Australia Blog 11- Ca, Ca, Pamel

AUSTRALIA BLOG 11

Today is August 27, 2010

Just when we had given up on car shopping, and decided to take a drive to the mountains, to see what we could see, we pulled in at a dealership whose banners proclaimed, “USED CARS AT COST” and “TENT SALE”. Josh resisted the same explanation he had given at every other dealership and shoddy car lot in town, “I’m looking for two cars, a beater under two grand to get me to work and back, and something reliable for my wife to drive, that will take us around Australia while we are here for a year.” The salesman explained that they do not normally deal in beaters, and that we would probably have to look elsewhere for something under two grand, but that he had just taken a reliable car in on trade that would be just what we were looking for.

The 94, maroonish red 4 door in the middle of the lot had been cleaned and polished to its greatest potential and was just out of reach of being a grandma car. The salesman explained to us that the Holden Commodore, an Australian made car, which looked to me like a Potiac Grandam, was known for its longevity. It had previously been priced at $4888 and because of the Tent Sale; it was now reduced to a firm $3850. Being that I have been in sales once or twice myself, I knew the ‘firm’ was most likely bullshit, and that if you let him put in a lot of time and effort to make the sale, and then walked away from it, the price would miraculously drop, but my sweet husband had no intent on giving him any such trouble. We had seen several comparable cars priced at $6k, and to top it off, the salesman threw in an old used cassette tape converter with an auxiliary jack he had lifted from a trade-in, so that I could use my ipod. Josh signed the papers and we are scheduled to pick it up Wednesday.

After spending most of the afternoon at the dealership, we had run out of time to drive to the mountains, so we opted for a local drive. We took a side road; pass the recycling center and the animal shelter, down a country road and came across what seemed at first to be a petting zoo. On what was the size of a city block, there were well kept paddocks of animals including a camel, three wallabies; which look like mini kangaroos, miniature donkeys, bah bah black sheep, alpaca, goats and the cutest little creatures that looked like half deer, half baby calf. I screamed with excitement, and Josh pulled the car over immediately. The little Australian deer with spots and wet noses came to the fence looking for a handout and petting. I pulled handfuls of grass and talked to them in the voice normally reserved for my dogs for the better part of thirty minutes, until Josh could stand it no more. We walked around to the other side where a little girl and her dad were feeding the camel and the miniature donkey handfuls of leftover fruits and vegetables. There was a house in front of the pens and we made the assumption that it must be owned by crazy people who rescued all of these animals and who must treat them all as pets judging by their friendly temperament. I told Josh that we could be crazy people and rescue strange animals, when he amended my statement and reminded me that there was no, “we crazy people”, and that I was the only crazy one who wanted to rescue strange animals.

I had been missing my dogs something terrible this morning, so the little spotted Australian deer made my day.

This is the same car, but I found this pic online for ya!

Australia Blog 10-Random Australian Info

AUSTRALIAN BLOG 10- Random Australian Info


On our way back from Kate’s yesterday, Josh and I decided it would be cool to throw in random information that we come across in the form of a list so here goes…

Australians say “yep” in place of yes, okay, and I understand. So if you are talking to an Aussie, they will nod their heads and keep saying yep, yep, yep, until you finish. This does not mean, “Yep, I’m a know-it-all, and I’m being rude while you are trying to tell me something”, it means “Okay, go on, I understand what you are trying to say.”

Australians don’t say Kangaroos, they call them Roos, so you look like a fool going around asking were the Kangaroos are.

In fact there are lots of instances where that is the case, these are the ones we have come across so far….

Pissed= Drunk

Costume= Bathing Suit

Fag= Cigarette, lots of Aussies smoke

Root=Sex

Which reminds me of a joke, Craig told us about a Wambat. He said a Wambat eats roots and leaves. We didn’t get it.

How you going? = How are you doing? They use “going” in place of “doing” a lot.

