Christmas time!

Christmas Time in Canberra

A typical Christmas in Canberra is very much like an Dutch Christmas, but warmer and there’s no snow (or rain), the food is different (seafood barbie!) and we’re supposed to go to the beach or the bush, wear thongs (not those; slippers are thongs here, maybe people wear both, but I’d rather not think about that), play cricket or host a backyard BBQ party. As it turns out, this whole Christmas in Summer thing is the biggest culture shock so far…

Christmas Checklist

Aside from Sinterklaas missing in action to kick off the festive season (would be interesting to see what they make of that part of Ducth culture here), first and foremost the temperature is just not right. It’s supposed to be miserably rainy and/or freezing and snowy and it’s supposed to get dark at 15:00 in the afternoon. Traffic should come to a national stand still with 950 km of traffic jams when 1 cm of snow falls, because nothing says winter like sitting in your car for 3 hours listening to Wham’s “Last Christmas” 15 times on 10 radio stations. The good thing about Canberra is that there’s not even 200 km of black topped roads and only 3 real radio stations (aptly named 104.7, Triple J and 106.4, because… why bother) so George and Mariah only can get so much airplay. I wanted to say we miss the A4, A13, A15, A16, A20 traffic jams and sigh nostalgically, but no. It is extremely funny though to hear the native motorists complain about the incredibly long commute of 20 minutes (OMG, my first world problem is such a drama) and the disturbing effect it has on their work life balance, quality of life and general happiness. Really? Just.Shut.Up. Some of my colleagues not only ride the bus every day (superhero points for that), but they do that for 60 minutes one-way. Suck on that prima donnas in your airco’d cars with no nose picking, sweaty/sticky and loud as hell people right there with you, while the buses passes you by on the bus lane, ha!

Canberra Rush Hour

Secondly, people should be complaining about the weather a lot more, slipping and sliding in the icy streets and walking around dressed for nuclear winter in thick coats, animal hides, long multi-coloured scarves and thick woolen caps in all sorts of mostly very silly designs. The summer dresses, fake snow, cheery Christmas music, bright Christmas lights you can only see after 21:30 at night and shorts in the office just don’t spell “It’s Christmas Time!”  Just so my position on shorts in the office is clear: it was wrong in the Netherlands, it will remain wrong in Oz, or anywhere else for that matter. Shorts are for sports (that’s why that rhymes) and…. what is wrong with you?! Will you die from heat stroke walking the whole 150 meters from your airco’d car to the airco’d office? Or is it that you can’t wait to display your hairy (or shaved, yikes) legs? I have to be there too, I cannot NOT look at it, stop harassing me!! And to make it even more clear, this is not sexist, if men want to wear appropriate length skirts, kilts or dresses to work, more power to you! Sorry, back to Christmas….

Dudes! No!! Just... just...F*ck it, never mind!

Third and final, where is Mariah Carey?! As a big fan of (tacky) music, I miss “All I want for Christmas”, “Driving home for Christmas”, “Last Christmas” and “Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer” seemingly playing on repeat for the whole month of December everywhere you go. Here they are very much absent, unless you count the muzak at shopping centres, which doesn’t count because who can really distinguish one song from another in elevator style?

 

Does that reindeer look depressed or is it just me?

Of course there are some striking similarities as well. First and foremost, there’s the Spirit of Christmas, of sharing a good time with family and friends. I believe that should not be limited to just a few days or one month a year, but Australians take it to the next level in a very nice “Hey as long as you’re here, join the party mate” sort of way, which is great if you’re still a bit new to the country and its customs. Then there’s the presents and the generosity of all those charity initiatives doing something for the less fortunate, which we do in the Netherlands, but nowhere near as committed and with such heart as I see happening around here. There seems to be a charity run, ball, cook out, toy collection Also, the focus on food and drink is the same, but where the Dutch have a good time and keep it rather subdued and small, the Aussie way of doing things seems to be; bigger=better, more =more and “Invite? Who needs an invite?!”

Well, it's a start right?

With our family and friends far away and no other social obligations just yet (we have no friends boohoo), we decided to do what we always do, go and see stuff. Our schedule for the next two weeks will be something like this:

24 December: Backyard BBQ for two (Yuum eats and I get to torch stuff, double win!)

25 December: Road trip to Wollongong (supposed to be pretty)

26 December: Cinema day (The Hobbit 3 and probably something else)

27 December: Road trip to Wagga-Wagga (not making that up, pics will follow)

29 December: Shark diving at Magic Point (no Gandalf, just grey nurses, pics will follow)

31 December: New Years Eve at Canberra City with Eskimo Joe (again, not making that up)

2 January: Melbourne shopping trip (yeah baby, Esprit store, new pretty shoes and sunglasses!)

I know, our lives suck soooo bad sometimes…

On that note, here’s a short update on our lives. I started Kung Fu here and then stopped again after 6 months, because it’s just not the same. After 1 year, I still miss the 3-4 times a week ass kicking. We’re thinking about taking up rock climbing now, because swimming with large predators is just not exciting enough. I still hate gardening and after almost 1 year in the house, that has not improved at all. So we’ll probably move in another 2 months to a house surrounded by concrete or bushland. We’ve done our bush fire readiness plan and everything because it’s that time of the year (did I mention it doesn’t feel quite like Christmas?) especially the question: decide if you will defend the house or run for safety, ehm, it’s a rental…bye! Alex came to visit and that was awesome from start to finish and Yuum went to Thailand to get her most expensive Luxembourg passport ever. (Spent $1200 to get a 10 EUR passport, so please don’t ask). The cats are fine still, but have changed roles. Pluis lives outside in the garden, mostly studying ants and eating bugs and Spike is getting old, sleeps, meows (but nowhere near as much as he used to) and keeps me company while I am gaming.

