I mentioned pictures in my last post, but failed to include them. Since Mike arrived home today (with Visa for India in hand!) he was able to provide some technical support before jetting off again tomorrow.

https://picasaweb.google.com/103336932121670450817/TheNewHouse?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCLCAv67Ug8j5lgE&feat=directlink

The New House

Well, as it turns out it was not divine intervention. I had, in fact, left the car running. And far from it being priceless it turns out petrol here is quite expensive.

I seem to have entered a far more technically advanced world than the one I was living in prior to our move. The car is the least of it though. 

After finally finding, renting and moving into the house it took over two weeks to get the internet and phone service connected. So there is lots to share about the new house and the last few weeks. The house is very eclectic, like there were several warring tribes of architects battling it out. With no evident winner.

There are many traditional Queenslander elements like verandas and lattice work, and someone must have visited Leavenworth during construction of the railings as there are carved tulip cut outs everywhere (see pics). There is also considerable Asian influence. You'll see one example of this in the picture of the front door. There are actually 6 doors, but this one seems to be the main entrance as far as we can tell. There are leaded glass windows and bead-board walls. Yet the bathrooms and kitchen are quite modern. In fact the kitchen is in cahoots with my car in being so completely high tech as to render it useless to me.

After the three trips it took to move our stuff here from the apartment, and the three dips in the pool between trips, the girls were capital H hungry. Mike ran around the corner to an Italian restaurant to pick up a pizza. It was taking an eternity so I made some quesadillas and thought I would heat them up on a pan on the stove. But I couldn't get the stove to stop blinking and start heating.  So I pulled out the manual and read " blah blah blah most cookware is compatible with induction." I'll just stop right there and tell you that while that may be true, none of the cookware we have is. Not the stuff we rented from Ned and not even the super expensive spiffy new Neoflam pan I bought " for healthy living". 

Ok, no problem I'll just microwave it. Oh, that's right, we don't own a microwave anymore. Ok, I'll bake it. Hmm, is this the oven? Or is this it over here? Hmm, this is weird...let's look at the manual. By this time hunger has transformed my children into creatures from the basement scene of your favorite horror film. This made it extremely difficult for me to read, much less comprehend, the ridiculously complicated oven manual. I called Mike to get an ETA. It was hard to hear him over their shrieking but he said something about how great the restaraunt was. I only wondered if that greatness extended to their speed of service. 

He finally returned with a pizza and spaghetti noodles for the girls. Thank God. Seriously not a moment to soon. But when I reached into the bag for the noodles I found fresh uncooked pasta. "No worries!" Mike says, "we'll just boil some water real quick!" Oh yeah, on what stove? Mike then proceeded to do everything I had just done, even though I explained to him what I had only so recently learned. I don't think anything has ever annoyed me as much.

He finally tossed the noodles into the fridge and joined us on the floor where we were devouring pizza like the pack of wild dingos we had become.

In addition to familiarizing myself with German appliances I am also trying to adjust to all the new sounds heard around the house as the sun rises. And even before then. It's really loud. There must be 12 different kinds of birds worried I will oversleep. I'm pretty sure one of them is even banging a gong. The bird's cries remind me each awakening that I am in an unfamiliar place. Gone are the robins that chirped so passive aggressively outside my window in Seattle. Replaced with screeching train wreck sounds that cause my heart to stop a few times a day, hands frozen mid activity, wondering, "is that my child screaming?" Oh, no, its just some creature outside. 

The property manager recently forwarded a 14 page house manual to us that the owner took it upon himself to write. An act of kindness I will not soon forget. 

To give you some idea of the complicatedness of the house, know this - it came with 12 keys and 11 fobs (none of these 23 magic devices are duplicates). The manual covers everything from Kitchen Appliances (section 1.5) to the Entry Video (section 7.4 (b). As I said, there are six doors to the house and an additional three gates into the yard. As far as I can tell, in order to let anyone in (say for instance the guy who can connect your phone /internet service) you must have three keys in your left hand, two fobs in your right, say Bibbity Bobbity Boo, all while doing the chicken dance. If you are really lucky one of the doors will open.

I had NO idea a house could be this complicated. Let's return to the kitchen. Now, all my cookbooks are still crossing the Pacific and I am not a good enough cook to whip up a meal without them. So I turned to my staple, roast chicken. I open the thick "Using Your Oven" booklet, in the hopes there will be a simple picture demonstrating how to turn it on. Instead, it lists guides and temperatures for things like "stuffed tomatoes that maintain their shape", terrines, pates and melting chocolate, but nothing about a roast chicken. I am puzzled that there can be an entire section on "cooking delicate fish so the meat remains iridescent but collagen does not appear" yet nothing on what code to enter to roast a chicken? Personally, I don't think cars or ovens should be this complicated. The oven has 13 cooking modes for crying out loud; steam, vapor, circulating heat, combined heat, traditional heat, turbo grill, low temperature stabilization, and on and on. I am not worthy of this oven. Not by a long shot. 