A blinker on the car= Indicator

A Wambat and a Roo are the only animals you should try not to hit with your car, everything else, just run it over.

If you don’t know what a Wambat is, look it up, I don’t know either.

A Lolly= any candy, for the longest, I thought people around here ate lots of suckers.

Nappies= a diper, not a napkin or a wet wipe.

Hire Out= Rent

Mate=friend

Partner=spouse

Toliet= The restroom or bathroom, not just the toilet it’s self.

Trolley=Shopping cart

Tea= Dinner. If you come over for tea, this has nothing to do with tea at all, just means dinner. They even say “eat your tea”, meaning “eat your dinner”

See ya later= Good bye, it’s the only farewell greeting I’ve heard since we’ve been here.

Also, there is an inflection on the end of every sentence.

CURRENCY:

The Australian currency, the dollar, is made up of coin and plastic looking bills. There is a $1, and $2 coin, and only a $5, $10, $15, $20, $100 bill.

Every single coin, no matter what the value, has Queen Elisabeth II on the back.

The coins are .5, .10, .20 and .50 cents. (No quarter or penny)

Gold Coin

$1 =different designs; kangaroos, Outback, Scouts (the size of a quarter)

$2= Aborigines man (the size of a nickel)

Silver Coin

.50 =different designs (the size of a 50 cent piece but with 12 flat edges)

.20 = duckbill platypus (a little larger than our quarter with the same edges)

.10 = peacock (a little smaller than a quarter)

.5 = hedgehog (looks just like a dime)

 
That's all I have for now...stay tuned for more random info.

Australia Blog 9- Tuesday in Oz

AUSTRALIA BLOG 9


August 24, 2010- Tuesday in Oz.

Kate offered to loan us a kitchen table, some dishes, and a bike so Josh and I got up early and headed over to the clinic to borrow the Ute. Ute is Australian for pick-up truck. They are normally small four wheel drive; Toyotas, Fords, Nisans, Missibushis, or an Australian make called a Holden. They are also likely to be fitted with a grill guard, a snorkel and a flat bed with a railing and a canvas cover. As we pulled out of the clinic, embarking on our two hour drive to Kate’s in the Ute, I could tell it was going to be a long one. The little tank felt every bump in the road; the springs in the seat had a way of bouncing you up and down so that the seatbelt tightened on you like a python on a little bunny. Both of which I mentioned to Josh, he found it hilarious and proceeded to tell me how much he wanted one. It was the first time he had driven a ‘manual’ on the left side and he was also having fun muscling in it around without power steering. On the way back from Kate’s, Josh pulled off the road at a used car dealership, I was relieved to have a break from the bouncing and Josh wanted to look at some cheep cars. I’ve decided I am just not going to look at the cars, that way it will just be a surprise. He kept asking me, “Do you like this one?” I wanted to say, “Really? No, I don’t like it. Do I need to like it?” I mean who’s going to like a shithole car they want 2k Australian for, when they have a shiny 4 Runner with leather, and a sunroof at home. The way I see it, I don’t need to like it, it just needs to run. I thought about throwing him off and jumping up and down for the little one with the rust.

We were both in good spirits, were able to find the humor in the situation and the Australian guy at the car lot seemed to be entertained by us. We told him we were on the lookout for kangaroos, so he pointed us down the road to ‘a paddock where there are usually mobs of them’. Sure enough, there were! Our Australian adventure continues!