My kind of garden

Yuum is doing just fine at the National Disability Service, killed her probation period, got a nice pay rise, has everyone on the team puzzled how one person can be so organised and still so much fun and will do some additional projects because those 18 month targets she had, yeah, they’re sort of done and she’s bored. (Can I get a show of hands please for who did not see that coming?!). I have just finished the one project I was hired to do and have managed to not make a complete ass out of myself over the last 8 months with the ACT Government. Got some really good feedback from the boss and am now looking at changing the culture for our organisation of 800 peeps and support the move to the new building and change how we communicate and make us more popular and give us a new identity….I don’t think I’ve ever worked this hard and had so much fun.

Did I get this memo?

I’ll try to post some more on our adventures in 2015, there should be some interesting things coming up and I’ll keep you up to date.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, be well and keep to the left

Yuum and Gil

5 Months down the track

After more than 5 months (and 4 days), it's about time for another review of how we are doing. I've gotten some comments asking me to blog more frequently, but I promised myself that I would only write if I had something worth reading to post, to prevent things like; "again no mail today", "trimmed the shrubs", "grocery shopping time" and "went for a walk" polluting your screen. Life in Australia is just not that spectacular that I can write a post every week now that we are settling in.

It is winter in Canberra and we keep forgetting, because in our minds it us July and thus it is summer. And then I step outside to go to work and realise that the skies are blue and the sun is out, but it's really just -2 degrees, brrrrr. Canberrans do not complain about much, but man do they complain about the weather when it is cold! Okay, the nights can be chilly, but during the day it is still a nice 10-14 degrees, no need to call the national guard into action and start coming to work dressed for the next ice age. But you can stand at a street light waiting to cross standing next to a person dressed like an Eskimo (I think it was a woman, could be wrong) and someone dressed for the beach at the same time. Only in Canberra.

Preparing to leave, we had some expectations on what would be different and what would be the same. The most important realisation I had so far is that you can take the man out of Rotterdam, but not the Rotterdam out of the man.Meaning that we are basically still the same person, even though we live on the other side of the world. I'll let you make up your own mind if that is a good thing.... Let's take a look at what remains the same and what has changed for us.

What remains the same

• I still wake up at all hours of the nights (it's 4:35 now) for no reason, unable to go back asleep, well at last I get a lot done every day (Please Sony, speed up the launch of new PS4 games, what else am I supposed to do, read a book?!)
• Work is still work, although we are very happy with what we are doing, work people are the same the world over I guess. I have to say though, I cannot remember working such long days and being so focused as I am right now in the last 5 years. Being a public servant is hard work! 
• I still do not like public transport. I guess it is just a fact of life that we do not get along
• Smelly people in supermarkets. Anybody missing theirs, because they seem to have followed us here
• Spike still meows like a nutcase (which he is)
• Dieting is just as hard in Australia as in the Netherlands, but with the portions being either "ÿou sinner you are on a diet, here's 257 grams of pasta and be happy you get that"or "hey, you only live once, you can have this 800 gram lasagna made of nothing but dough and cheese, yeah buddy, long live cholesterol! Here's a "non-surprising fun fact: Australia is one of the most obese countries in the world.

Of course there's also plenty of change

• There's kangaroos everywhere. The longer we live here, the better we get at spotting them. Still cool to see them every morning driving into work though. Nothing says "welcome to Oz" like a roo crossing the highway at full speed giving all motorist a good break test.
• I now actually have more vegetarian options than in the Netherlands, Ha! didn't see that one coming now did ya?! Neither did I, took me 4 months to find the right department in the supermarket....
• Car pooling to work every day is a real improvement. Better company, no smelly people and I know this driver very well so I get to comment on the driving style without being told to get off the bus....
• Three months with the ACT Government and we've just went through a major reorganisation an fusion of 10 into 7 departments. Did someone call for a Change manager?! Normally this happens six months after I join the company, should be interesting times coming up.
• We now have a payday every two weeks, which is a great reward system, even though you get the same amount in the end, still feels like Christmas every two weeks
• No free online music radio (OMG). Media laws are a bit different in Australia, preventing radio stations to stream their broadcasts, which sort of sucks, but hey there's always Spotify
• Kung Fu is very different, basically putting me back all the way at grass-hopper level again. It's a bit challenging at times, but this new system has its benefits and I do not miss the bruises and injuries too much.

As you can see, our lives are starting to become nice and routine, so do not expect too frequent updates, life's just not that exciting right now. Next cool thing we'll be doing is going diving with sea lions in three weeks, which we'll probably post on Facebook. Be well, have fun

Survival Guide to the ACT part 2

Enjoying Politics
Politics are the same everywhere and Australia is no different. We have Labor and the Liberals duking it out and from my office I oversee most of the Canberra battlefield, comfortably sipping a soda and eating a cookie while they tear into each other. Living in the Capital, we get most of it on TV as well and it is hilarious, the things people are allowed to say about each other on TV. The leaders of the country "boo-ing" each other in parliament, TV commercials branding the other side as liars and frauds in language that would make even a Dutchman blush and think about law suits.
Very entertaining, but the posturing and hot air speeches get old pretty fast. It's annual budget time in Australia, because for some reason their financial year ends on the 30th of June. No idea why, but probably because it makes them different from the rest of the civilised world and allows for really long summer holidays around Christmas. Some politicians come across as genuine, but not the prime minister. Oh boy, you thought Balkenende was a bad deal?! (he wasn't). Meet Tony Abbott. He is by far the most slick man I have ever seen and without ever having met the man, I disliked him the first time I saw him. He is a unique combination of Slick Rick, Rick James, Berlusconi and Prince, but without the talent or charisma to make it entertaining, so that leaves him with just slick, sharky creepiness. Great man to rule the nation. See for yourselves.