Now, I do like our yard. It's not complicated at all. I love the mango tree, the pink hibiscus, the aloe vera and jade plants growing wild all over the place, and all the geckos scurrying about. It is the fragrant, tropical green yard I dreamed of when I imagined our new home. But, if I may quote from a section of our home manual entitled, The Garden & Pool, 2.2 Wildlife -  "The garden is home to a wide range of wildlife including: possums, wild turkeys (including presently a baby wild turkey that tends to hide itself along the eastern fence line), tree snakes and blue tongued lizards, frogs & toads (mainly Cane Toads,) and many different birds but primarily Butcher Birds, Noisy Miners, Lorikeets, Australian Crows, Ducks and Owls."

Aha! I am guessing the Noisy Miners might have something to do with the fact that I can't get any sleep.

Or, it might have something to do with what I read in section 2.2.1 Pests - "Flying Foxes are a common sight at dusk throughout Western Brisbane. Once a year the Flying Foxes are attracted to the Moreton Bay Fig in the front of the house. They can be noisy during the night whilst there but only stay for a short amount of time."

I can only hope that by once a year he is referring to mid February, and by a short amount of time he means a week. 

From Wikipedia I learned this about Flying Foxes - "they are the largest bats in the world, live in the tropics of Asia and subtropics of Australia and Indonesia. They do not posses echolocation. When it locates food it crashes into foliage and grabs for it." I imagine similarly to how wild dingos eat pizza.

We have learned so much about the house we will be living in for the next two years by reading this manual. Please understand, we were only in the house for all of five minutes before signing the lease. The rental market is super tight. But I am amazed at what I am learning now, after the fact of moving in. Most of it is great, with a few exceptions, like the Noisy Miners and being the unwitting hosts of the Annual Moreton Bay Fig Fest. 

We have learned that under the lawns and pool we have 26,000 liters of stored water. We have instructions on how to use a pump to access this water should the need arise. This is Brisbane mind you, a town that forced Australia onto the world's news stage last year because of a devastating flood. So, apparently in addition to devastating floods, we also can look forward to devastating droughts. But at least we will be prepared. We are also prepared for power outages, as our hot water is solar powered. How cool is that? Imagine our surprise and delight in discovering a 300 litre tank heated by solar energy providing us with free hot water! During the day the sun heats up the tank via the solar collectors. A 1kw solar panel system is located on the rear deck roof with 6 panels. I'm quoting all this, by the way, from the manual, but I'm sure you already guessed as much. 

Now that I have been here for a month I have made (no friends) several observations about Australians. Australians have a curious phrase that utterly confuses me. It is this, "yeah, no". I have translated it to "Yes. No." But I still don't know what it means. What is even more confusing is that I have started saying it.  When Rosie asks me if dinner is ready I say "yeah, no". When the sales lady asks if I am a size 6 I say "yeah, no" Does the meeting starts promptly at 8:30? "yeah, no". Can you take a free right on red? "yeah, no" Things are a bit interpretive here. Mahalo.

Also, I am used to hearing from people close to me that I might worry too much. But I am not used to having an entire nation tell me the same. Repeatedly I hear, "Your over thinking that Mate!" Or, "No Worries Mate!" or even "Yeah, no. It's all good Mate!"

For most Australians, the glass seems not just half full, but full of champagne. Listening to the news the other morning, I heard interviews of several people  effected by floods in central Queensland. One man standing in three feet of water near what used to be his living room joyfully told the reporter, "How ya going? Yeah, no, we've lost everything, Mate! Ha ha! Have to start completely over!"  As far as I can tell, Australians believe that in the end everything will work itself out, so there is no reason to waste a moment of time worry about anything. With any luck some of this optimism will rub off on me. 

But so far not so much. There are times when I am a bit discouraged. When, for example, by 9:30 in the morning I have been totally and absolutely confounded by more than one appliance, lost twice, late for school drop offs, utterly confused by someone answering "yeah, no" to a question that needs a direct answer, yelled at repeatedly by my car for going the wrong way, soaked in pouring rain only to be drenched in sweat 20 minutes later. Its exhausting! And 9:30 is too early to be exhausted.

