Is the honeymoon over?

After a rollercoaster day of housing-search highs/lows as well as sobering news from potential schools for Mika, Dan thought it might be good for me to vent my spleen on the blog rather than continuing to bang my head against the brick walls of our apartment.  : )  Only kidding.  I ate lots of ice cream and pouted.  But even that cannot continue as the coping strategy of choice, so here I am.

First, the housing thing.  We have now seen upwards of 20 houses in the inner south and north areas of Canberra.  Initially, I was pro-North, but then we were placed into the inner south area upon our arrival due to housing shortages in the north.  Familiarity, good local shops, and effusive comments about the area school, Telopea Park, caused me to quickly tip to the south as our area of preference.  Even though housing prices run about $100/week more expensive "just for the address" as one of our property managers wryly observed.  I feel like a tree in a windstorm being whipped one way than another...realizing after several days that our choices were limited in the inner south with so much of the housing actually being really expensive "executive housing" or out and out apartments, neither end fitting with the lifestyle we envision for ourselves.  So we are back to broadening our focus on a wider housing area, which means more driving and readjustment of our future view.

Today's recap...

1:00pm:  We find out that one of the houses we applied for had already gone to contract because we were several hours too late posting ours.  Not that we wanted the house, really, but losing it made it the Holy Grail of homes.

2:00pm:   We get a call, saying we'd been approved for property #2 in the inner south!!  Yay!  Except, just like the saying goes, I suddenly had no desire to join a club that would accept me for membership.  We persuaded the property manager to give us another look at the property since they were all pretty much running together in my mind, and sure enough, it...just...didn't...suit.  Living area was small and bedrooms were, too.  But did we dare look fortune in the teeth and turn down an actual opportunity to be in a house?  And why in heaven's name had we applied in the first place?  Ever the embarrassed pessimist, I relied on Dan to look me in the eye and tell me that he felt lucky enough to walk away.  And so we did.

5:00 and 7:00pm we look at two other totally inappropriate properties (think microscopic, then frat house) and I am in despair thinking we blew our big chance.  Dan was able to take the long view and remind me that we've only been here a week and change, so not to worry.  At least we have a roof over our heads.  And our health, at least physically, right?

Second, the schooling thing.  I happened to run by the Telopea Park School on my morning jog, and thought I would just check to see if someone was home, so to speak, even though the website said that no one would be available til 2/4.  Sure enough, a kind admin opened the door to me and we had a lovely conversation about the possibility of Mika going to the school.  Of course there are many hurdles including clearance from the country's Department of Education, evidence of residence in the catchment area (our serviced apartment manager was going to print up something letterhead to that effect), an academic review of credentials, since Mika would either have to jump up or down a half year to accomodate the mismatched start date of Aussie versus US schools.  So yay!  Then I receive an email from the assistant principal saying that an address at a serviced apartment would NOT suffice as evidence of residence since it was usually a short-term situation.  Curses, my plan was spoilt!!  But what is a long-term home-less US family to do??  Now I was feeling really stupid for having turned down the opportunity to have signed the valuable long-term lease when I had the chance.

Of course we still have a whole week before the term starts and a bunch of new homes to examine.  Dan is good at reminding me of those facts when I start to get a little crazy and imagine home schooling Mika because we can't prove residency anywhere in Australia.  : )  Yes, I can get a little dramatic at times.  So, it is with these balanced thoughts that I sign off and hope you don't stop visiting our blog after this entry!

Happy Australia Day!

Australia Day? Who knew? We were also embarrassed to realize that not only did we not know the words to the Australian national anthem, but we could not even hum the tune. Oh, so much to learn!

Australia Day is the anniversary of the founding of the country, much like our Fourth of July (and weather is similar with temps today in the high 90s!). I asked people what happened on the day, and most shrugged and said that they were debating whether to stretch the holiday (which fell this year on a Wednesday) into a five-day holiday by taking Monday-Tuesday off, or going the other way and taking Thurs-Fri. Otherwise it is a day to barbeque with family and friends. Since we are in relative short supply of both at the moment, we looked to see if there were public shindigs going on and Canberra did not disappoint. The night before there was the announcement of the Australians of the Year followed by a concert featuring your favorite and mine (not!), the Wiggles!! Plus some other acts I had not heard of. We gave that a miss in favor of catching the Aussie Open on TV, but went in for the "Australia Day Breakfast" held in one of the many local parks. Sausage on bread (quite tasty, actually, more mild than brats which hit all the right notes at 8:15am) and a good assortment of fruit. That plus some instant coffee (plus a free edition of the Canberra Times for Dan) and we enjoyed sitting on a lawn listening to some city choir. Here are some pictures of the grilling efforts put on for the morning feed of several thousand folks who came out before 10:30am...

