Settling In! :)

It's officially been six weeks since I've lived in Australia!  Sorry I haven't updated in so long- I definitely haven't forgotten about it, but I guess I've just been busy adjusting to my new life.

I've found the hardest question to answer (and the one I get asked most frequently), is if things are different here in Australia.  Of course, it's easy enough just to say yes.  Everything is different.  I'm on another continent, in another country, living in a new state, neighborhood, home, etc.  Everything about my day to day life is drastically different than it was six weeks ago.  Some of it is just different because I've moved, in general, though some of it is definitely unique to being in Australia.

For example, it took me about a week to figure out the money.  There are paper notes for the big bills ($5, $10, $20, $50, $100) but anything smaller than five dollars comes in coins, which was very confusing for me for a long time.  One dollar coins and two dollar coins (yes, $2 coins!!!!  What the hell?!) are both gold and the $1 coins are slightly bigger than the $2 ones.  Then, there are silver pieces for change under a dollar, like 50 cents, 20 cents, 10 cents and 5 cents.  There are no one cent pieces, or pennies.  Therefore, change is always rounded up to the nearest 5 cents.  That part seemed a lot more confusing until I actually started using money here; it is a lot nicer to not have a wallet full of pennies anymore.  The main confusing thing for me was differentiating the dollar coins.  But I've finally gotten it all down!

And yes, the money is all colorful and very thin...just like Monopoly money ;)

Another big change is the public transit system.  Of course, there's regular buses, but there's also a widespread train/subway system here.  Taking the train was very exciting for me at first, because other than taking trips into San Francisco and riding the BART, I've never been on a commuter train before!  I've always looked at trains and subways as a trademark of living in a big, exciting city...and well, I guess I finally do live in a big, exciting city.  There's something exciting about sitting on the upper level of the train, watching the towns pass by, stopping at platforms and seeing all the different people get on and off, listening to the pre-recorded announcer (with an Australian accent, no less) say what each stop is.  I have to admit, the thrill of being on a train has worn off a bit after spending hours going to different job interviews or into the city for something, but it's still fun sometimes ;)

There's also so many different cultures here.  In Eagle Vale, where we live, the neighborhood is primarily white, but there also seems to be a big Tongan community too, which reminds me of living in Sacramento (there were a lot of Tongan people there, for some reason).  When you go into Sydney, there's a bunch of tourists and the majority of them are Asian!  It's almost insane how many Chinese and Japanese people there are in downtown Sydney...I literally felt like I was in Toyko, instead of Sydney, for the first couple of days that Phil and I spent downtown.  One evening, Phil and I went to dinner in a suburb called Parramatta and that was the most culturally diverse place I've been yet.  There were white people, Indian people, Pacific Islanders, Africans, Asians...basically any sort of culture you could think of was there.  It was a really cool and exciting district of town for me, plus there were tons of ethnic food places that I'd love to go back and try.

During our first days in the city, we ventured out to another suburb called Darlinghurst.  Phil wasn't too familiar with where we were, but I instantly noticed the gay pride flags they had hanging on the light posts, and all of a sudden we were surrounded by sex shops and gay bars.  It was funny how fast we went from being in the CBD (Central Business District- that's the area of downtown Sydney where all the businesses are), to being in Darlinghurst.  I loved it, though!  There were so many different kinds of people and Sydney seems like a very LGBT-friendly place; I saw two men openly kissing on the sidewalk, and realized I was the only one staring.  I wasn't staring because I was offended or had never seen two men kissing before- I was just surprised that they felt so free to be open in public and that no one else seemed to notice or care.  It made my heart happy :)

Phil and I actually went to this bar near Darlinghurst when we were in the city.  There's nothing really "Nevadan" about it besides the name, but it was still cool :)

Circular Quay is the area where Phil and I went to the Opera House and saw the Harbour Bridge. Two weekends ago we went to the Taronga Zoo (more on that in a bit), and we took a ferry from Circular Quay. I realized that it was the first time I had been there on a weekend and I was amazed by the fact that there were so many people there!  Maybe it's because I've spent the majority of my life living in Reno, where it's not particularly overcrowded, I don't know, but I was slightly overwhelmed by how many people were just out and about in the Quay on a Sunday morning.  I can't even tell you if they were tourists or citizens or what, but there was just this massive crowd that took up the entire stretch where the ferries were.  Even when I've gone to theme parks, I haven't been in a crowd of people that large! And no one else seemed surprised by it or even took notice of it; I definitely felt like a "small town girl" in that moment.