See, creepy.

Loving Canberra
The City does not have a great reputation, is considered boring and not worthwhile. Somehow the mayor took that as a personal insult and has been on a mission to turn that around. I thinks it's working because Canberra was voted the most livable city in Australia for 2013, which is pretty cool if you compete with the likes of Sydney and Melbourne. There's all sorts of cultural festivals you can go to, free museums, parks, a really big fountain, lakes, 1,000 eateries (not all restaurants exactly), free parking in many places, mountains all around, Fyshwick, a big TV tower and lots and lots of big pick up trucks. Everything is close, we have a nice North vs South rivalry going on (without Patrick Swayze) and about 120 different cultures living in an area the size of Rotterdam Zuid. Really, what's there not to love?!

You feelin'it yet?

Dealing with the People
I like Australians, because Canberrans consider themselves to be the least friendly and easygoing and I think they are great already. They're like the Dutch, but with better manners in nearly every situation. They are courteous in stores, apologise for bumping into you, make way when they see you coming, help out random strangers and speak politely. However, two exceptions must be made. 1) Do not let them get in a car, because that brings out the worst in them. Impatience, recklessness, plain stupidity and arrogance seem to be the standard when it comes to driving. Could be that because their cars take up half the road anyway they feel more entitled, but as a Rotterdam Zuid Forever person I do not take that very well. People seem to be unaware that at some time they have to leave that car and loose the protection of all that steel and glass or that it has doors that can be opened. A forgotten blinker on a roundabout or not driving the speed limit or above will get you angry shouts, horns, fingers (not the pinky, ring, thumb or index) or aggressive tailgating. I still hope that someday someone would put their money where their mouth is, but so far, no luck. 2) They should be fined for what they do to their language. I consider myself fairly fluent in English. English! Okay maybe American. It's not that they speak like Crocodile Dundee, they don't. But the levels of torture and grinding they put the words through calls for an intervention by the language police! They apologise for it and happily strangle another word until you hear yourself thinking: "that person is speaking, but I have no idea what is being said"or you gasp in shock, thinking you've been just invited to sexually assault someones dog, only to find out that the other person was asking if you'd like a cookie to go with that soda. Come on guys, make an effort!

That would be me on the phone

Watching TV
Like politics, TV is the same everywhere, except in Buthan, where it's all still very new) and again, Australia is no exception. There are some differences to the Netherlands though. The endless talk shows about football are about Rugby and we have at least three 7 days a week morning news shows, most of them Sydney based and all rather heavy on the light entertainment and human interest. There is a lot of laughter, like "Evers Staat Op", which supposedly makes that tragedy of a family shoot out leaving 5 people dead a lot easier to digest...Fortunately there is however a kids cartoon channel that I really like, because the weekends start at 0600 with some cartoons we did not use to get in Europe. Good times. How about movies then? Well, how about 17 (no joke) commercial breaks during one movie? Yeah, I'll buy the DVD of download, thank you. Commercials are worth a study in and of themselves, so I'll save that for another blog. You could of course buy a decoder or NASA sized satelite dish, but aside from HBO, you'd just get more of the same, so there's really no point. Better go out and have some outdoor fun or buy a PlayStation. Then there's different series of Mythbusters running on three channels and the same goes for the Big Bang Theory, but that runs on 5 of the 15 channels because there's more series available. We've also got "When love comes to town" (Boer zoekt vrouw), the Voice, the biggest loser and some of the series like Elementary, the Blacklist and such. Most of that we've already seen online, so there really is not that much on TV.
There is however the evening news on 7, with Mark Ferguson. Whoever casted that guy for the role should get a really big bonus, because he is everything Tony Abbott is not. If Mark Ferguson told me that we had to make sacrifices for the well being of Australia, I'd believe it. Hell, I'd consider donating an organ if he told me that he needed it to save a life. The man is reliability personified, take some notes Tony, he's on TV nearly every night.

I'd vote for him

Survival Guide to the ACT part 1

Saying that you know what it's like to live in Australia when you live in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), is like saying you know what it is to be Dutch because you visited 020 once on a stop over to someplace nice. There are of course 'real' Australians in the streets and shops and basically everywhere you go, but it's my experience that there is not 1 Australia, but at least 7 for every state you visit. I thought it would be nice to describe my experiences so far as a 'how to" Lonely Planet style guide. 

Getting around
Buy a car, preferably big or really big, with lots of chrome bumpers and impressive antennas or a 'rod rack' for that one time a year you go fishing. It's an essential. Even though the ACT is small compared to even Rotterdam, there are big patches of nothing in between towns and cycling is not for the faint of heart, because most of it happens on the road. That's right, where the really big cars with the bumpers are. They make you wear those helmets for a reason. Bicycle paths are for sissies anyway. You'll get it after you pass the 4th or 5th remembrance shrine for the unknown biker that gave his life under the wheels of a Mitsubishi Triton 6.0L V12. Then again, road signage is great everywhere, there's mostly 3 ways to go anyways and that's not counting the 4 opportunities to get lost if you're me. You can traverse the ACT from top to bottom in an hour and left to right in 40 minutes, but no one ever does because of roundabout motion sickness. If there was a contest of places with the most rotundas in the world, I am sure the ACT would come 1st 2nd and 3rd. Incredible as it might seem, it does make for interesting driving, using your blinker is optional and drifting to show of the capabilities of the aforementioned Triton is considered entertainment. You do not see a lot of motorbikes, but you do hear them from the other side of the state, as if they need to make up in loudness what they lack in numbers. Public transport is great, both for getting around as well as a anthropological study of the Canberra population. Just make sure you hold onto something, roundabouts remember....