But enough complaining! More about our neighborhood.  Besides the corner Italian restaurant there are several other good finds within walking distance. Chiefly, a great masseuse, a fabulous restaurant that has a supervised children's play area, a drive through bottle shop, an organic market, a salon that, strangely enough, was recommended to me by the guy who cuts my hair in Seattle (Hi Jerry!), and a rail station. Very convenient. There is also a great restaurant called 6 Degrees that serves crocodile. That. I. Ate.

"Grilled marinated sweet chili & coriander crocodile served with roasted pumpkin & a lemon basil risotto." It was delicious!

Until we took the girls to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary the next morning with Grand-mommy and they were having a big party to celebrate the birth of their new baby crocodile. You could even enter a contest to name it. I still feel little queasy.

The cafe with the children's area has wonderful food. No croc on the menu. Other than dining when Mike and I fist came to Australia in November, it has served my favorite Australian meals. They even have something on the menu called "fairy bread". How could a mother of two daughters go wrong here? My mom and I had lunch there today while Nola played outside with Tanya, the "child minder". After lunch when I went around back to collect Nola, Tanya was sitting on the grass playing a guitar, singing a made up song about Nola's recently baked mud pies. That might have been the highlight for this week.

At the risk of seeming too pathetic I will tell you that the highlight of last week was singing along to Barry Manilow in the Brisbane Ikea. 

"Oh Mandy .... You came and you gave with out taking….."

Maybe it was just the acoustics but I was happy.

I know I will soon feel better about living here. Everyone says the first 6 months are the hardest and I'm already 1/6th of the way there! That is so encouraging! 

On the positive side, I am finally getting in on the proper side of the car, driving on the left feels completely normal and I absolutely love me a roundabout! And the family is settling in. The girls are enrolled in school, tennis, ballet and swimming. This month Mike is off to Seattle, San Francisco, Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Bangalore and Hong Kong.

I think tomorrow I will go to the mall and buy a Barry Manilow cd for the car. That ought to cheer me up yeah, no.The navigation lady probably won't like it. I have a feeling Bjork is more her style. But I can always listen to it in the house for inspiration, as I try to master the oven and maybe by the time we leave Australia I will be able to operate complicated appliances with the grace and aplomb of a stuffed tomato that has maintained it's shape.

Divine Intervention

OK - its been a long week but I feel better. There is nothing to improve your mood like driving a new car that fits in between the lines of the road on a glorious summer day with your favorite music turned up loud.

Yes, we finally were able to get a copy of our lease on Monday, 45 minutes before the car dealership closed. The person who processes the registrations had already gone home for the day but either they felt so sorry for us or they were so sick of us, that they let us drive away with some kind of 24 hour temporary registration that might have actually been made up. But now I have navigation! I have not been lost since. Granted, I haven't gone anywhere except school and, of course, the mall. Besides the addition of navigation, my new car's blinker and wind shield wiper controls are on the correct sides of the steering wheel. And I was able to program the temperature reading in Fahrenheit so I know exactly how hot it is, instead of just knowing its hot. 

So I have traded in the rental car for rental furniture. Progress.

While renting furniture seems easy enough, after the disaster of Valiant last week, and well, many other things that should be simple but aren't when the blind leads the blind, I decided to enlist the help of our relocations consultant. I am so glad I did. After laughing at me for calling Valiant, she made it all happen. An appointment first thing the next morning and a confirmed a delivery for this Friday. That would never have happened had I just walked in off the street. Thank you Edel.

Ned, the rental guy, emailed us an inventory of my selections. When I returned that evening from St. Peters Curriculum Night I found Mike puzzling over it. "Everything on this list is white - you know we have two young children right?"

"Right" I replied, "Indeed we do, and now, in addition to that, at least for two months, we have an assortment of white leather and transparent plastic furniture in spectacularly odd shapes." (I figured that since we were not going to live in a Miami Vice house it would be fun to rent some Miami Vice furniture.) There followed a brief silence. Then Mike went to the other room to pack for his trip so I wouldn't hear him laughing.

As I type this he has just returned from Sydney where he met with three customers. There were several sophisticated and spectacular meals on the wharf near the Opera House, but the meal that left the biggest impression on him was a lunch at Hooters. Their customer wanted to eat there, so eat there they did. Mike has never been to Hooters before so was unaware that at various times, and for no apparent reason, the music gets turned up to a deafening volume and all the waitresses jump on tables and chairs and start dancing. For those of you who know Mike you can imagine his surprise. I just wish I could have seen his face when the customer jumped up and started dancing too.

