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!