This Ford is considered medium sized and only for the city

What to wear
Dress codes are the same everywhere I've been  in Australia and can be best described as: "Anything you damn well please". The quality of dress Canberra is probably better than most because it's like a mini-Sydney in the centre with about 100 Government agencies (no joke), 25 Banks and 75 Consultancy firms, there's a lot of business wear going around. That does not mean that people know how to make it work. Some examples: No, that bottom button is for show, don't use it! And tasselled loafers are not for business, unless you are a pimp. And no miniskirts are not for the office and no, that "funny"tie is not okay and no that legging is not suited for work (even on casual Friday). And for chris'sakes, learn how to tie a necktie properly, I can do it, so it is not impossible, but yes make it reach all the way to the waistline, yes, aaalllll the way down. And this is an office, not a strip club so you might want to cover that cleavage up just a bit and who the hell wear slippers to work in autumn? I do wonder what people do with all the nice clothes you can buy in stores, wear it around the house I guess. The university students do better, as do most of the immigrants, but it's just a matter of time with them I am afraid. Business casual is really that, casual, so get used to being overdressed.

Okay, maybe

How to shop
First of all bring your car, because all the shops are in one place and that's not where your house is. There's two types of shops. Really big (Think Ikea Delft) and boutique phone booth size. I've mentioned Fyshwick before, that's where all the really, really big stores are, the rest just tags along. Then there's the huge shopping malls, with 2 food outlets for every clothing store and at least 50 cubicles where you can get your phone repaired, upgraded, rebooted, reshelled, reimaged or have a rocket launcher installed. They are always busy Service is great most of the time and there is a lot of choice. Australians like choice and they like cheap, so there is really no end to what you can buy. There is real estate formula that is called "The marketplace"which typically has a big-ass supermarket, a butcher/baker/news agency/pharmacy/tailor/phone shop and massage chairs...It can be surreal to travel interstate and find the same layout everywhere. One weird thing is that if you need high quality shoes or hand bags, you have to travel to Sydney and people do that happily. (4hr bus ride = 20$, awesome, except for the bus part). For the quality stuff, slap on a sticker that says European (meaning Western European, not Bulgarian, Hungarian or Romanian) and the sky is the limit for pricing. Saying something is German is a good thing here and considered a compliment, so do not get angry when they think you are. It's like instant cool and classy....yeah, weird I know. Aussies love to deal on price, so make sure you do it all the time, but not in the supermarket or at charity sales, that is considered bad taste.

This could be anywhere, wait.... it is!

Experiencing Nature
The ACT is just beautiful. A small city core surrounded by small urban areas and lots of open spaces. We've been looking for all that wild life that would kill us instantly and it has been sort of underwhelming. The wild life we've seen so far is mostly of the fluffy and tailed type like koalas, kangaroos, a lost platypus or two, a few dead snakes, a live one that could not even impress a 4-year old and 1 suspicious cow that gave me the evil eye. Oh and 1 spider that could have been a red-back, maybe. The ACT is almost boringly safe, no gators, sharks, cassowaries, deadly snakes, spiders or forest fires. It could of course be that the large population of pick up trucks takes care of that, including the sharks! The ACT is very, very green, there's beautiful views everywhere and the air is clean and crisp on most days. It's the topic of the day when there is fog in the morning and with winter coming on, most people still go about without coats in the many city parks, playgrounds and outside BBQ areas. They bring their kids most of the time, so we stay away from there.

Am I freaking you out? Yeah, thought so

If you'd like to read more, click part two on the homepage.
 

Furniture Fiesta

We consider ourselves to be reasonable and low expectation people. That's why our plans work out so well most of the time, we're flexible and don't mind if we get there by a different route. As long as we get there, eventually. We've had the wind in our back ever since we set foot on the red earth Down under, but the wind must have been busy the day we decided to buy furniture.

About five weeks ago, still thinking that all was well with the world and feeling truly blessed, we decided to furnish our house and that's when you go to Fyshwick town, because that's where you go to buy stuff. So to Fyshwick we went (again), looked at about 3,754 pieces of furniture in 97 stores over 5 days and decided (Yuum needed comparative data and an analysis, I was done after 15 minutes) on Stylo Homes Furniture. I saw the dining table and a very nice cabinet and was sold on it and that's when we should have quit, but we also bought a bedroom set. I say "we", but now that it went wrong in a rather spectacular way, you will understand that it's my fault...(even though I was not part of the analysis team and had no decision power)

The furniture was said to arrive in two weeks...wait three weeks, uhm, four weeks...., no,no, I am sure I said five weeks! And then it was 2 days late anyway. No worries, mate, you know what, I'll just call you myself fifteen times to hear what the new date and time will be and then you can change it, again. By then we realized we were dealing with a Middle-Eastern businessman and our experience is that you should go diving in the Middle-East, but business deals are not that clearly outlined nor as permanent as a European might think. They smile and smile and smile and nothing gets done. Well, at least he did not say, you are my special friend....

