Ramblings and random thoughts...

HOWDY!

I haven't blogged in a few weeks so I thought I would go ahead and try to blog even though I don't have any amazing pictures or anything really exciting to post. I just thought I would share some thoughts. Oh wait! I do have a picture....see below....

It is winter here in Oz and the tree in front of my house has bloomed...it is a poinsettia tree...yes! A TREE! They grow here all over the place! So, if you take that poinsettia plant that you get at Christmas time and plant it and take care of it, you too could have this tree. It is what poinsettia plants aspire to be!

We are now beginning the 2nd half of the school year. It is weird to be in July and be half way through school....heck, it is weird to be in school in July! We have been here 6 months now and the time has flown by. We feel settled and know our way around the area and feel at home in our environment. We have had a string of really rainy days lately and I have tried to send it to Texas, New Mexico, Arkansas and all the other drought ridden areas but I seem to have not been totally successful.

The winters here are really fairly mild, the temperature is in the mid 50's (F) most the time during the day and then it goes into the 40s at night. The only problem here is that most houses do not have central heat, so the temp outside is the same (if not colder) inside. We do at least have a heater/fireplace that keeps our living room nice and warm and we have space heaters for other rooms. It does make it really hard to get out of bed when the room temperature is in the 50s. Needless to say, we have lots of blankets on our beds!

We are getting better and better about understanding people here and only occasionally have to ask them what the heck they are talking about. For instance, the other day a friend of mine offered me something pronounced like noo-ga. Noo-ga, I ask? She looks at me like I am crazy and says it again and then points to the box. Oh, nougat! We mentioned to her that there is a 't' on the end of that word and she said that you don't pronounce it. I said "It's French, you do pronounce it!" then my clever husband asked her to pronounce the word 'fillet' as in a fillet Mignon and she of course said fill-et with a 't'...so then...nougat/fillet not t and a t? Hence the problem...speaking Aussie is really difficult because of this reason...I think they make it up as they go and then everyone Aussie just follows along! It is a tricky system, but one that we are learning.

We are adapting to some of the 'Aussie-isms' that we like. For instance, instead of saying 'thanks!', the Aussie's say 'Ta' as in la la la la la la la. I guess thanks was just too much effort so ta it is. We love it and say it all the time. In fact, Aaron has even started his own version of 'your welcome', he now says 'wa' instead. The Aussie's also welcome (and say goodbye to) close friends with a kiss on the cheek, I think that is lovely as well. A napkin is called a serviette and we say that so people know what we are asking for and if you try to tell someone you want your food 'to go' then they look at you like you are speaking another language so we are used to saying 'take away' instead. Sweatshirts here are called sloppy joe's, and we think that is really funny so we call them that all the time. It makes me picture someone wearing a sandwich with ground beef and sauce all over them. Sweaters are jumpers.

There are a few things over here that we really like, like Lemon Squash. It is similar to what Americans would call lemonade but it is made with carbonation and it is slightly more tart. Cheddar cheese here is called tasty cheese, and it is quite tasty and we buy it all the time...although I would love a good Monterrey Jack. Chocolate here is just plain better...its got more of the really good actual chocolate and cream and it is divine....divine. The yogart (spelled yoghurt here) is really nice, it is more of a Greek style and is creamy and yum...and pronounced yah-guhrt.

I drive around Oz pretty frequently now and am used to the whole other side of the road and other side of the car steering wheel thing. Cars here are smaller than in the US and you hardly ever see big trucks or SUVs...which they would call utes. Someone told me that they have a place in Australia like Texas, is it called Queensland, which is another state here in Oz so I will have to make a trip up to the Texas of Australia!

My studies are moving along and I feel like I am always learning and growing which is a lovely and sometimes painful experience as I realize I am not as good at some things as I had hoped! But, this life is a journey and this is a new and challenging one and I truly love it! Really, if you have thought about going back to school or if you feel like you are in a rut, I would encourage you to try to re-invent yourself and stretch yourself to try to learn something new. It can open up a whole new world (in my case...literally!) to you and really can be an amazing journey.

School starts at the uni (university) next week and I am teaching 3 sections of Tourism Marketing. Classes here are a little different than the U.S. system, so I am not the main lecturer but a sub-lecturer. We have a main lecturer who does just that, one big lecture that could have 100-800 students in the class, then they break that class into sections and I teach 3 of those sections which would have more student participation and grading and such. I am excited about teaching and looking forward to another new experience.

If I had to sum up my Aussie perception so far, I would say that the people are very friendly, the technology is mediocre, and the service is crap. Now, for my shops that are by my house, the service is just fine and friendly, but once you get into the malls, there is not much of a service component at all. There is also not as much efficiency here which I think is caused by the mediocre technology infrastructure. We joke that we live in about 1997 as far as technology is concerned and many of the Aussies agree, especially the techies. The government is working on passing a law to put broadband all across the country, but I am not sure I will see the fruits of that in the next few years. It is expensive to live here as well but you get used to it and just work around it. Many Aussies order from the UK or US because the selection is so much better and usually a better price even with the shipping costs. I think the quality of products is also much better because the selection is so great. In the US you might have 20 selections and here you might have 3.

With all that being said, it is truly a lovely place and the people are warm and friendly. I find that there is a very strong bond to culture here. In the US, it seems that people move there from other places and they try to fit into the American dream and become American, which is great and patriotic. Here, there is not as much patriotism, so the cultures seem to stay a little more close to their native culture which makes for a rich blend of wonderful people from all over the world. There are very strong cultural communities here and clubs and organizations that bond people by their culture. It is beautiful...and the food is fun to try too!

All in all, we still love it and have learned a lot about ourselves and others. We have also made some fabulous friends, who help us learn all these Aussie-isms and laugh as we try to figure out this thing we call life.

Hope you have a great one!

Heather