So, it’s been an inexcusably long period since our last blog post….it turns out that all that free time I thought I’d have after finishing grad school has not yet materialized. At this point, I’m relatively certain it never will! I’ve been sick the past few days (working in a school will do that to you), and since I’m not up for much more than the occasional trip between the couch and the bed – now seems like a perfect time to update our blog.
So, a lot of everything and nothing has transpired since our last update…part of the reason we haven’t updated. It turns out that one of the inglorious things about living and working in another country is the “working” part. It’s a fantastic opportunity to see the world, experience other cultures, see what there is to see….when you’re not working. Since I work long hours most days, our weekdays usually consist of me working while Lucas and Avery find various things to do with their day. Then we eat dinner and go to bed….much like our lives could be anywhere. It’s one of the things that has taken some getting used to because I don’t think we considered how mundane life could be in a foreign country – because the idea of living in a “foreign country” seems so romantic, adventurous, etc. But in fact, during the work week, it’s business as usual…except for the part where when we get home at the end of the day, all of our friends and family are still on the other side of the world. So, we’ve been missing our family and friends a lot lately – especially as it has been difficult for us to meet people here so far. We have realized (as hindsight is always 20/20) how much we (unintentionally) took for granted all the friendships and support systems we had in place in Nashville and in PA. It definitely has us thinking pretty hard about what our next steps will be when it comes time to move on from here.
Another thing we really miss about home, as silly as it may be, is just knowing our way around, where to eat, where to shop, etc. Of course, we know our way around Washington, PA – as that is where we both grew up and most of our family lives. We definitely miss our families, and for that reason and many others, Washington will always be home #1. But we also spent 6+ years in Nashville, and somehow, someway – despite our best efforts to deny it – it became our home as well. I never thought I’d say that, as Nashville was a place that really REALLY had to grow on me…but grow on me it did. There is something to be said for striking out on your own and then turning a new place into your second home…it sort of feels like something that is yours and something that you find comfort in a different way than home #1. We reminisce about all the places we love to go in Nashville, all the places we miss eating at (especially since we have yet to find a place we really love here…and in fact, with the strange business hours Australia keeps, it’s sometimes hard to find places open past 5p – unless you go closer to the city), and of course, we miss our friends most of all.
Another sobering fact that continues to remind us of the various pros and cons of living so far away from home is the exorbitant price of plane tickets to come home. When we first started planning this move, we had to promise to make it home at least yearly to avoid unleashing the wrath of our families (especially my mom – the newly minted “grammy”). We would have done this anyway, but a promise always feels nicer. =) Now that we’re looking at the price of keeping that promise, it makes us cringe a bit. The price of three round-trip tickets between Sydney and Pittsburgh at peak travel time (i.e., the Christmas season) is no small amount of money. We think of the fabulous trips we could take for that money if we lived in the States and didn’t have to spend it on making it home for Christmas. But that is the price (literally and figuratively) of the amazing opportunity we’ve been given here in Australia. It’s also worthy of mention here that we’re both frugal to fault…so the sticker shock is all the worse for us! That said, we know it will be worth every penny to see our families, meet our new nieces (!!!!), see my sister and her husband taking on their new role as parents, see how Avery does with her new cousins, etc.
Now, before you start to think that we’re regretting our move here after the discussion above, I can assure you that we are not. Although Australia is currently in the middle of an especially cold and wet winter (thank you, weather makers), we are spending all of our free time making the most of it. We try to get into the city every Sunday (because Sunday Funday family passes on public transport are only $2.50 all you can ride all day – and Avery is free), and we’ve really enjoyed that. We usually catch the bus (which stops practically right in front of our apartment building) and head in mid-morning (after our weekly Skype session home) and spend the day roaming the city. We’ve explored Darling Harbour, Circular Quay, the Opera House, Manly (beach and town), various neighborhoods, Paddy’s Markets (a massive indoor flea market), the Powerhouse Museum, and a few other places. We still have a long list of places on our “to do” list. We usually spend our Saturdays, on the other hand, making the most of the car we bought. When we moved here, we had initially decided we weren’t going to get a car…but it became quickly apparent to us that once we considered where we lived and the fact that we had a toddler, public transport just wasn’t going to cut it. So, the deal we made with ourselves in purchasing a car was that we would not just let ourselves sit at home on the weekends – we’d use it to explore as much as we could. And we’d use to go far and wide during any extra time off I had from work (long weekends, etc.). So far, we’ve been to the Blue Mountains (a mountain range just west of Sydney) twice, gone out to Wiseman’s Ferry, we’ve taken some scenic drives, and gotten lost on purpose a handful of times. (Thank goodness for GPS!) We plan to do many more day or weekend trips like this and have just purchased a “all you can do within 200 km of Sydney” book (or something like that).