Now, if it had stopped there, that would be sort of okay, like I mentioned, we're flexible. But noooooo. The table base had holes in the wrong place, so no way it would ever fit, the bed headboard and planking looked like it had been savaged by a pack of hungry, wild dingoes, the chairs were not the type we ordered oh and did I mention they were nearly four WEEKS late?!?!?! I'll spare you the customer service follow up and we did get a new base and headboard the next day, but no apology, no explanation.  I'd advise you against ever buying anything there, but since most of you live 16,000 kms away, I guess you are safe. They do have a web shop though...Seriously, go there open the Terms and Conditions and read that notice for yourself: WEBSITE UNDER MAINTINENCE. Dont make any purchase (those are not MY typos)

I consider myself to be reasonably handy, but the construction drawing really put my IKEA skills to the test. The bed set was a total of 9 boxes and the construction instructions were a joke. Enter Yumi the brilliant furniture instructor. As with many other things, I just screwed everything on (or up) and Yuum provided 'advice' on how to do that, good times. In the end I was left with two bags full of excess screws, plugs and some additional planking that we have no idea of where to put. All is well that ends well, I guess, but I think we shouted out, NEVER AGAIN!! about 25 times in the process. Can I see hands for anyone who thinks this was not a good way to spend Good Friday?  If you're thinking, what else could go wrong....well, after 1 night of sleeping in the bed I can tell you, it squeaks like a stuck pig every time you take a deep breath, but as long as you do not move a muscle, you're just fine. Aaaaargh.

Fortunately we also ordered some furniture from a different store (coffee table, console, tv cabinet and side table) and those were all delivered as promised and even though Yuum thought the coffee table to be damaged (If you lean in real close with a microscope, you might just see a scratch riiiiiight there.....oh wait it's a cat hair...no, my bad! I am just really happy that I have drawers to put all that laying-around-getting-hairy-and-dusty-stuff in. In case you wondered, our coffeetable-box and tv-cabinetbox are now living out their days in the box cemetery which was once our two car garage. There's so many boxes in it, we can hardly fit in one car and get out. I've never owned so many boxes in my life and I have no idea what to do with them other than making a really big pile and setting them on fire, which might just upset the neighbors.

This weekend is Easter and not only will the royal couple and son be visiting (only thing on tv), much more importantly, 99.9% all shops were closed on Good Friday. No kidding. Maybe K-Mart was open, I know the IGA supermarket was open (went there for a snack run) but it's really weird to see so little activity going on. Fortunately, the next three days the whole of Australia (aside from people working in stores) are off and set to holiday, buy cars and spend big money on furniture (it's the same everywhere you go). We will take the opportunity to buy some plants (which are really cheap compared to Intratuin) and pots (more expensive than the plants for some reason) and make our house a bit more of a home. Yuum expects me to hide Easter eggs throughout the house and garden, but it's still 23 degrees here, so not such a good idea, I'll hide them in the fridge.

More adventures next time, keep to the left and see you soon, here's some pics to share in our experience

 

Another week in the ACT

We've been in Canberra for a little over two months now and wow, does time fly!

The house is still standing and the cats are behaving as good as can be expected. They cannot really understand that they left the cold and rain, came here in comfortable warmth and now the cold and rain seem to have followed them here. Our autumn is still warmer than the Holland spring, but try and explain that to a cat. The furniture we ordered (bedroom, dining table and cabinet) that was supposed to arrive two weeks ago will now be delivered Monday or Tuesday, so we will no longer sleep on a matress on the floor and have some storage space. Our ocean shipment is also supposed to arrive next week, but with customs, you never really know. The grass keeps growing, despite Gil's efforts to nuke the garden with industrial strength weedkiller. Not one to give up, he is now in the market for depleted uranium, which has the added side effect that everything will glow in the dark!
We thought to have some really cool furniture made, but that required 2,000 dollars more than what we thought was a generous budget. Oh well, next time then, off to Fyshwick (Bataviastad but then really, really big) once again today for a coffee table, tv cabinet and book case. We'll also be shopping for lamps (found exact copies of what we had in Holland) because our football stadium strength lights'that come with the house are not exactly 'çosy' and require wearing your shades inside.

Yuum now has a job offer from Aspen and I was so cheerful that she was about to make a decision, but then another party (National Disability Service) came back faster than expected and ofcourse they want to talk to her.....aaaaaaaaand we're back to indecision 1-on-1. God forbid that another company approaches her, we'll have to get outside help to actually make the decision. I suggested flipping a coin, a turtle race, making a wheel of fortune, going with your gut and drawing straws, but Yuum insists on dragging it out and making it as complicated as possible for fear of making the wrong decision (it's a job for life, you see....). Thank goodness she is not in charge of garden maintenance, we'd have weeds 1 meter high by now. Oh well, if everyone would be like me...Hey, wait up, that is not such a bad idea now is it?!

My job is turning out to be pretty great. Aside from what must have been one of the most akward moments in my life where my 100 pound lady-boss really went to town on one her reports, basically tearing him apart in under 60 seconds. I am sure that if that ever happened to me, I'd either kung-fu the crap out of her right there and leave to never come back.....or start crying. There's all sorts change things going on and people are ready to make a change, but let's wait and see what they say when they hear the plans. Also, what I found to be true about public servants in NL is true for public servants in OZ, they make pretty long days, me included. Might be the level I am at, but emails at 2200or 0500 are fairly common and people really put in the time. They do of course take 1 hour lunches, but who can blame them when you're surrounded by 100 restaurants?! And then there's the lady colleague who confided in me after two days that she had no problem with foreign people, but those Asians(!), not speaking the language and being smelly, well... OMG, really?! Probably never left the ACT in yer life didya, hmm? But wait, let me introduce you to my wife.... Being a communications and change manager is quite the challenge, especially within government where everyone covers their own behinds first, feels they need to have their say and deadlines only apply to the last guy in line (that would be me....) However, reporting to the second in command in the building has its advantages and I am perfecting the age old skill of name-dropping like a boss! To Jelle, Sjoerd and Mieke (ex-Conclusion Communications guys) if you're reading this, thanks for the ProRail experience, so helpful right now!

