JAYMAC

Hi,

We have now been here over 6 months and I have been updating our website for our family and friends, decided to copy some of the info into B Expats as I know how much I used to enjoy reading other peoples posts while I was waiting for the visa. (Be warned ... its a long one!)

JUNE UPDATE

NEW HOUSE
Well what a busy couple of months we have had. We got our house on 3rd May at lunchtime and decided to arrange to move straight in that afternoon. First mistake was underestimating the amount of time it would take and the cost!! In hindsight we should have moved a lot of the smaller stuff ourselves as in the end the removal men were on the move from 3.30 in the afternoon until around 10 that night. Needless to say we had to keep the kids off school the next day as they didn’t have a bed to sleep in until way past their bedtime. Overall cost – over $700.

Have to point out that buying and selling here is really simple, you sign a contract when your offer is accepted, and this is subject to conditions such as finance approval, building and pest inspections. You usually have 7 – 14 days to sort that out then the contract is unconditional. The whole contract length is typically 30 days…’too easy’ as they say over here.

We have settled in really well, have now got about 80% of the stuff we need in the way of furniture and bits and pieces.

We feel really comfortable in the house and have ordered the pool as first priority (typically English thing to do I think). The work has started and should be getting filled in around 4 weeks.

We have also put some seeds out for the birds as we had seen a couple of lorikeets in the area. We now have lots of them as regular visitors which is great and we have taken some photos of them for the website.

We now have ADSL for the internet so the plan was that I would update the website more regularly however, little things like kids and work get in the way. I will try to update the site a bit more in the future though.

WORK
Hubby has always enjoyed his job (not so much the early starts) and everything is still going well for him there. I had dreams of semi-retirement, however the pay here is pretty crap so that is a no go, unfortunately I have to work. If Tony is reading this (I am nly joking!) I applied for a job through an agency and I am still there, although I am just about to go on the books as permanent staff and will be working around 20 – 25 hours per week with Fridays off which is exactly what I wanted.

KIDS
Kids are still doing well and enjoy school and just generally messing around. They do little jobs around the house and get pocket money for it every week so they do look forward to their shopping trips when they get to spend their money. Its amazing how much stuff our Nicola picks up for 10 bucks (she must take after her mother … an eye for a bargain!). Nicola has also joined a local soccer club and plays for the under 14 girls, she is still learning but is getting more confident.

TEMPERATURE
Got a bit of a shock as to how cold it can get here early in the morning and at night times. The first footy..sorry soccer match that we went to it was absolutely freezing. People were sitting in chairs (which they had brought themselves) with blankets around them and woolly hats on. I found out why they brought their own chairs when I sat down on one of the metal benches and froze my a**e off. Then again during the day it can still get really hot in the sun. We went to Sea World on the bank holiday and I felt like I was burning when I was watching the ski show. I have been told that the temperature this year is unusually low (someone said about 9 degrees below what it normally is) and as it was unusually hot when we arrived I guess we are seeing the extremes.

My only regret??? I didn’t bring my bloody boots as I didn’t think I would need them (laughs out load). After considering all options (shipping.. bribing friend to bring them) I did the only sensible thing and went out and bought two new pairs. Anyway to anyone considering emigrating one piece of advice is bring EVERYTHING. I left quite a lot of woolly stuff and gave a lot away however have had to buy a lot of stuff here to keep warm during the day as it is freezing in the office.

BIG BROTHER AUSTRALIA
Nicola and I were offered a couple of tickets for the grass seats at the back of the Big Brother studio for the live evictions last week. Now Big Brother here is a lot better than the UK one in my opinion. It is not all about smut and swearing and not being able to understand what people are saying for bleeping. Here they have a daily show six days per week, including a two hour eviction special and a two hour Friday night games special. The kids and I have got right into it as it is much more family orientated. If you look at the pictures of our house you will see we have two sofas, the red one is now known as ‘The Big Brother Room’ because Tony isn’t too keen on it so me and the kids sit in there out of the way and watch it.