Just recently, I had a took a bit of a break from work (some much needed time to clear my head – as there is a LOT going on at the school…all very exciting but merits a mental break now and then) while the students were on their term break, and we decided to take a drive up the coast to Surfers Paradise, Queensland. The trip was amazing. It is difficult to describe, particularly to our fellow Americans, how much nothingness there can be. The trip up to Queensland was just over 500 miles, but it took us over 12 hours to make the trip – because it wasn’t all highway (not by a long shot!) and you could drive literally for an hour or more and never see more than a gas station or the occasional half-dilapidated house. I could count the number of real towns we drove through on two hands. It’s hard to describe…in fact impossible to describe…to those of us who are used to interstates that have an exit every 2-3 miles with a McDonald’s (or Mackers, as they call it here) at nearly every other one. And this was the main way up the coast that we took – it wasn’t as though we’d taken back roads. But there was something really amazing about all that nothingness. Amazing to think what Australia must have been like before no one was here at all, amazing to think of all the untouched wildnerness and wildlife that still exists in Australia, and amazing to think that though our trip took us several days and over a thousand miles – we have barely scratched the surface of this amazing continent. It definitely got us even more excited for all the traveling we plan to do while we’re here. We’re already planning what we’re going to do at the next term break (just over two months and counting!).
So, if you’ve seen the pictures, you’ve seen that we followed the coastline most of the way up on our trip. The coast (as least the part of the Eastern coast that we saw) of Australia is breathtakingly gorgeous. You can see right away why this continent was so intriguing and beguiling to the early explorers. And when you spend an hour on the road and see nothing but trees and water – you can see why they might have found it so terrifying at the same time! It definitely brings a whole new level of concern about breaking down! At any rate, we took two days to make the trip up. We got a bit of a late start on the first day (as is customary for me, it seems…despite my best efforts), and so we didn’t get to be as much of slow pokes about stopping and sightseeing as I’d hoped. The first night, we stopped in Coffs Harbour – apparently a beautiful place in its own right – but all we saw was the inside of our hotel room and the Big Banana on the way out the next day. We’ll have to make a special trip to that region on its own sometime, as it really was beautiful and more laid back than Surfers Paradise. The hotel we stayed in at Coffs Harbour was clean and nice – but room décor and the mattresses were almost certainly older than both Lucas and I. That said, it served its’ purpose, and the antiquated nature of this hotel and many others we’ve seen is likely a reflection of the preservation of small businesses in Australia. You’d be hard-pressed to find a chain hotel outside of a big city, and the same holds for most restaurants – although you still see McDonald’s most places (all though not in anywhere near the frequency as in the States). I am happy to support this culture of small business, often family-owned (like the hotel we stayed in), because the disappearance of small business in America is something I find troubling – for our economy as well as for our culture.
Anyway, enough about that, we stopped outside of Coffs Harbour at a little town called Woolgoolga on a whim. We followed a half-falling apart sign that said “whale-watching headland”, and soon enough, that is just where we found ourselves. And then we couldn’t tear ourselves away from the beauty of the spot for over two hours! We watched whales migrate by, watched waves roll in, watched the way the position of the sun seemed to change to color of the water, and ate a snack all by our glorious lonesome as we watched out over the great wide ocean. It was, by far, one of the highlights of our trip for me, and we’re already talking about going back there for a long weekend sometime.
