A few minor gripes / cognitive dissonance

A few minor gripes / cognitive dissonance

Let me start with a preface:  I fucking love it here Please do not misconstrue the following statements as any kind of indictment.  They are just things that we are not accustomed to, strike us as odd, and require some adjustment!

1.  NO UNLIMITED INTERNET ACCESS!!!

Introduction:  The Internet - I live there.  On my phone, in the cafe, on the ipad at home, on the computer, lots of little lookups, facebook, reading about stuff, random surfing...  with no points at which we "run out of internet" and are either abruptly cut off, to give "a fair go" to others, or charged ridiculous amounts for overage.  I did not know how to quantify how much I love the internet, but now I have a dollar figure.  And to cap it off, people seem PERPLEXED that we would need more than 5gb a month.  Just ONE HD movie download can hit 4gb. 

When we were still in the apartment, and on a mobile hotspot, they would literally not let me pay to add more data mid month.  We, quite literally, ran out of internet.

2. COGNITIVE DISSONANCE

I'm find myself thinking a lot about our friends who are expats in France, and how they are experiencing a lot of the same weirdness we are, but in another language.  Sometimes I think that must be harder, but then I think that there is a different kind of difficulty here related to *expecting* things to be the same, because the language is *sort of* the same.  We find we are constantly caught off guard by things that seem like they should make sense, but just don't at all.

some examples:

• INTERNET ACCESS!?!  see above ;)
• Common things that mysteriously have different names here.  Bell peppers become capsicum.  Instead of raisins there are sultanas.  "see you this arvo" instead of "see you this afternoon".  It's similar enough that your brain doesn't expect to be having to pay attention, and then you realize that three sentences have gone by and you HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THE PERSON JUST SAID TO YOU!!  ( see fun slang words below )
• Just when you feel that you are in a foreign country, you start to see tons of American stuff, like 7-11, Dominoes and Pizza Hut, McDonalds, etc...  and then you notice that they are not quite the same...  "Maccas" now has a lamb burger with a fried egg, beet root, tomato, aioli, lettuce, and ketchup...    Pizzas tend to be ham and cheese, or more serious Italian style pizzas, and Xander has not found a burger he likes here ( it seems they normally grind up onion in the meat?  dunno, obviously I won't try it, but something like that ) except at "Maccas", where Toni takes them when I'm not around... and thus unable to visit my vegan self-righteousness upon them
• Driving is odd.  Not just the left side of the road/right side of the car bit, but the rules, and when to stop for pedestrians ( never in a traffic circle, apparently, unless you want to hear someone lay on the horn, which is otherwise sort of uncommon ) and other merging rules seem slightly different in ways that are noticeable, but hard to enumerate....  Pedestrians seems amusedly impatient when you stop for them.  They are not expecting it, they think it's odd that you did it, and largely they just gesture for you to keep going, and not just sit in the middle of the road proving what a moron you are.

3. WALKING

• How could walking be weird?!? Well, you realize after the 50th time that you almost run into someone, that they also have a tendency to *WALK* on the "other side", not just drive.  So where in the US we tend to veer off to the right to avoid running into someone, here they veer left.  So, because I don't feel like diagramming this, just try to use your imagination, when you are walking towards someone, and they veer left and you veer right...  kaboom.  Nose collision, and awkwardness ensues.
• Escalators going your way are on the right instead of the left.  This seems like no big deal, but it's so ingrained in our thought process, that I often mindlessly start getting on the wrong way, and have to back up and move over.
• Stand Right / Move Left

4. Linguistic differences

• Aside from the fun slang words below, there are some differences:  some swearing is no big deal ( I've heard kids saying shit, damn in front of their parents, but apparently "bloody" is off limits?  "you're bloody right, his dad had the shits over his whingeing on about it..." )
• NO WORD IS TOO SHORT TO BE ABBREVIATED!!!
• Whingeing - whining
• Arvo - afternoon
• brekkies - breakfast
• bikkies - biscuits
• cost big bikkies - expensive
• tradie - tradesman, ie plumber, electrician, handman, etc...
• "the shits" - upset about something.  "James has the shits over some comment that got made" - safe for the working environment, apparently
• "doing" vs. "going".  - here it's going.  Wherever you would say "do" say "go".  How ya going, mate?  How'd ya go with that bloke, I heard he had the shits over some ops guys whingeing on about something in the arvo...  No worries, she'll be right, I just checked in to see how you went with that bloke from the office.  All good?  cheers..
• yobbo - some slob.  "got hassled by some yobbo at rules yesterday"
• rack off - get out of here.  the equivalent  you are thinking of is pretty close ;)
• piece of piss - something pretty easy.  "no drama, mate, it's a piece of piss"
• no drama - no worries
• she'll be apples - it'll be fine...
• capsicum - bell peppers
• rocket - arugula
• sultanas - raisings