The bus experience is....educational. People are very well-behaved and mind each other, quite a difference from my limited RTD experiences. (there were good reasons why I hate public transport!)In the morning the bus is so quiet you can actually hear people breathe, kind of spooky. Unless we have the lady that plays classical music on speaker volume 90, than its sort of like being at the movies...music....breathing...shuffling.....music. I have so far identified four types of drivers. The best one is The Entertainer, who plays music, makes comments over the intercom, greets everyone with cheer and is just a really happy person (gets a lot of hate in the morning). Then there's the Brake Tester, who likes to be safe at close distances and thinks that motion sickness only happens to pussies anyway. Hold on when you're with the Failed F1 Driver, who dreamt of a racing career and ended up on a bus, but fails to see the difference (does get you home real fast though). And fourth and final, the Hollywood Waitress, who thought this was only going to be temporary, but has been driving the bus since they invented sliced bread and is sort of indifferent to everything around them. (gets a lot of love in the morning). As long as Yuum does not decide on a job and hogs the car, I am confined to the bus, so you can expect more observations later on.

The change of the season is a remarkable experience as well. To us, we feel like spring should be coming, but being on the other side of the equator makes this autumn and we are on winter time. Good thing is that we're only 8 instead of 10 hours ahead now, so communications with the NL are a bit less challenging timewise. Skype is great for warding off 'heimwee', but it's not a time machine.
It is also somewhat weird experience to go from one of the best English speakers on the block to being 'not quite a native speaker' and because of my years at Rockwell and SkyChannel education, I sound quite American/Canadian, so everyone just assumes I get it. Yuum has the advantage that she's Asian looking, so aside from being smelly, expectations are much lower. There were some challenging momenst last week when I had to make sure wording and grammar were correct because only 1,100 people would read my text, gulp...Good thing my boss is a detail manager who likes to take things into her own hand and has some wicked synonym skills! And then there's Easter holidays, which is like Sinterklaas over here. They've been ramping up to it ever since we got here, with food, holiday deals, really annoying tv commercials, equally annoying kids entertainment and lots and lots of chocolate in all shapes and sizes. Quite the experience, but Yuum and I will be unpacking boxes (hopefully) by then, so we'll take advantage of those days off. We've also got Anzac day, which is sort of a 4/5 May thing, but here's it's a national holiday every year. Living the good life!

Keep to the left, see you soon.
 

My first week as a public servant

With the Monday missing it wasn't technically a whole week, but my contract says 38 hours for a 5 day workweek and I say that I spent at least 40 hours in 4 days, so I am calling it a week!

The job is great, a bit confusing at this point to find out which piece of the puzzle goes where and I have to keep reminding myself that they had 5 months to get where they are now and I don't have to solve it all in 5 days. By next Monday I will get my project manager colleague and I feel that from there on out things will start to roll a bit faster and smoother. In the meanwhile I am figuring out what it means to be a communication and change manager in the public domain. Fortunately people are mostly the same everywhere, when it comes to keeping secrets. Friday morning I ask my boss about who I get to talk to on the plan, she tell's me 4 people. Okay. Few hours later I have a meeting with 4 people who are not the 4 people my boss mentioned and they tell me that, yes they we're sworn to secrecy and informed, but they felt they could trust me to be in the know... Like I said, the same everywhere.

I've met what feels like all 1,100 members of Shared Services (SS does just not sound right does it?)
in 4 days, but it's probably closer to 100. The freaky part is that they all remember my name and I struggle to remember 1 in 4 of theirs. What is really funny is to have them guess where I am from. So far I've had US, South Africa, Denmark (clearly they've never met a Dane), Amsterdam (hahaha, NO!), UK, Germany and....Australia. My American accent throws them off a bit, but when I mention The Netherlands everyone seems have been there, knows someone there and some can even speak a few words in nearly fluent Dutch. I am waiting for them to start using the swearwords as well and then add some new ones. Yes, I am all about continuous improvement and providing service!

Another new thing is the dresscode. Or the lack thereof. Seems like everyone just does as they please, so I wear my suit and tie every day of the week to be on the safe side. Feels a bit like playing dress up, but it's starting to grow on me and it helps with the ad-hoc last minute meeting invites. When you're in a room full of directors (some in trainers and jeans and some in a three-piece suit) you don't want to stick out just yet. I might slack off later on, but for now this works. There's some people who clearly shop at Public-Servants-R-Us (we have it, as long as it's grey and brown), but ladies dress particularly nice, except for the ones in fleece sweaters. The gents could use some help on how long their ties should be (not that short!), length of their pants (not that short!!) and height of their waistband (not that high and certainly not that low). Did I mention one teamleader wears cowboy boots and a skullcover bandana? Good times!

There's more goodness around the office. We have toilets that remind me of roadside reststops. True there's no grafiti, but the stalls are open to the sides and the doors do not reach all the way down, quite the shared experience.... What I do consider smart is that all doors on all floors have the ERT safety instructions on them, gives you something to do when you're there anyway. To balance that out, we also have multiple locations of treats and sweets that you can get through a trust jar system (leave the money and take what you want) Yummm, peanut butter cups! We recycle like crazy, which leads to the annoying part where there's no bins below your desk, but a centralized bin for every 4 sets of cubicles. Sigh. We have cool watertaps that provide boiling water and filtered cool water and about 15 fridges per floor. The office itself has a great viewand enough lighting to be visible from space but they surely did not splash on furniture, which is pretty old and crappy, but maybe I was just spoiled at Rockwell. after 8 years of having a laptop, I now have a desktop computer. So convenient when you move between buildings and locations all the time. I'm giving it the remainder of the month and then start bringing my laptop or tablet because it's allready getting on my nerves. Want email on your phone, no worries, that's just $360 of taxpayer's money....WTF?! Yeah, that whole teleworking thing? They're still waiting for the memo.