Australia Blog 8- Crappy Cookies

AUSTRALIA BLOG 8


August 23, 2010

Our couch, or ‘lounge’ rather, was delivered this morning and Josh went out to find a washing machine. He was back shortly and asked me to help him unload the washing machine he bought new at The Good Guys. “What do you mean? You didn’t have it delivered? Did you borrow a truck?” I questioned. “Nope it’s in the back seat of the car.” Incredibly so, a full sized Australian washing machine was in the back seat of the tiny silver car. Josh and I were able to carry it in with ease, it only weighed about 50 pounds, and no, I still don’t know the metric conversions yet, so we’re just going to have to stick to pounds. Also, I’m going to stick to measuring distance in time traveled. The washer is a top load with a plastic lid, and electronic buttons. Most people don’t have a dryer and there is a clothes line in the back, which I have never used, but I remember seeing my Grandma hang clothes on the line when I was a kid. This should be interesting. After installing the new washing machine, we decided to check out the farmer’s market, which is only a block from the house. We picked up some fresh fruit and some ingredients to make chocolate chip cookies. When we got home, I asked Josh to look up a chocolate chip cookie recipe online. When he gave me the recipe, noticed it called for much more flour than I recalled using the last time I made cookies, but I followed the recipe anyway, after all, what do I know. Turns out, Australian chocolate chip cookies are hard and nasty. After nearly breaking a tooth, we had a good laugh and threw them all in the trash, or in the ‘rubbish ben’. Next time we will make sure we get a recipe from an American site. Strangely enough, the Google server directs us to Australian sites; it’s something I never even considered.

We hooked up our garage sale TV, and to our amusement, it picks up 5 channels with just an antenna. They are all actually pretty good, and they all come in in English. We joked that if we were in the States, three of the five would probably be in Spanish. We are learning all kinds of interesting things by watching Australian TV. For instance, there is a public service announcement ad about weapons, apparently the police can randomly search you for weapons, and if you have a knife of any kind, even a pocket knife, you will get a $1000 fine. This was valuable information to obtain, considering my husband carries a knife 100 percent of the time. There are all kinds of good game shows and good reality shows here too. They have Australian Millionaire, with questions about the country’s history that we have no clue about. And my favorite so far, Letters and Numbers, where they give you a scrambled up word and a hint at the definition, one that’s like speed Scrabble where you have to make the largest word with 10 random letters and another part where you have to use 7 given numbers to form an equation to find the given value. It’s so fun! I need to go on the show!

Australia Blog 7- Sunday Brunch

AUSTRALIA BLOG 7


August 22, 2010

(It’s Sunday morning, we are a day ahead, it’s Saturday night for you.)

Sunday morning one of the other interns, Christi, called and invited us for Sunday Brunch with the group at Friers. It’s a beautiful old brick church downtown that has been converted into a cafe. We sat outside of the stain glass windows, out on the moss covered brick balcony upstairs that over looked the street. The morning was cool and crisp; you couldn’t help but feel like you were in God’s house. The other interns; Christi, Tom and Chris joined us shortly. Chris received a vet call and had to leave right after we placed our order with the waitress. Christi, who is finishing the last 6 months of her 12 month internship, is from Melborne. She lives at the clinic and her husband lives in Melborne with their two Australian Shepherds. I can tell Christi and I will get along great. Tom, the head surgeon from Scotland, had recently broken his ribs playing Rugby. He was forced to sit straight up and his pale face winced in pain every time we had a good laugh. Tom had a great since of humor and his thick Scottish accent made everything he said seem twice as funny. When Christi and I shared our mutual phobia of germs and used couches, he found it ridiculous and hysterical, trying not to laugh, in his thick Scottish accent he proclaimed, “We’ve got enough nutters here already, without having to import them!”

We had great company and delicious food, the orange juice was the best I’ve ever tasted. It was fresh squeezed and frothy, most likely from one of the nearby orchards. At $5 a glass, it better be good!

Josh and I spent the rest of the day picking up things for the house. We got a microwave and ordered a couch from Fantastic Furniture. We came home and I cooked our first meal, spaghetti with penne.

Australia Blog 6- Garage Sale

AUSTRALIA BLOG 6


Today is August 21, 2010

At 3 am this morning I felt like I was sleeping in an oven, I woke to my husband shivering and sweating. I pulled on my Uggs and went out to the car in search of a bottle of water and some Ibuprofen. By morning he was feeling much better.