There is an innumerable number of these.  I'm pretty sure they make them up as they go along, and it's a national pastime to keep a straight face in front of foreigners while making up a new one.  This is how you find yourself in a room full of office mates, and realize you have no idea at all what they just said.  It was clearly supposed to be funny, so you laugh, and look around nervously.

In essence, you take a multi-syllable word, and drop everything after the first syllable and replace with "-ies".  Hence brekkies and bikkies,  only one syllable?  just add the -ies, no worries.
 

Catching up with the Larrikins...

Let's see...  what's been going on...

Well, I started work ( this is old news now, I know ).  I work at an office building stapled to this mall:

This is both fun and crazy.  I literally go to floor 8 of this mall, and that's how I enter work.  Right past a JB HiFi, which is sort of like a Best Buy.  The food court is awesome, they have great varieties of Asian and fusion places, and even an Iku Wholefood, which is an awesome vegan, whole food place.  However making me walk past gadget mecca every day is probably going to bankrupt us.  Toni is the frugal one, she should be working near a mall, and I should probably be in some weird underground bunker where they don't sell tech gadgets.

And...  we bought a car.  Toni wanted a Mazda SUV, I wanted a Mini, and, this is where it gets weird,  we got a Mini SUV!:

It's totally fun, and very cool, and the kids love it.

Speaking of the kids, they seem to be really liking their school.  And, literally every day after, we go to the skate park at the beach near their school.  Well, Toni and the kids do, I'm usually working late...  At the mall.

We have found babysitters, which allowed Toni and I are first date night, at the Opera!  Since I work, oh, about 5 blocks from there, which is awesome, we met up.  Here's my walk:

I suppose at some point I will become immune to all this, but not today.  In the meantime, the opera was stunning.  It was Verdi's Aida, and was gorgeously staged, with great choreography and some really strong performances ( although the woman that sang Aida seemed to need time to come into her own, with the first couple of bits being very quiet and too soft, but by the end she was a powerhouse ).  The projections were a bit distracting, especially when combined with the champagne we were drinking, but it was overall a stunning performance, and a great introduction to an iconic opera house.

Sydney Ferry and Taronga Zoo

I'm thinking of starting a new travel guide:  "Sydney on only $500 a day".  Holy crap, we need the kids in school, and me at work, or we are going to go bankrupt!

We had a great day, however, and took the harbour ferry out to the Taronga Zoo.  The ferry was a beautiful way to experience the harbour, and the zoo was fun, despite my personal issue with zoos.  We managed to get out without any landfill gift shop toys, and made new friends on the ferry.


On the Ferry out to the zoo...

We are both hairy, smelly, vegetarian, and ridiculously cuddly

Toni and Xander on the sky tram

Stellar views...

 

 
A little lagoon on the harbour, right at the zoo.  The water is crystal clear here...

White Ibis.  The pidgeons of the zoo, pests trying to steel french fries ;)

At the end of a long day.  The orange goop is a sweet pumpkin spread that tasted like pumpkin pie...  awesome!  And a Fat Yak Ale to top the day....

Clovelly Beach

Clovelly Beach

Just love this beach.  It's just a bit north from where we are in Coogee, but it has great snorkeling, so I'm told, and it's just beautiful. ( Absolutely do click on these photos to see them larger... )

It's a narrow little bay with a beach and a park beyond it.  The snorkeling is said to include views of blue ringed octopus ( venomous ), and large blue gropers, which, aside from being blue, are about as pretty as other big giant fish....

A number of the beaches here have these swimming pools fed by the ocean, they are very cool, and I can't wait for summer when it's warm enough to get in.  There are people swimming this time of year, but I'm assured that those people are deeply in need of psychological help.

