but had to walk through the drive-thru instead. All through college you'd hear stories of people trying to do this at McDonald's and getting yelled at and now we were told to, we giggled all the way through line in-between cars and two guys on bicycles ahead of us. Definitely a good way to end the evening.

Sunday Andrew, Simon and I went on the mission of finding me an automatic car...we were sadly defeated. Then we went over to Will's parents house for a bbq to celebrate the wedding from the day before. Everyone was very nice and welcoming and I felt right at home. Will's parents have built an elaborate backyard perfect for gatherings. The excitement of last weekend was they got to test out the new outdoor pizza oven they just had installed. There was also a pool, a nice sculptural water feature. My favorite part, hands down, was the porch. It was a nice wide two-story porch, we were on the ground level sitting around a table made from a large metal tub which could be filled with ice and drinks as there is a hole in the middle to grab the cold drinks from. The chairs were also made from metal tubs, cut with arm rests and comfortable padded. Added to that, on either side of the table, attached to the second floor were two heaters so we stayed nice and toasty while it rained around us. Very nicely done.

Monday was my first day of work down at Canberra Motor Village as a receptionist. I've done four shifts this week and already received my first paycheck. The work isn't too bad, I answer phones, take reservations, answer questions, check emails, check people in and out and deal with general questions. The staff is all pretty young which is cool, and everyone is friendly. It's nice to have something to do with my day and to make a bit of money, pay is actually pretty good in Australia as the average casual rate is $20/hr, and that's just for a weekday, it goes up on Saturday, up even more on Sunday, and even more on public holidays. A good start I'd say :)

Tomorrow Andrew and I are off to look at two apartments and hopefully pick one of them as our future place, and I'm going to go check out two automatic cars, one of which will soon be mine. Things are very much settling in to place, now I just have to settle in with a group of friends, I've joined a book club but there won't be a meeting until mid-November, a photographic society but their last meeting until February is mid-November so I'll wait to join, and even a knitting club which I'll start going to as soon as I've decided what to knit next, any suggestions are welcome.

More to come once things have been sussed out.

First week in a foreign country - amusing titles are set aside

flying out of Sydney along the coast

flying into Canberra

My first week in Canberra flew by. I spent a few hours in the Sydney airport relaxing and refreshing myself after my 16-hour flight over from LA. It was a quick 26-minute flight over to Canberra. I sat at the back of the plane so I was the last person off. Andrew said that he would be the first person I saw when I got into the airport so I excitedly looked for him as I came down the escalator even though my plane got in about 10 minutes early. I started walking down the terminal looking for him, he was easy to spot wearing the same jeans, jacket and sneakers he had in London. He was using an internet terminal to kill time until my plane came in so I snuck up behind him. He felt really bad that he wasn’t there waiting because he had flowers and a stuffed kangaroo for me.

We loaded everything and headed over to the house. We’re renting a room in a townhouse with Andrew’s friend Simon. The first day we really relaxed, I didn’t unpack much. We met Andrew’s friends Bonnie and Damien for drinks before going out to dinner just the two of us. Bonnie is on the verge of giving birth any day now, she was actually due on Friday but as far as we know still hasn’t had the kid.

Saturday we had breakfast with Andrew’s sister Kate and his dad Paul. His mom is over in New Zealand right now taking care of her sick mother. After breakfast Andrew and I went to explore some of the city before joining Kate to go to a dog park with Kate’s golden retriever, Austin, and their parent’s little dog Jessie. The dogs had a good time running around with other dogs, it was a really nice, large park for them to run off the leads in.

Sunday was my birthday, yay! So Andrew made me breakfast before we grabbed Kate and went over to one of the nature parks Tidbinbilla to check out some animals. Sadly most of them were hiding but we did see a lot of cockatoo which was strange to see out in the wild. There were also emus that run away when you try and get close and a whole lot of kangaroos. On our way out of the park we stopped so I could get close to the kangaroos. They are weird; they lie around like bums, looking kind of similar to deer when they lie down. They didn’t seem to mind us getting close at all, except for the mamma who had a joey in her pouch. We stayed until we got to see them bounce away which makes me the most excited, see the videos at the bottom of this entry. One our way home we stopped at the largest alpine slide in the southern hemisphere and all took a ride down it, loads of fun.