After leaving there, we made our meandering way up to our destination: the Gold Coast and Surfers Paradise, Queensland. Surfers Paradise is an admittedly overdone beach resort town, complete with high rises and tons of touristy things (Ripley’s Believe It or Not included) – but I think it was just what we needed just then. It was also not too far away from the Queensland Hinterlands, a series of national parks full of rainforests, rolling hills, and wildlife that we spent two of our days exploring. We didn’t do anything groundbreaking on our vacation – we walked on the beach (the water was warmer than the air, the sand was freezing cold when the sun went down, and there were nearly always people surfing), we explored the main drag of Surfers Paradise and ate some good food (including some excellent Italian…three times), and explored the rainforests and took pictures of the rolling hills. It was just the sort of vacation that reminded me why it is we wanted to come to Australia in the first place. And it had us already making plans for all the things we want to do in the next few years. So, aside from Lucas getting an ear infection, Avery suddenly having to do battle with her allergies, and me taking care of the lot =), it was exactly the vacation we needed. If you want to see pictures from our trip (and couple other random explorations), here’s the link: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.797627341298.2267580.4706570&l=5feb64eaa7&type=1
So, now we’re back at home, I’m back to work, and we’re back to the grind. We’re still waiting to hear who’s going to take the leap and become our first visitors! In the meantime, even though we’ve lived here almost 5 months now, we’re still trying to do your basic everyday things….like figure out where is good to eat, where we should buy clothes (especially since they all seem to be really expensive!), how to file Australian tax returns, etc. Lucas is on the hunt for a job, which seems to be going not as well as we’d hoped at the moment – but that said, he and Avery love spending their days together, and we are fortunate enough to be in a position where we can afford for him to do that and still have a little money left over to travel and explore. We also started Avery about 6 weeks ago at an occasional care (a one day a week day care) on Tuesdays just down the street from where we live, and after a few minor anxieties on her part, she is LOVING it. We’re excited for her to go back to a more regular daycare situation when the time comes because she really loves being around other kids, playing with all the different toys she doesn’t have at home, and doing the arts ‘n crafts type things that her mommy unfortunately is terrible at. =)
While we’re having a good time so far, we’re really looking forward to when the weather starts to turn nice again. Although the lows here are only in the 50’s, it’s really difficult to describe just how cold 50 can be in Australia. I’m not sure whether it’s the humidity, proximity to the ocean, or what… but 50 here can be bone-chilling cold, and we did not come equipped (mentally or clothing-wise) for this type of cold. So, we’re taking the seeming attitude of most Australians and putting our heads down and just trying to pretend it’s not cold until it actually isn’t. We’re SO looking forward to the warmer months when we can take Avery out to the beach (she LOVES the beach…especially playing in the sand), we can explore all the parks in the area, and spend our weekends frolicking in the sun minus all the coats and long-sleeve shirts. The Australian sun and the Australian sky is like no other we’ve ever seen, and we can’t wait to enjoy it when it’s warm. Of course, we’ll be leaving all that glorious warmth in the middle of December to come home to the cold snow – that should be a shock to the system! =)
Well, that should do just about do it in for the blog catch-up. There’s not much else to report…we’re missing home, making the best of the time we have here, and looking forward to getting some visitors. Avery is getting bigger, smarter, and crazier by the day – she is talking a lot these days and getting to be quite the seasoned traveler. We’re hoping that makes for a somewhat easy trip home at Christmas…especially since it looks like we’ll be traveling home by way of Seoul, South Korea. It’s an 11 hour flight to there from here and then a nearly 14 hour flight from South Korea to Washington, DC. And we still haven’t figured out how we’re getting from one Washington (DC) to another (PA). As long as we have “Finding Nemo” and a few “Kerbit” movies/show on hand, we should be alright.
I hope anyone reading this enjoyed the lengthy update, and hopefully we won’t be so long in posting the next installment. We hope all is well with each of you, and stay safe in the heat wave!
Love & peace,
Jill, Lucas, & Avery
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