And this handsome gentleman has been smiling largely the whole time, save when he and the destroyer are battling.  Every day I renew my "do not jump in the ocean with all your clothes on" instruction...  I find I have to remind myself as well, even knowing that the temperature would cause immediate relocation of organs that I find myself quite enamored of in their current position.

Keep Left and Finally! some tourist time

Keep Left -

Driving on the left side of the road is not a huge problem, although there are mini traffic circles nearly everywhere, and gauging the distance from the right hand side driver seat to the left side of the car has proven tricky, but I'm always just a friendly honk away from correcting ;)  I had previously driven in London, and don't recall that being a problem either ( aside from the massive traffic circles ).  My joke about "the trick is more in learning to drive upside down" has resulted in exclusively blank stares.  I don't think that they don't get it, I'm just starting to suspect that it's not actually all that funny ( turns out you just velcro the change into your pocket ).

More difficult than remembering to drive on the left, is walking on the left.  Much like we drive on the right, and walk in lanes in the right, and the standing lane on escalators is on the right, it all is just sort of flipped to the other side here.  In grocery stores and on sidewalks, and I admit that hadn't really occurred to me.  I can't recall if that was the case in London as well?  Maybe I'm over-thinking it, but when I drift to the right in the grocery store, escalator, or sidewalk, I just start bumping into people and creating congestion.  Nobody is rude about it, and I don't think anyone gives it much thought, but that's just the "wrong" side.   It will also apparently take awhile for me to remember to look the correct direction when crossing the streets, and in the meantime, my helicopter parenting style has me grasping the kids hands a little tightly while we get it sorted....

Also, the turn signal is on the right hand side of the steering wheel, which means that my windshield wiper is frequently called into duty to indicate that I am about to turn.  I think the other drivers are starting to catch on to my style, though, so no worries there.  I'm pretty sure the windshield-wiper-i'm-about-to-turn thing is going to go international....

Tourist day -

We finally settled in enough with time and house hunting duties to take a couple of tourist trips.  After I failed to select the appropriate lane for Manly Beach, and we found ourselves at the Opera House, my very flexible family and I parked the car in the car park, popped our gear out of the boot, and we were off to the Opera House tour!  Xander seemed genuinely intrigued, Milo was bored out of his skull, and kept trying to climb everything and linger behind the group to see what was breakable.  Thankfully, not much was, and aside from a few nervous glances from the tour guide, we were good to go ( which I found appalling from her punk rock hairdo; she should have been more appreciative of Milo's "I'm not a part of your system" attitude ).

Note Xander posing next to the "don't climb on this wall" sign.  I'd give him a hard time about it, but then, I took the picture, didn't I?

From the beer patio lunch venue near the Opera, we caught sight of Luna Park, a renovated historical coney-island style park.  A heavy sigh later, we trundled over, and absolutely froze our butts off ( we did not really have the right jackets for winter, which is cold like a San Francisco summer ), but the kids had a great time.  Once I found the pub with live music onsite, you could visibly note an improvement in my condition.

The House Hunt continues....

Looking for rental places in the eastern suburbs is tricky.  There's not much on the market, and what is there that is nice is expensive.  We did find a few great places, and the one that should have been out of our reach but was oddly affordable was snatched up by someone who makes, roughly, 3X per year what I do....  So, probably not a difficult eval by the owners.

SCHOOL!!

Today we are off to the "welcome new families" breakfast with the headmaster at Lycee Condorcet in Maroubra.  We're very excited to finally get the kids out of our hair some much needed socialization, and to start getting them settled into our new life here.  School starts for them on August 16th, as this is one of the few schools in Sydney that follows the northern hemisphere school year.  In Sydney, it's a January to December school year, but with lots of month long breaks scattered about.  It's actually a reasonable  approach, and the French School has tried to mirror a few of the big holidays, while keeping the longer school day and shorter school year.  The school itself feels very familiar to us, and would to our friends at Dallas International School as well.

Will check in later...  BUY YOUR PLANE TICKETS!!!

Where were we?

--------The view from the cafe overlooking Coogee beach.   Stunning....  Brekkies included congee, eggs and bacon, croissants, pancakes, and fruit/muesli for me.  Oh, and a shit ton of coffee....