A friend of ours won the tickets and gave them to us and although I didn’t think we would see much from the back I thought our Nic would love to be able to say she had been there. Anyway the studio was great – you could see really clearly from the back and then I noticed they were filling up the proper seats in front. I heard the guy ask for two people and me and our Nic shot our hands up and got moved. How lucky was that we were like a couple of kids (well me anyway). We had a great time and it was good to see the people and presenters that we see on TV every night. We got right into it, shouting and clapping and standing on the chairs..hope to be able to go again if we can and possibly take our Jonathan as he would love it too.

Big Brother is based at Dreamworld which is only 5 minutes away so we got home only 10 minutes after it finished.



MY OZZIE OBSERVATIONS (things I didn’t expect and hadn’t thought about before I came)

SWEETS/CHOCOLATE – Had to make this priority as I am a well know chocaholic. I had heard that chocolate isn’t as good here and have to say Tony’s family were a bit disappointed that we didn’t arrive armed with lots of licorice allsorts and Dairy Milk. Unfortunately we were more concerned with minor things like documents, clothes, towels and essentials (those of you who have ever emigrated know what I mean).

Well at first I thought, great .. the chocolate is crap here I will lose loads of weight. Doesn’t really work like that, the M & Ms are the same, Turkish Delights are nice, there are nice chocolate bars out there, believe me after sampling many I know so that theory is out of the window. The only difference is that the chocolate in my opinion is a lot more expensive here.

FOODSTUFFS – Definitely not as much competition out here, no big supermarket chains fighting for business so stuff isn’t as varied and not as much convenience foods and ready made meals. This isn’t really a problem, I find the meat and poultry reasonable so buy lots of chicken, beef etc. SAUSAGES - don’t even go there, considering how many snags’ they throw on the Barbie here, haven’t found a good sausage yet and still looking.
We have tried a few different veggies and regularly have roast Sweet Potato which I hadn’t had before. I used to love Parsnips but now would have to take out a bank loan for a packet so haven’t had them since we arrived.

INSECTS – If I had worried about anything before I came here it would have been insects. There are insects here, but they don’t jump out of every crack and crevice like you are led to believe( thank you mam!). We have had a couple of spiders and a few ants and a fair few cockroaches but you just deal with them (its no big deal).

AUTOMATIC CARS – Never driven an automatic before but most cars here aren’t manual. How easy is it to drive an automatic!! Wouldn’t want to go back to manual now.

DRIVE THROUGH BOTTLE SHOPS
What is that I hear you ask. Well over here you cant buy alcohol in supermarkets (bummer) so have to go into an off licence or you can drive through and ask for what you want and they stick it in the boot. Its funny but the first time me and Tony did it we were a bit nervous (should be part of an idiots guide to emigrating which should be issued at airport).

We were quite proud of ourselves when we drove away with a few beers and a bottle of wine. We have since found the following:-

ALCOPOPS – REALLY EXPENSIVE
CARTON OF STUBBIES – This is a box of 24/30 glass bottles of beer
CASK OF WINE – My favourite, you can get 2,3,4, or 5 litres of wine in a box for the fridge and pay from only $9 ( I am in heaven, yes it is cheap crap but who cares)

FLYBUYS When you go shopping almost every large shop such as Coles, K-Mart, Target ask you if you have flybuys? We didn’t have a clue what they were but it is just a points scheme like you get in Tescos. So I have got my flybuys card now but keep forgetting to use it!

CHEQUE/SAVINGS We struggled in the beginning actually using our cards in Australia because we were being asked if it was a cheque or a savings account. We assumed it was cheque as it was like a current account but no …. Here that is known as savings. All of these things you don’t know and it is embarrassing when you are at the checkout somewhere and you can’t get your card to work.

