Expat musings #2

So we got to the house we had been provided with and all fell into a deep and dreamless sleep. (Twenty-four hours of screaming had at least tired out #4.) I imagine that my fellow passengers had arrived at their chosen destinations with stories to tell of screaming babies and bad parents to keep them busy at dinner parties for months.

When I woke up it was even hotter. Well I thought I better ring "home" and let them know we have arrived. I had no idea what time it was where I was, never back in the UK. ( Slight hiccup in the watch adjustment department.)

I picked up the phone and there was a silence, followed by a strange whirring noise. Apparently this is the dial tone in Australia, a sort of pregnant pause that you just feel you have to say " Hello, hello?" into, followed by a noise that sounds like the phone is broken. Seven years and I still get confused with the noises that issue from the phone. There seems to be no consistency with the noises, you just sort of dial and hope.

After several attempts, double checking with the phone book, waking a small child to see if he could work it out, and accosting a stranger in the street..

"Excuse me, yes you,... excuse me can you come and tell me if the phone is working? and how to dial it? ...Please? "

The poor man must have thought we some sort of care in the community refugees, but it goes to show that Orstaaaalins are basically friendly people. He was a great help, although he did keep his distance from us, and it gave my mother a bit of a turn when a complete stranger rang her and in an Australian accent said " G'day, yuritethere? earsyurgirl. " ( hello, how are you, here's your daughter). We didn't even offer him a drink, what with the getting of a plane and sleeping thing we didn't even know if the taps worked... can you drink the water?

In retrospect I was wearing clothes I had had on for two days, more or less, and had been asleep for eight hours, I must have looked pretty scary; and that was before Homer (a very large man) appeared (loomed?) behind him in a state of semi undress. MMM he probably thought he had been lured into an axe murderers den. We haven't seen him since, well not if he saw us first.

First thing my mother said, " Have you any idea what time it is here!". Well actually no, I don't know what day or time it is here, never mind what time it is there.

So I told her about the croc at the airport, with a quick aside into "They call that an INTERNATIONAL airport."

Next tasks, transport, money and food!

Musings on being an expat

I just realised that is now seven years since we arrived in Oz, and it got me pondering on how we've done with our big move.

The flight here was a traumatic experience, twenty-four hours on a plane with four children, at the time aged 10, 7, 2 and 1 was NOT FUN. We arrived in the middle of the night expecting fairly similar temperatures to the UK, after all summer there, winter here? Right? No, wrong, so wrong. It was like being hit around the head with a warm wet towel, and it was 3am, it was as low as the temperature was going to get.

This was followed by a wild taxi ride to a rented house. (I left all the travellers cheques and passports in the taxi, having travelled exactly half way around the world I lost them when I arrived- the taxi driver actually came back to the house and returned them--wow! what a great country-honest taxi drivers.)

The taxi driver took great delight in telling us, much to our dismay, about the croc he had nearly run over the previous week at the airport. We have since found out that this is a fairly regular occurence at the airport. You may survive the crash landing, but then you have to avoid the crocs waiting at the end of the runway.

We have acclimatised fully to the weather now though, and as I sit here typing I am freezing, wrapped in winter woollies with only my nose showing. We can spot the tourists very easily at this time of year. They are the ones wearing micro dresses and shorts while the locals are wrapped in ugg boots, scarves and duffel coats.

When we first went to a shopping centre after arriving we stared in amazement at the offerings of thick jumpers, coats and scarves, " Who buys these things?" we asked each other. Its so hot! The answer, we do.