The best thing about all the different people I've encountered since I've been here, however, is that they all love my accent!  I've had so many people in stores (and even when I went to the bank!) comment on my accent, which is just hilarious to me.  I mean, first of all, I don't really like the sound of my own voice and second of all, it's just ironic to hear someone with a sexy Australian accent swooning over my boring, American one.  Most Australians correctly guess that I'm from California, and I guess I do still have a "Californian" accent, since I spent the other half of my life there.  Though I have had a few people incorrectly guess that I'm Canadian, which is just insulting ;)

I hope I'm never driving and come across one of these signs!

Crossing the street is still utterly confusing for me.  You have no idea how hard it is to retrain yourself to look the opposite way when you cross the street.  And I can't even think about driving anytime soon; even though Phil's mum offered to take me out in her car, I want nothing to do with it...the whole driving on the opposite side of the road, in a different side of the car is just so frightening to me.  The first few days that Robyn (Phil's mum) drove me around, I thought I was going to die- not because she's a bad driver, but because I constantly thought people were on the wrong side of the road and it always felt like we were going to get into a head-on collision   I've definitely gotten over that, but I just think it would be hard to retrain myself to drive differently and remember to turn left instead of right.  Oh, and roundabouts look like death traps here- I mean, you'd never stay to the LEFT in a roundabout in the States.  SO confusing.

I know everyone wants to know about the food here.  Well, first of all, Vegemite isn't that great.  I can't say that it's "disgusting", as many of my American friends whom have traveled to Australia have said, but it's definitely not something I'm too eager to try again.  It's a thick, brown, spread that you can use on bread (think along the lines of butter) and it tastes EXTREMELY salty.  I've only ever tried it once, with the Vegemite spread on top of butter on a piece of toast, and the salty taste just threw me off.  Phil has his Vegemite with cheese, which might be a bit better; at least, I hope the cheese would soak up some of the saltiness.  But I'm not jumping to try it again, either.

I've had an "Aussie" burger now, and I can say that it's disgusting.  Actually, I'm not sure if what I had counts as a real Australian burger; I did buy it at McDonalds and the meat was lamb (which is a common meat in Australia and I officially hate the taste and smell of lamb), but it did have the traditional Australian toppings of fried egg and beetroot.  The idea of having an egg and beets (which are in a jellied form and sliced- it actually looks like the cranberry sauce you can buy in the can at Thanksgiving) was already a turn off but eating them together on a bun, with meat was probably the most disgusting thing I've ever experienced.  Not only did I throw my lamb burger away, I also felt like I had to throw up afterwards and every time I see a commercial for it, I feel nauseous again.

These are mini-meat pies we got at a place called Pie Face.

There's a lot of "American" food chains here, besides McDonalds, though.  Last night we had KFC for dinner.  On Wednesday, Phil and I are going to Sizzler for dinner.  There's Hooters here, Pizza Hut, Subway, and funnily enough, even Outback Steakhouse.  There's also Burger King, though here it's under the name Hungry Jack's.

Mostly, I've gathered that Australian's really like meat pies.  I was really scared of meat pies before I had one, because for some reason, I thought a meat pie was, well...a fruit pie also filled with meat, but they're not. A meat pie is basically just like an American pot pie, just with a flakier/thicker pastry covering it and with a heartier filling.  You can get all sort of meat pies with a bunch of different kind of fillings and I haven't had one I don't like so far.

Besides meat pies, I've seen a bunch of pizza places, chicken restaurants and a ton of sushi joints, but one thing I've noticed that Australia lacks is mexican food!  I'm dying for a Super Burrito or a just a regular chicken taco.  And I never thought I would, but out of all the American fast food places, I really, really miss Jack in the Box.  I even crave a burger from In-N-Out from time to time.  At least McDonalds tastes exactly the same here as it does in the States; well, besides the lamb burger, that is ;)

Even the birds here sound different!  When I wake up in the morning, I'm always greeted to the sounds of at least five different birds chirping and it always makes me think I'm waking up in the rainforest or something.  It's really odd how different the birds sound; Magpies and Cockatoos sound nothing like Bluejays or whatever American birds I was used to hearing outside my apartment in the morning.

Cockatoos are pretty cool looking, I'll give them that- but they are so loud!