Lots of kangaroo photos:

Emu

My birthday present from Andrew

the flowers Andrew got me from the airport

Monday I had two interviews so Andrew and I drove around a bit in between. My first one was with a golf club as a waitress/beverage/food attendant, they offered me a part-time job but I need something full time so I said I’d think about it since I had a few other interviews. My second interview was with a recruitment agency and the recruiter and I really got on. I really impressed him a lot and he’s on the lookout for jobs for me in the creative/design field doing any kind of work just to get my foot in the door. I actually had a good time chatting with him and left feeling like he’s going to try and find something that will work for me.

Tuesday morning I had another interview with a place called Canberra Motor Village for a receptionist position. After that we were a bit boring, Andrew had to get a haircut so I ran around the mall killing time and then we bought new video games, one being the Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe game which is so much fun. We also had a little cookout down by one of the lakes where they have free bbqs so we got to eat sausages with a nice view of the lake out in the sunshine.

Cook out by the lake

Wednesday we decided to do a quick drive down to the coast to a little town called Batemans Bay. We had some fish and chips and I yelled “mine” at seagulls Finding Nemo style, before we went to find a beach I could put my feet in the Pacific Ocean for the first time. It was fairly cold but it’s early in the season and there were people on the beach who had been swimming. The day was a bit overcast but I can imagine how beautiful it will look on a sunny day, the landscape looks just like that beach screensaver that comes standard on every computer. We decided to drive down the coast a bit to see some other beaches, there was a great secluded one with a tiny car park so not many people would be able to park there. There were already some surfers out taking advantage of the small waves, which will be great once I get better and get my own board. It was a quick ride back up very windy hills, most over 90 degrees, it was lots of fun to go through but I was glad I wasn’t driving on those sharp corners.

Yummy fish and chip meal we shared

Me going (a bit) into the Pacific Ocean for the first time:

Andrew had to go back to work Thursday so Mr. Walker picked me up to take me around the city a bit. He decided it would be a good chance for me to drive around and he has an automatic car so that made it easy. We went to the top of a hill in Canberra where there is a radio tower that you can go up in and get a birds eye view of the whole city. Mr. Walker took me around and pointed out different parts of the city to me. From there we drove down to the National Library and had some coffee out on a terrace overlooking the main lake. We drove into the city and parked to go meet Andrew for lunch, great burrito place down in the city.

Then Mr. Walker took me on a tour of the embassy area so he could show me the US Embassy which is at least 4 times the size of all the other embassies which only take up one building and the US one takes up such a large number I couldn’t even count them all. When I get a free day I’m going to go check out the inside and see if I get any special benefits for living here, like Thanksgiving dinner or a 4th of July celebration or something. We ran a few errands after that so I know a good fruit and vegetable market, where the local library and grocery store is and how to get home from both.

Friday I got to drive Andrew’s car around for the day, an automatic. It was quite interesting but I managed to make it around without killing myself or anyone else so that’s good. I met Andrew down in the city with some of his friends for drinks. It was good fun and the beginning to the chaotic weekend we have ahead.

The Land of Volvo's and hippies

So I was home for about a month, filled with packing, unpacking and a lot of traveling to catch up with people before leaving.

As we speak I am sitting in Virgin Blue's Lounge while waiting for my very last flight that will finally get me to Canberra. I have been traveling since leaving Mom and Dad's around 1:30 Wednesday afternoon and I am ready to be done already, this is more travel then I have ever done before. But soon I will be able to send everyone updates from fun and exciting adventures from the other side of the world, I may be farther from Santa Claus now but I'm closer to penguins so it's kind of a toss up.

This is a map of Australia that Andrew sent to me, just so everyone can get an idea of my new country. We live over near Danni Minogue on the east coast.
I'll be sending some updates as soon as I can. It was great to see everyone I got a chance to see while I was home. Don't forget everyone is welcome to come and visit so I can have friends :)