MOTORWAY DRIVING – I drive for about 20 minutes each way to get to work and back and find it really easy here. The road I use has four lanes and you can generally drive in any of the first 3 lanes with the 4th mainly used for overtaking. This means you can literally be undertaking people on these lanes. For me the roads flow and I don’t usually have to brake very much, you can cruise along at the right speed. There are LOADS of traffic police on the motorway and they park in the same places and are there about 70% of the time so my advice is stick to the limit because you are bound to get caught if you don’t.

BREATH TEST - Within a couple of months here both Tony and I have been breath tested. They are strict on it but they park in the same place which is a bit pointless because anyone who does drink will just avoid those roads. I think that a lot of people here have a very lax attitude to drink driving and everyone knows that you can have something like 2 beers in the first hour then one every hour after??? It seems people take it to the limit or over.

HOUSE PURCHASE – Have to point out that buying and selling here is really simple, you sign a contract when your offer is accepted, and this is subject to conditions such as finance approval, building and pest inspections. You usually have 7 – 14 days to sort that out then the contract is unconditional. The whole contract length is typically 30 days…’too easy’ as they say over here.

DOCTORS/DENTISTS – Haven’t really got to grips with medical stuff yet. We are entitled to Medicare, and have registered with a bulk billing doctor which means we don’t have to pay anything when we go (just the usual prescriptions). But the dentist is a mystery so far, apparently the school has a dentist which visits once a year and does minor work but other than that you have to pay for dental work including kids and this can be expensive.

EARLY NIGHTS – It gets dark really early here especially in winter and the general thing is for people to get up early and go to bed early. We have also slipped into this routine as Tony gets up really early and some nights we are ready for bed before the kids.


Thats all for now, things are still going well, and we are expecting our first visitors in 3 weeks.

Julia

sunbather

Well written Julia. Thanks for taking the time, it made very good reading.

geordie mandy

What a brill post thank you very much.
Mandy

LesleyM

great post Julia. We are finding out about the same as you. Good to know that you have settled. Enjoy your new life.
Lesleym

Mrs JFW

Excellent post Julia! I really enjoyed reading it! Thank you!

jackie x

stacey and jordan

Wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Really enjoyed your thread and found it to be very positive.

Stacey xx

loz

Great post with some useful info in. We have just sent our passports off for evidencing and are reading all the post by people who have just arrived or have been there a short while to pick up any tips.
Glad you are enjoying your new life......long may it continue

Loz x

Issie

Excellent post ....very useful information, Well deserved Karma being sent

cinderella

Fantastic post, thanks.
Just a question, do FLYBUY points buy free flights like Airmiles?

speissi

Hello Julia,
First of all, nice post.
You had me really laughing at this one! I can sooo relate to this statement.

I'm not usually posting here that often, however I'm a regular quiet reader. I have been here in Oz/Sydney nearly 2 years , but I still find it hard to get it into my head, why it has to be that freezing cold in the office.

Mind you, I'm coming from a country/area, where I was pretty used to cold temperatures, but firstly, that was in winter and secondly, outside and not inside, where it should be just nice!!!

Anyway, I'll second that - if anyone considers to part with their warm 'wintergear', have second thoughts and bring at least some of the stuff over, it's invaluable at times.

Enjoy your life out here and all the best to you!
Sonja

curly

Great post thanks for taking the time, it's really good to hear from someone so positive.

N

hedgehog

Hi Julia
Well written post. The more I read about Oz the more I think WHY am I going?????. Dark nights, everything seems more expensive, no one earns as much money. Dentists expensive. Chocolate not the same and expensive, vegetables expensive, Alcopops expensive, and that old favourite insects. Ive got excess baggage quoting me in half an hour I might just say don't bother we're staying here. Other posts have said 20 days holidays what a nightmare

TeresaG

What a brilliant post. Thank you.

mark 'n' joe

Great post thanks for the info and taking the time to write it. Always love to hear how people are getting on on the other side (so to speak)

All the best

Joex

mindblower

[QUOTE=JAYMAC]Hi,

Excellent post, thanks for that.