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.