While Josh had a shower, I wrote down all of the garage sale addresses from the paper and located them on a map. We were out the door by 8 am, on the way Josh and I developed a garage sale game plan, to get in and out quickly and efficiently without becoming side tracked by talking to anyone. I was leery about the first garage sale we came to, it was in an old shed and I could see some junk out front. After overlooking all of the collectables and old books, we found a good looking 24’ TV on a stand with a VCR for $20 and a small refrigerator, just the size we were looking for $50. The man and women running the garage sale were very nice and agreed to hold them until we could find a way to move them. As soon as they heard our accents, the questions began and the garage sale game plan was out the window. After getting to know John and Karen, the offered to rent us a furnished house which had recently come available when their mother passed away, Karen offered me a job riding her mare and John had already booked a surgery for Josh to cut his colt when the weather warmed up. When we were finally able to get away, we didn’t have time to go to any more garage sales so we decided to head to the clinic in hopes of borrowing a truck.

When we arrived at the clinic, the only vehicle available was a station wagon, Australians use station wagons in lieu of trucks, in fact all of the vet trucks are station wagons. We were able to lay the seats down flat and load the small refrigerator into the back on it’s side. We stopped on the way home to buy a water hose, some soap and a scrub brush. We unloaded the fridge in the driveway and cleaned it up until it was as good as new.

Next stop, the grocery store, or ‘market place’. The grocery store is located inside a mall, for lack of better terms. There is an interior corridor with a collection of stores including a drug store similar to Walgreens, a cell phone or ‘mobile’ store, an accessory store similar to a small Charming Charlies, and in place of where you would normally see a giant cookie vendor in the states are fresh bread and fresh meat markets. We were able to navigate the grocery store full of unfamiliar brands with ease. I found it strange that right next to the packaged meat section, in the same cooler as the beef, there was an entire section of refrigerated, packaged dog foods. Most of them were packaged in big tubes the way we package pan sausage or cookie dough. Another notable difference is that the shopping carts or ‘trolleys’ don’t have a fixed back wheel like they do in the states, instead the front and the back wheel s pivot, making it strange to push, but much easier if you want move sideways.

We unloaded groceries into our new fridge and surprisingly spacious pantry and had sandwiches on plastic plates in the floor. We laughed about not knowing what to recycle and what to throw in the trash. The trash cans here are tiny. They don’t even sell what we consider kitchen sized trash cans, they use trash cans in the kitchen the size of what we would consider an office size. The trash containers outside look the same as ours, with two wheels and the flat hinged top except they are mini, literally half as tall and half as wide for recyclables, everyone also gets an even smaller one for trash. I was in hopes that there would be some kind of instruction on the lid about what is acceptable but no luck. I’m going to look online to see if I can figure it out when I get a chance.

Australia Blog 5

AUSTRALIA BLOG 5


August 22, 2010

Josh and I woke up early to make the drive to Shepparton for his meeting. It was still dark outside when we carried all of our bags and belongings out of Kate and Craig’s house, into the cold, and loaded them quietly into the tiny silver car. In the distance, through the darkness, Australian animals filled the dark morning air with eerie howls and sounds from birds we’d never heard. I hurried into the passenger seat, on the left side of the car and fumbled to turn on the heater. We made the two hour drive in silence, while Josh let me stay in my head, the way I like to do in the morning.

I dropped him off at his meeting and headed over to Stockdale & Leggo, the real estate office. I took Carley the deposit and the prepaid rent in hopes of receiving the house key so that I could unload the car and situate our things while Josh was in his meeting. She let me know that there was still paperwork to be process and that we wouldn’t be able to get the key until late this evening or tomorrow, and advised that I come back to check around 3.

