Settling In

Ever since my arrival it seems that everyone wants to know if I am "settling in."  My response has been a consistent yes, but I always sort of wondered what exactly they meant. I think that now, three months after my arrival I am finally starting to understand what they mean, and I am not sure that I like it.

Settling in has meant many things.  The first of which seems to be finding a house, and getting everything unpacked to a place where it gets to stay.  My suitcases are hidden away, and I have stuff in cupboards and shelves around the house.  Although my bed is incredibly uncomfortable, it is still a home, and more than that, it is my home.

Settling in has meant major purchases in this country.  The first of those has been a bike, followed by a car, and hopefully shortly a lawn mower. Some of the little things signify settling in too.  Such as needing to buy toothpaste here.  When you go on vacation, you take it with you.  You don't buy nail clippers because you don't have time to both loose the ones you brought and have your nails grow long enough that you need to purchase new ones.

Settling in  has involved getting involved with activities outside of work.  When people take 6 months trip for a mission trip or whatever, they go for a purpose, a task and that is what they do.  Here, I have come to work in a church, but because I am here for so long I have become involved with a Rotary Group, which I am now Vice-President, a Tennis League, and am hoping to join the Bridge Club. I am setting up a life.

Settling in means having to host people for meals and parties.  I know this seems like an odd thing to say, but in my first month or so here, I received many invitations to meals and BBQ's, which was wonderful.  Now that I am "settled in" I get to invite people my direction.  My home.  What's more, I actually have people to invite.  I have 10 people coming over for a Cinco De Mayo party on Saturday, not only am I hosting, I have a circle of people to host!

Settling in has also meant making commitments here in Australia. As I realize that I am going to be here for a while, I can't just stall my life; I have to live my life like I would anywhere else, and part of that includes commitments and attachments.  The most significant of these commitments is that I have made in starting to date Marc here.  It means if I just run off, someone might just care.

Settling in has been great.  It has given me routine.  It has helped me to feel like I am on my feet again.  I feel like I have found a part of me, that I didn't even know I had lost while in Tacoma.  I have found an energy and a happiness, that I realize now was most certainly gone.

Settling in here is also one of the scariest things I have ever done.  It means I am starting a life, a full and happy one, somewhere very far away from home. Far away from friends and family who mean the world to me.  From the people who have supported my life and made it even possible for me to have to confidence to step out on this adventure.  It makes me homesick in a way I have never been before.

So for those friends and family reading this, when I say I miss you, I really do mean it.  Even with all the adventures and great things here, even if I stay here for a while, know that I couldn't be here without you.  Without your support you've given me to help me be the person I am today, and without the constant support while I am here I couldn't settle in.  So keep calling, keep sending mail, emailing and posting on my facebook, I sure do appreciate it!

A Few of my Favourite Things

First off, Tim Tams.  These are a cookie, or as the Aussies would say, a biscuit like an Oreo on chocolate crack.  It is two chocolate biscuits with a chocolate filling in between, and then dipped in chocolate.  They are so amazing.

A close second in the chocolate world is Cadbury Marbled chocolate.  This is a mix of milk and white chocolate marbled together, with a hazel nut praline filling, which is fabulously soft, but not creamy.

I have also found a new soda to enjoy.  It has a variety of names, but it is sort of like carbonated lemonade.  Sadly it doesn’t have caffeine and does have calories, unlike the must missed diet Pepsi, but it is still quite enjoyable.

Meat pies it turns out are also amazing.  They have a million types, but I am a traditional girl and like the beef pies.  They are pretty much beef and gravy in a pie shell.  They make a great, and cheap, lunch when you forget yours at home.

I have also discovered a love of roasted sweet potatoes.  Now I can’t say whether this is a pallet change, or if the Australian sweet potatoes are better.  I do know that I have not developed a love roasted pumpkin, it still grosses me out.

Along the non-food lines, the weather here is unbelievably beautiful.  We are now in what is considered fall, which means 80 to 85 degree sunny and not so humid days.  This is the type of weather where you feel like a part of your soul might be dying as you sit inside, and then you remember there are several months of it to follow, and you realize that this might just be paradise.

Also the hats here are fabulous.  Everyone has a hat!  I need to get a hat, preferably pink with some sort of kangaroo on it.

I have a new Australian TV show addiction.  It’s called Dance Academy, and it is a really overly dramatic soap opera about a group of 18ish year olds studying to be professional dancers.  It is on every day too!  What’s not to love?

BBQ’s.  I have been to 4 BBQ’s since last Thursday.  The Australians, being the social beings they are, just invite people over, or to the beach and you all bring your own food, and just hang out with people while you eat.

The people here have been so warm and accepting. It helps everything be more of the glorious sort of adventure, and less like the movie Behind Enemy lines. J

Exceeding the posted limit

In Australia most roads have a speed limit of 60 or 80 KPH, at least around town.  They also have speed cameras.  If you get caught by one of these cameras going 1 kilometer about the speed limit, they post you a ticket.  Don’t worry I have not received one of these (even with my new zoom-zoom Mazda 2).  So then you may ask why am I telling you about speed cameras?  Well, I am irritated that these cameras leave no room for human error; they have no margin and no human compassion or mercy.  What happens if they put one on the bottom of a hill, or you get distracted for just a second?  There is no person to whom you can explain your mistake you are just punished. I don’t think this would usually be so striking to me, but having just moved countries, and switched jobs I have made a lot of mistakes, and I am so thankful for the mercy that I have received. 

For instance, a few weeks ago I moved out of my host home.  I loved staying with my host family, but I felt it was time to move out so that I could start what will be my normal life.  So I found a house share situation and I moved.  2 days after I moved in, one of the two housemates moved out, leaving me with one housemate who was never there.  In the two weeks I lived there, I saw him once.  Now when you consider the fact that there was no pre existing relationship, it just made the house seem empty, but not empty enough where I felt like it was mine, and that I had free reign of the place. So I moved out.  I appreciated that he understood that it was not a good place for me, and that Leah, my new housemate, kept faith that I wouldn’t do the same thing to her. Now I am living in a house that I love, with a housemate whom I consider to be a friend.  I am close to work and I am in town, so I am close to everything I need. In moments like these I am thankful for mercy and the chance to fix my mistakes. 

I also can’t help but wonder if there is some sort of speed limit on life. In the last month I have moved twice, bought a bicycle, and a car.  In the past 2 months I have started a new job and moved countries.  Yet somehow I feel like I have been here forever.  I feel like it has been ages since I have seen my friends and family, and I miss them terribly.  A part of me feels like I am home, and another part feels like home is a million miles away.  I feel like there have been so many changes in my life, and like my feet aren’t really grounded anywhere.  I can’t help but wonder if it is possible to move too quickly, and to violate some sort of internal speed limit, I can’t help but wonder if I can go to fast and accidently run into a wall.  Sometimes when I wake up it feels like I have, like my system can’t handle another emotion, but my engine still seems to run and get me through.

I was running errands the other day, and I took the scenic route home.  Literally the street is named something or another scenic drive.  As a drove, I wondered what it would mean to take the scenic drive in life.  I think that many Australians have mastered that.  There is just a different pace to life here.  It is really hard to try and explain. It is not that everyone is late for things, or that things don’t happen in an efficient manner.  It is just that people seem to go about life differently.  They are early to bed and early to rise.  Most of the shops close at noon on Saturday until Monday morning. Things just move differently. Some people say it is the weather, some the sea air, and others say it is just because Bundy is a country town.  I like the pace they have set here, and I hop that I am making sure to slow down and enjoy the experience, not going so fast as to miss out.