My first bus experience on Tuesday was clearly the best of the week and by Friday I remembered why public transport and I just don't mix. The drivers are friendly enough, but if they wanted a career in racing, picking a job as a busdriver would be more fitting if you were planning a terrorist attack instead of providing a transportation service. The buses are on time, except when it rains, then they don't show up or smell like wet person. I do not like wet person smell. I did find out that the folding chairs are the best place to sit and also that people do not know their own dimensions. No, you cannot sit on my lap with your right but cheek, I do not know you that well, get off me!! All in all, I am seriously hoping that Yuum will accept the offer of Aspen, so we can drive to and from work together. The only thing better than getting caught in traffic is getting caught in traffic together and do a how-was-your-day on the way home.

Leaving at 7.30 and returning at 18.30 doesn't leave a lot of room for funstuff and entertainment, but I am sure that once things settle down I'll start kung fu again, seems far away now, but I am really looking forward to that. I started running  at the beginning of March and had a good time of it, but then had to quit last week due to a nasty double shinbone inflamation (hard surface, bad shoes, I know), so now we're waiting for the good shoes to arrive in another few days. Both our new furniture and the seafreight shipment are scheduled to arrive around the 15th of April, so the next post will probably be about home decoration and how happy we are to have our oven dishes and bicycles again.

Keep to the left, see you soon!

First day on the job

My former Rockwell colleagues will wonder why I gave up my cool window spot with a view to the bridge and river for this, but at some point I guess they will have to give me a PC and a phone and pull up the blinds and THEN I will look out over the whole of Canberra from the 9th floor of my city office. I cannot see my house from here, but it does not get a lot higher and better than this. I can see Capital Hill, I can see Lake Burley Griffin, a number of museums and it is an exact 2.38 minutes walk away from Canb City Shopping mall with the best food court ever. (I could have gone faster, but there were old people in my way!) I will ofcourse never get yummy snacks from the 50+ foodstalls, because that would be bad for my diet....

The bus stop is all of 50 meters away from the front of my Eclipse building and going by my first experience this morning, not a terrible option to drive back and forth to work. Contrary to the average Rotterdam bus/tram/metro driver, the Canberra drivers do not have a deathwish for themselves or their passengers and the few times they do need to brake, does not involve the whole of the bus to experience an NCAP rating crashtest. In the meanwhile I somehow managed to get my buscard trapped in the lining of my new suit and spent a good ten minutes to retrieve it through the 'pochette' pocket. Well, at least it kept the other travelers entertained.

As far as work is concerned, there's a lot of unclarity (comes with the job) still, but by Friday I will have had a meeting with the execitive MT and have read the agreement that we are supposed to help implemen . All 95 pages of it, plus the 100+ ppt slides I got 'for my reference' (yeah, thanks). I must say the lady from Price Waterhouse that wrote it knows her stuff and managed to NOT add to the reigning confusion so far. 

I am supposed to leave the office by 17.30 at the latest or wait for the cleaners to let me out. My floor houses all sorts of Finance and Policy & Compliance people, so my Expressive style personality will fit right in, ahem. Aside from the biggest printer (it might just print real live new employees for all I know) I have ever seen, there's lot's of chocolaty snacks with a trust jar of money next to it and a lady who bakes cakes for a hobby in the cubicle next to mine. Good times. The building I am in, also houses the parolee and convict board so I fit right in...sort of. Security is quite tight because of that and forgetting your badge when using the bathroom is not a great plan. I am sure to do that at some point, just wait for it. 

Tomorrow will be lots of reading, the required handshakeround across the department floor and some more settling in. Thanks for all the lovely and funny support messages, now all I have to do is prove you all right. Keep you posted!

 

Real-life superhero

Sometimes family can be complicated and there's all sorts of theories on who does what and why. One of these is that sons will always feel that they can do better than their father and will continuously strive to do so.
I suppose they can be right, but I happen to disagree. My dad is surely like no other and he will never, ever come out and say it himself, he does not own a cape, nor does he wear spandex,(thank you, Lord!) but my dad is a the real deal true real-life superhero. My mom is equally awesome, (think mix of Xena/Jean Grey/Wonder Woman) but that's a story for another time.

I know this blog is supposed to be about Australia and I'll get there in a bit, but dad, this one is for you, because I hope to some day become like you are now and would be proud to be half the man you've proven yourself to be in these times of adversity.

About a week ago I got the message that my dad's company had to file for bankruptcy. Not a complete surprise, but even I (Mr. long-term-plan-for-everything-with-safety-margins) hadn't realized that things had gotten so bad. Looking back (always the easy part) I guess there were signs and signals, but when everybody is so busy trying to make it work, they're probably easy to miss.

So there goes his (and my uncle's) life's work of more than 35 years. All the effort, all the hardships, all that work, it's just gone. Not even to mention the effect to their personal lives, because their whole lives where in that business they are now left with next to nothing. Only memories will remain in a few months time. Hard times are coming for 600 employees that get swept along in this. Good, decent, hard working people, some of them I have known my whole life and got more wisdom and education from than from all my studies combined. These people do not deserves this. These men and women have families, were building careers, had dreams of big and small things and some dedicated their whole lives to being part of the family business. I still am proud that I got to live and work with these people and words cannot describe how sorry I am for them.