See all that bread??

Anyway, while we were in line for sassies, I believe they were called, we heard a lot of racket in the trees above us, which I initially assumed were birds, but when we looked up, to our collective amazement, there were multitudes of bats in the trees above our heads! No one else but us seemed surprized by this, so I guess chalk another "tourist" moment up to us ignorant Americans!!

After the morning at the park, we went for a bike ride around the city and stopped at yonder gelato shop for the first of many ice-creams we had promised Mika could have in honor of the holiday. Some wise people back in the US who have had kids with them in these big transitions said that creating family traditions was important. Upon consultation on what traditions she wanted to see while Down Under, Mika said she wanted an ice cream day, so for us, Australia Day will also be known by that name as well!! Anyway, in honor of the holiday, the local gelato shop actually manufactured Vegemite gelato, which of course everyone had to try, even though even Vegemite-loving Australians could be heard to mutter, "that's just WRONG." I will say, having tried the real deal, the ice cream was not awful (thanks, Vegemite, for lowering my expectations so far down!) but probably not worth an actual purchase.

Mika and I rounded out the day (did I mention how bloody hot it was? : ) I am a wimp in anything but dry heat, I guess!) with a dip in our local public pool. Very very family oriented here in Canberra with almost all families out and about with lots of kids. Compared to how pools are supervised in the US, it felt a little chaotic, but yet people--adults and kids alike--seemed to supervise themselves just fine. It was lovely to take a dip--even lovelier knowing that 2 weeks ago we were freezing our patooties off!

Cheers for now (and though it says the post was by Dan, I think most of you will recognise Kirsten's much less succinct style!!)...

P.S. Dan is loving the thai panang--self-satisfied evidence above!!

First Weekend in Canberra

First full weekend in Canberra complete. Yes, I realize its Tuesday. But the weekend was not officially over before QB #3 threw the final interception for the Bears approximately noon on Monday, which I had the pleasure (?) to watch live. Not likely to have too many more events like that. Other than that, had a pretty interesting weekend. Took in our first sporting events here, starting with the local women's professional basketball team on Friday night. Good game in a relatively low-key atmosphere, which meant that Mika was able to walk on the court with a number of other fans after the game to get autographs.

Saturday brought us our first cricket match on the field across the street. At least thats what we thought was going on when we left to go look at houses mid-morning. Confirmation came when we returned mid-afternoon and the same match was still going on (could have been a double-header, but I don't think they do that in cricket. At least not since the Geneva conventions were signed off on in '49).

Also, balloons. Big ones.

On the ground in Canberra

We are HERE!!  I have to say that leaving the Springs, I got on the plane in as close to a zombie state as I have ever been. Literally sleep-walked from CO Springs, to Denver, and to LA.  Before waking up just in time to realize that we were in Row 59 of a 747--so far from the front of the plane we were lucky to see food, much less Economy Plus seating!  : )  But we all pretty much slept most of that flight too, so not too bad.

What was weird (I should say what was *most* weird in that just moving to another country is weirdness in itself) was how shocked I was, over and over, when we finally actually touched down in Canberra.  Why I should be shocked was puzzling...what else have I been thinking of and planning for for lo, these many months??  Yet shocked I was to discover that we were relocating, not just vacationing, in this place.  And if I was shocked, Mika was stunned.  Poor kid was jetlagged and completely done in.  Sobbing at the apartment we were staying in, then intermittently tearing up at odd moments the rest of the day.  That kind of done in.  We forced her to stay awake until 8:00pm just to get her more on the Aussie time clock...but it was painful to watch her trying to hold it together.  A solid night's sleep appears to have helped us all but I still look back on that first day with interest.  Update--Mika seems better, but quiet.  We got to spend some time in the local science/tech museum which had scads of incredible hands-on exhibits including one in which you get to free-fall down onto a slide.  Safe, but scary as hell.  Mika thought it was very, very cool, so worth the price of admission!  I realize our mistake in her having too much free time (2+ weeks to go) without the structure of school.  We have to make it our mission to have fun while scrounging for places to stay at the same time.