Coffee -

The coffee here, in a word, is awesome.  Everyone takes it seriously.  Every little crumpet cafe, deli, coffee house, and muffin shop.  Serious, heavy tampers, great coffee, fresh roasted, espresso you could stand a spoon up in, awesome awesome awesome.  They have a drink called a flat white, which is something like a cappuccino / latte, but with micro foam, rather than a dry foam.  They're just not fooling around with the coffee, and we are even in a bit of a suburb.   The food is awesome, also, as it's definitely a foodie culture, but the coffee is exceptional, and the cafes are outstanding and everywhere.

The Beaches - 

Let's see, we are south of Sydney, in the "Eastern Suburbs", and the beaches are spectacular.  Maroubra, Coogee, Clovelly, Bondi...  all a bit different, all spectacular.  The water is crisp and clean and clear.  There are cliff walls at some, sandy beaches at others, some have large parks nearby, I'm almost tired of looking at beautiful scenery...

Accommodations - 

This is *not* a cheap place to live.  We put an app in on a place ( holy crap, please cross your fingers... if you have a thought of coming to visit us, and may your deity damn you to hell if you don't, this place would be ideal to hang out with us in  ), and when the realtor saw the details on our house in Dallas and how much it cost, she was immediately thinking we must own a garden shed in the middle of a desert.  And compared to the place we are looking at renting, I'm inclined to agree.

The French School - 

For our DIS friends, this place would feel *very* familiar.  It's called Lycee Condorcet, and it's a little bigger than DIS, but essentially with less thinning at the upper levels.  They also offer IB at the upper levels.  It's seems a reverse of the DIS ratio of French to Americans, with a larger group of French, but about 1/3 of them are bi-national.  Seems like a great place, and if we can get everything filled out on time, the kids should start there next week.

Reality - 

Not set in.  Toni pointed out quite accurately that if we wake up tomorrow, and discover that this has all been a dream, it would not be at all a surprise.  Will have to check with my peers in Verdelais if they are feeling the same?

Ugh -

We are still exhausted.  We are crashing out a bit later every night, but still getting up around 3am.  Luckily we don't have much of a social life and so the impact is largely on our poor neighbors who have to hear the boys rattling around a tad on the early side ;)

more later.  tired.  must fill out custom forms....  Air freight has landed, Sea freight not until later in September...

How ya going, mate?

How ya going, mate? yeah, no drama, she'll be right...

And so we are here.  Actually in Coogee, a suburb of Sydney where we are staying in a vacation rental while we sort out where to live, where to send the kids to school, and other small details.  This time I remembered to say to Xander "don't go run into the ocean with all your clothes on, because it's very damn cold in their right now", so all he managed was to soak his feet, socks, and shoes, and notice the nice numbing effect of winter water.  Yes, I do have to specifically give these types of instructions.  There have been...  incidents.

The flight via business class was very nice.  I don't know when we would ever be able to afford this on our own, so we tried to, as Hannibal Burress suggested "experience the shit out of it".

Re: How ya going?  Everyone says this.  All the time.  I'm practicing it in front of the mirror, but here's some examples and translations:

1. At the airport, I'm blocking access to someone's luggage - "How ya going, mate?"  translation?  "Hey, you're blocking my luggage, moron"
2. At the beergarden, my turn to order beer, "How ya going, mate?"  translation? "What sort of beer would you like?"
3. At the cafe, in the morning, with the family, with a thickly chinese accented australian lilt, "How ya going, mate?"  translation?  "Are you ready to order?
4. Sikh in full headgear leaving convenience store, "How ya going?"  - translation?  "whatup".

It goes on and on and on.  I point out to our real estate person that I'm trying to get it right, and she says "do we say that alot?  yeah, I guess we do, don't even notice it"  which I think is absolutely right.  She moves smoothly and imperceptibly between the names of things, and the slang equivalent without noticing.  "Paddington" becomes "Paddo" without explanation, and I'm reminded of the american comedian on the flight over who postulated that Australians make up words on the fly, at which point a secret communications system adds them into the lexicon instantly...

The people are *CHARMING*.  Everyone is super nice and super friendly.  We are enjoying the crap out of this!  The boys were a bit boisterous after being in the car today, so Toni took them over to evil hamburger chain, while I enjoyed the worst burrito I've ever had, along with a surprisingly good margarita.  Settling in, indeed.