Speaking of dancing, the girls are now enrolled in ballet again. I stumbled on the school one afternoon when I was lost and I am pretty sure that I can find it again. I think/hope this will help since it was something they really enjoyed doing in Seattle. Rosie continues to struggle with the move. This has been much harder for her than I imagined. I thought the kids were the perfect age to do this, and if your reading this I probably told you as much.  It turns out I was wrong, there is no perfect age. She often refers to her life in Seattle as her "real life". She misses her family terribly. In our air shipment I packed valentines day card from Seattle that I thought would be cool to give the kids in her new class, but when she saw them she immediately sat down and wrote each member of her family's name on a card. We have a ridiculously large and complicated family so its good I ended up buying both the fairy bracelet pack and the rocket ship pack because she blew through both. She is forever asking me when we are going home for a visit, and who is coming when to visit us. It's just as well I didn't know this was coming or I would have never left.

Nola, meanwhile, is constantly telling me "I love Austraileeeya!"  Maybe there is a perfect age after all. This country might even cure her of her "heightened awareness" of bugs. She behaves like a lunatic when one crosses her path, (which is often,) but then again, behaving like a lunatic is par for the course when you are four.

So Monday found me back at the mall, imagine that. I needed to return to the library to see if I could locate a Ballet Barbie that was left behind on Sunday. It was not to be found, but I did sit down and watch an episode of Project Runway Australia. Faaaabuuulouse! Let me start at the beginning of the library story. The weekend was terribly rainy, torrential tropical downpour yada yada and all that. We decided to take the kids to the library, even if it was in the mall. Very glad we did! Brisbane's libraries are wonderful (even if they are housed in malls and juxtaposed to movie theaters) While we couldn't yet get library cards and check anything out (still no lease at that point so unable to prove we were alive) The library was wonderful, if unexpectedly loud. What with the TV on. Seemed to drown out the commotion in the kids section so no one seemed too put out. There were crafts, librarians reading stories, all sorts of action. We were surprised to see the TV, but when in Rome…..and so I did today. I didn't know Australia had their own Project Runway but I thoroughly enjoyed it. 

After an hour with my library friends I ventured back into the mall to find parking level pink. On the way I got a pedicure, a smoothie and found a book store. I'm trying to stay in touch with my Seattle Book Group via an as yet unsuccessful ability to Skype. I asked the sales clerk if they had a copy of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. It was like all my new library TV watching friends suddenly materialized in the book shop. I don't have a loud voice, but everyone in the bookshop heard me ask if they had a copy, and there ensued a lively discussion about Henrietta. (HeLa, anyone? Anyone?) I'm not sure I'll need to Skype in next month ladies, however, Mandy, the store clerk might. 

This is a good time to mention that customer service here is excellent. I would go so far as to say it is better than that in the US. All the books said it was awful, but I have not found that to be the case in any store I have entered  (and remember, I'm practically living at the mall) It might have something to do with being alone a lot and being called Luv and Dahrling, but I think it is more than that. Yes, it is definitely more than that!

One thing I have managed to purchase without visiting the mall is ballet tickets, including tickets to the Nutcracker…On Ice! In June no less! "This is a holiday must see!" the brochure reads. I hope the girls understand we won't be going home to decorate the Christmas tree after the production. You have to love a country that celebrates Christmas for 7 months.

We have a DVD of the ballet Romeo and Juliette that the girls enjoy watching. If you are a ballet goer you know there is a certain amount of miming that goes on instead of conversation.  For example, when someone is imploring someone else not to pursue their enemies' daughter they clasp their hands together tightly, raise them up and shake them around. Rosie told me on Tuesday "you know in Romeo and Juliette when they go like this?" (she puts her tiny hands together in aforementioned pose) "that's what we do in chapel" Hmm. Sounds kind of fun. I decide Nola and I will attend chapel with Rosie this Wednesday and see for ourselves. Maybe it will help me answer Rosie's big questions in the middle of the night.  So I put on my fancy frock and in we go. Turns out you don't need to dress up to attend your kid's school's mid week chapel service. I would have been more appropriately attired in a shirt. I take it all back, forgive me Woman's Weekly! Chapel was surprisingly and absolutely wonderful in every regard. Imagine 150 young children singing together with adorable accents, while the sun light shimmered through open windows, breezes bringing in fragrant blossoms, laughter and dancing, shadows of palm fronds. Then it got even better. They played The Price is Right. Yes, they did and it was super fun! The message being of course, that there are things you cannot put a price on. There are things like mums and dads, things like forgiveness and friendship, things like a choir of children singing that are, indeed, priceless. 

I left with Nola's hand in mine feeling good, got in my new car to find it running and the AC going. The car was cool and music was playing. What the…..had I left it running? Was it divine intervention? I don't know, but on a sizzling hot day, it was priceless, if not confusing. Much like Rosie's middle of the night questions.