I decided to go to Target to get some bath towels and a few other necessities in the meantime. When I pulled up in front of the tiny foreign Target on the left of the two lane road, I parallel parked the tiny silver car, without the assistance of power steering, another luxury I will never take for granted. The man at the door offered me a trolley, I accepted the basket and headed for the home section. Thankfully the $30 towels were on sale, I got three, a bath mat, several boxes of close hangers, and a blow dryer and straighter with Australian power plugs. I pushed the basket to the front of the store to stand in a line formed by shelves of last minute hopefuls. One at a time the checkers called the next person in line until it was my turn. Feeling completely out of place, I pushed the basket up to the strange looking dark haired lady at the counter. She greeted me with a, “How ya going?” And I replied, confused as always as to why they don’t just say, How are you or How are you doing. She rang my items up one at a time and stopped on the third towel, the smaller one I had intended to use on my hair, and then called for a price check. I could have died; the entire line was already staring at me, surely because of my accent, maybe because of how I was dressed or maybe even because I didn’t respond properly to the, “How ya going”. Maybe, “Fine thank you, how are you?” is completely out of the ordinary. In what seemed like an eternity, she finally prompted me to swipe my card. Declined. “I’m sorry, I just moved here from the United States a few days ago, and my husband told me my Visa card would work because we haven’t received our cards from the Common Wealth Bank yet.” I explained. The strange looking dark haired lady, who I could barely understand looked at me in bewilderment and then agreed to hold my trolley so that I could walk down to the bank and make a withdraw. Frazzled and embarrassed, I tried not to make eye contact with the line of people behind me as I left but I could feel their eyes.

I stepped out onto the sidewalk and looked left before stepping out into the street, just then I was almost hit by a truck coming from the right. My heart raced and I hurried once again to the tiny silver car, this time remembering to get in on the right side. I drove straight to the place where I dropped Josh off for his meeting. I parked and went upstairs and searched through the crowded room until I found my husband. He met my eyes from across the room and I know my expression must have said, “I need you, I’m scared, please come help me” because he got up and left the meeting to meet me back downstairs at the car.

As soon as Josh was there, I was okay. We went to the Common Wealth Bank to withdraw some Australian money and then walked back over to Target. We got our things and decided to spend the rest of the day finding furniture, and most of all, a bed so that we could stay at the house incase Carley was able to give us the key tonight. Kate and Craig had given us a blow up mattress, so we weren’t overly worried about buying something today.

After pricing mattresses and some cheep furniture from Fantastic Furniture, we bought and electric blanket and picked up a newspaper paper and decided to hit some garage sales in the morning. We swung by the real estate office and Carley had our key ready. When we got to the house the utilities company still had not turned the power on, the house was frigid. We carried in our bags, the blow up mattress and the electric blanket. The utility company had until 7pm and we had not eaten all day so we decided to grab some dinner, someplace nice, we had only tried our hand at fast food so far. Hungry Jack’s, the Australian version of Burger King, with the drive through window on the right side of the car, was not going to do it tonight.

We found a restaurant downtown called the Bullion Bar. We asked the waiter for a warm place to sit; we both had the chicken soup from the daily special and a bowl of pasta. Our eyes must have been larger than our stomachs because neither of us made a dent in the pasta dish. When we asked the waiter for a to-go container he apologetically informed us that the government does not allow restaurants to give out to-go boxes without a special license for carry out. He took our plates and we waited for him to come back with a check but he never did. When he finally came to find out why we were still sitting there, he informed us that we have to pay the cashier up front. Our bill was $80, thankfully it is not customary to tip in Australia. We will be eating at Hungry Jack’s from now on.

When we got home from dinner, the power had been turned on. We unrolled the blow up mattress in the bedroom and waited for it to automatically inflate, as told. Nothing happened. We looked for instructions, but there were none. After tossing around the idea of sleeping in the floor on top of the flat mattress, Josh left for the mattress store. The delivery driver delivered one mattress, on short notice, in the dark. We slept well, on a mattress in the floor, with heat and an electric blanket.