We are staying in a 2-bedroom serviced apartment in the near south suburb of Kingston.  Right across the street from a fairly busy cricket pitch.  We are certainly not in Kansas anymore!  : )  We are walking distance from several sets of local shops, which is very cool.  Walked over there to get our local bank accounts going, and did our first grocery shop, too. Australia is a very meat-centered culture, I am discovering.  Note Dan's and Mika's exhibits--BIG sausages and "crispy bacon" for breakfast!!

Also they favor tea over coffee by a fairly large margin.  We shopped for a coffee maker a couple days ago, but did not pull the trigger yet, so still swilling the instant.  Bleck.  : )  Update:  Got the coffee maker, one of two types for sale in the Macy's like store they have here.  Of course electric teapots you can buy by the ton!  There is a massive mall right downtown that we have managed to get lost in twice since being here.  But they have a very good gelato place, so we are managing.  : )

Driving remains more of an adventure.  We have a rental car provided by my employer until such time as we can organize buying one.  It's one of those bigger SUV types, which unnerves me trying to figure out how much of the road to take up.  I feel so damned big!  I will be buying some little smart car to compensate, maybe.  I drove for the first time a few days ago, and of course between not figuring out how exactly to best use the rear-view mirror since everything was turned around, almost got us in a fender bender trying to merge at one point.  It's stressful enough that I was excited the idea of walking to a restaurant to eat!

I have been in touch with work, and starting ever so slightly to engage there.  I think it's guilt that up to now, all I have done is cause work for staff and money to be spent on my behalf.  It's time that I starting solving more problems than I am creating!  At some point, too, I should also have my own work-issued cell phone!  In the meantime, Skype is serving as our main mode of communication back to the US.

Right now, we are not located in our #1 priority school district for Mika, so the race is on to see if we can procure a rental there in time.  Otherwise, we will stay put inasmuch as our current digs are in the enrolment area of school #2 and thus narrow our search to this area.  We have looked at about 12 houses so far and really not seen anything that has wowwed us, or if they have, the price is high and pets are a no-no.  It seems that many of the homes on the cheaper end of the scale are simply too small to accomodate our furniture! Damn the decision to include that second couch on the container!  : (  I can see us having to spend a pretty penny just so we are not putting out major furniture pieces to the curb!  On the plus side, I really like many of the neighborhoods--everything has lots of trees and the streets meander around rather than feeling like you're in the grid system like too many CO Springs neighborhoods.  I am really, as mentioned, also enjoying the cosy neighborhood feeling where you can walk to the market, get a paper, or as I did this AM, go to the gym for spin class!  It literally was a 5 minute walk.

Anyway, that's the news for now.  Below is a pic of a kangaroo taken by Mika.  She is happy about that, but is still waiting for someone to walk up to and say the phrase, "shrimp on the barbie."  Given the term here is actually "prawns" I'm not seeing it happening any time soon!

  

Saying Goodbye to Colorado and Hello to Canberra!

Thanks to Michelle Farrell in particular and many of you in general, we are going to give this blog thing a try!!  While we have been in Oz now for several days, we'll first back up and start at the beginning.  Or the end, depending on your perspective!  : )

First, the going away party...made beautiful and memorable by our intrepid team of organizers, decorators, and guests.  That is to say, I had nothing to do with it!   Thanks to Mountain Light Company (aka our wonderful friends, the Fullers) for the lighting, and to Susan Clark, party planner and designer extraordinaire for her (and her family's!) tireless efforts to take our going away soiree from a lame boxed-wine/keg affair to a classy and truly memorable event!!  You will see no pictures after the prep ones because we were having too much fun catching up with friends from all walks of our Colorado Springs lives.  It was great to see you all, even if we didn't have much time to actually talk to you!

A special note of thanks to my dear friend Laura Larson who came out to visit, help pack, and generally make us laugh at a time when we could have easily cried and gnashed teeth.  It was also great to have out of town friends like Bill Pellico, the Putz family, and the Wrights come to see us off.  I must stop now or I will get too verklempt to continue!!

Soon thereafter, packing became less of an adventure and more of an absolute necessity as our international moving company showed up.  These guys meant business as they meticulously wrapped up everything in brown boxes and wrapping paper in prep for a container voyage to Australia.   They alertly  pre-marked anything that was staying behind with blue painter's tape, including me!

More to come now that we are on the ground in Canberra!  Bye for now...