Besides those things, I've just been adjusting to regular life stuff.  Moving, no matter where I went, would be a big change just in the fact that I'm somewhere different, living a different life.  My life in Reno wasn't perfect and it wasn't what I wanted, but the one thing I lament about leaving now is that my life before was comfortable.  Which was something I hated at the time, but now I miss the comfort of going to my same job every day and coming back to my same apartment every night and seeing my same friends on my same days off.

I am finding a routine here, that's for sure, but it's taken time for me to get used to it.  I'm not as homesick as I was at first- the first few weeks I was here, I would break down and cry when I thought about my friends at home or my family, because I missed them so much.  I think I still miss everyone just as much now, but it's become more of a dull ache, rather than something that makes me cry.  And I had my first international call today when I randomly decided to just call my cousin and chat with her for an hour.  It was wonderful to hear her voice and now I know that it's not too expensive or too hard to call home when I need to hear someone familiar :)

Finding a job has been an unexpected hassle.  I think, since I've started looking for jobs about 4 weeks ago, I've applied for over 200 jobs and I still haven't found one.  I've had several interviews and callbacks, but the majority of jobs are either too far away by train, or I just didn't get the job after interviewing.  And then there's probably the 175 jobs or whatever that didn't even bother to contact me at all.  The thing about the job market here is that there are plenty of jobs to apply for, but there's also probably 20 other people applying for the same job that I am and they are more qualified than I am, or live closer to the job, or aren't here on a temporary Visa like I am.  Hopefully something will turn up soon, though.

I have admittedly been pretty depressed about my job hunt- it's just hard for me to be so idle for so long.  I haven't been unemployed since I was 16 and even then, I worked during the summers and I still had highschool, of course.  I have now been unemployed for two months, and even though I've found time to finish reading a stack of books and play the Sims 3 a lot, it's just hard to not have productive things to do and it's hard not having my own  income.  I think the longest vacation I've had in 9 years was for three weeks and that was when I had my tonsils out, so it wasn't really vacation.  And then, I took two weeks when Phil came to visit me last December, but neither of us was working, so it was just fun.

Living with Phil is honestly the best and easiest part of being in Australia, which is great, since that's what I came here for.  It is almost exactly the same as it was when he came to visit, except now he goes to work all day and now we have his son, Lucas, on the weekends.  I think having a child around on the weekend is the only big adjustment to us living together for me.  Lucas is completely adorable (he's only 2!) and he loves for me to tickle him and play with him, which is great.  But it has been really hard to switch over from living alone in my apartment to now having a toddler around every weekend and waking up in the middle of the night when he cries and all that stuff.  I'm know it's something I'll get used to...I guess it's just that when I worked with kids, they always went home at the end of the day, and now I'm on the other side of that ;)

Phil and I have been having a lot of fun being together, though and doing all the "normal" things we've waited 14 months to do.  We've finished a TV series (Joss Whedon's Dollhouse- great show, I definitely recommend it!) and are currently alternating between watching Quantum Leap (my first time watching it) and Lost (a rewatch for both of us, as it was the show that basically first bonded us :)).  We've been able to have a date night each week and we're starting to reserve one weekend a month to ourselves to do something fun.

Baby kangaroo! :)

Two weekends ago, we went to Taronga Zoo in Sydney, and I got to see my first kangaroo! Yes, unfortunately I didn't see a kangaroo until I'd gone to the zoo, but it was still exciting to finally see one.  I also got to see some koalas (which I fell in love with!), and a bunch of other cool Australian animals, like the Tasmanian Devil and the wombat.  The Zoo was really big and there was lots to see and do, and it was a lot of fun.  I was kinda sad, because we had just missed the Koala Experience, where you get to hold and pet a koala, but Phil said we'd go back another time so I can do it :)



At the end of the month, Phil and I are going away for the weekend to the Blue Mountains, which is a gorgeous mountain range about an hour away from Sydney.  I've heard it's comparable to the Grand Canyon, so I'm pretty excited to see the mountains and spend the weekend out of the city with Phil :)

It's definitely been great for us to finally BE together and know that we don't have to say goodbye to each other at the end of it.  Thinking of the fact that I'll (hopefully) never have to say goodbye to Phil at the airport again always makes me smile.  This is just the beginning of our lives together and that's probably one of the most amazing feelings in the world.  When I focus on that, instead of the fact that I don't have a job yet or that I'm still having a hard time some days with missing people and adjusting, I'm reminded that I'm so happy to be here and once things finish settling, it'll absolutely be worth it.