When he told me, my dad just kept coming back to the employees time and time again. That's what he was still fighting for, that's what all the meetings were about, that's where all the effort went. Making sure that as many as possible would still have a job to go to. So many heartrendingly sad, but still positive comments on Facebook and some not so positive, out of ignorance, anger, fear or a combination of each. One stuck in my mind..."I guess they lost our phone numbers...." No, they did not. Instead of keeping 600 employees updated on the latest,  they were working 16 hour days, to then go back home to worry, feel ashamed and cry and NOT sleep, to return the next day trying to keep your job and pay that phone bill at the end of the month. Some people...

Living in Australia is pretty cool (told you I'd get back to it), but at times like these it just isn't, the impracticality of not being able to come over fast and help out is just so frustrating right now. We got asked a thousand times what would make us go back and then we said things like, ehm...serious disease, death, marriage or some other big life event would be the reason for us returning home, but we did not think to put this on the list. I offered, but of course my dad turned it down (that's what superheroes do) because there was nothing I could do and we needed to start building a life here. I still want to be there, knowing that I cannot do sh*t, but to support my dad, console my mom and hug my (so hugely strong and brave) big sister. Instead I talk to him over Skype after his long day in my morning and his evening and he sits there so calm and collected (did I mention he suffered a heart attack just two months back?). He is emotional and shows it, but at the same time so rational and structured. He will not walk away from this, make sure the damage is controlled to a minimum. He will stand up and take the punishment and move past it. Not now, but someday, after everyone else has been taken care of, because that's who he is. Right then and there I am so proud that I almost cry. This man, who has essentially lost everything he worked for all his life just looks at me, shrugs it off and says: "Of course this is bad, but I still have your mom and my kids, that's what really matters now. tomorrow's another day, let's see what it brings". Like I said; real-life superhero.

Superheroes do not always win, but they do not give up the fight. Ever. Thank you dad for showing that to me time and time again and being such a great example of how to live upright and strong. Ik hou van je.

All things nice and easy (for us)

We've been here for almost 2 weeks now and it feels like much longer.  Today is mattress, appliances and phone guy day. We'll make a quick stop at the reject shop for some essentials like sticky hooks, a thingy to put our knives in, cleaning products and some baskets or other storage thing to put socks and underwear in. (TMI?! You wanted details, so here you go!). Most of our clothing is here and as soon as Gil gets his hands on the vacuum ( a Miele, because it's European AND German, which makes it indestructibly cool by Oz standards) we'll see some real cleaning magic. There's about 39,000 dead bugs in the house, which the 50 spiders seem to have missed. Our two greatest fly catchers will not arrive for a few more weeks, so we'll buy one of those giant swatters this week.

The pics of the house can be seen here: http://bit.ly/1j72ENi. As we get more furniture, we'll update the album or makes some new

We checked again and yes, we are indeed in an Internet blackout zone. The scary sensation of looking for a wifi connection and finding none, not even locked out. We'll be blacked out and on our mobiles for a day or two before the connection is made with the right Internet partner. Until that time we'll just Dongle along apparently. Phone guy has come and gone and now we have telephone line, yeeeeeh, oh wait, we didn't want one to begin with, but it's the only way to get Internet up and running. Helloooooo 2003!

Radio is great. We listen to Mix 106, which is sort of poppy and has some rock classics. And a lot of Midnight oil, Fine Young Cannibals, Savage Garden and INXS. For some reason there's also a lot of Eurythmics in there, not sure why though. All great bands, but it must be like listening to Frans Bauer and Jan Smit for the Aussies. Should be alright, nice and easy as they say here. They have the greatest radio and tv commercials, quite a few beyond the levels of acceptable akwardness but really really funny. We do hate the ' that's amore' Micky D. commercial. Gil especially hates it when people providing a service all of a sudden burst out in song and dance. When do we ever see that happening in real life huh?! Right! So stop it, now!

The Olympics from an Aussie perspective are great as well. 3 medals and they celebrate like they lead the list and every man and his dog and their sister's neighbour are interviewed about what they think  mr(s) X's chances are of winning another medal, lovely TV.  TV in general is very much like what we had back in Poortugaal, cooking shows, people building stuff, dieting competitions, lots of drama and fishing, lots of fishing......

Food wise we're doing a pretty decent job if we do say so ourselves. We've cooked every single day and although it is not the height of Haute cuisine, it's not pizza either. In our quest to control the budget we've been cooking pasta, curry, rice and sauce, noodles, burgers (veggie). No worries, mums, we eat veggies with every single meal. We've found that bread is best eaten toasted and that it doesn't matter if you buy a loaf of 7 dollars or just under 2, toasted, it all tastes the same. Cheese is a bit of a challenge, but it is available and digestible, just not that tasty, despite the name (Tasty cheese, the boys in Marketing must have had a field day with that one) Gil is giving cottage cheese a try, but good Lord, why did they ever make this to begin with? Must have been some sort of mistake. Gives great structure to cheap pasta sauce though. Yogurt is another thing. Low fat must be referring to the person that was operating the machine, because in NL, low fat means about 30kcal/100ml, here it's 115 kcal/100ml, and stop calling it Greek Yogurt. Gil's been around Greece and they would be sad and disappointed over this yogurt, possibly some would cry. Gil's now found some 60kcal/100gr that will have to do, it's still Greek though (produced in Oz, haha).

We've browsed so many shops and warehouses in the last two weeks that we feel that we could apply for a position in any of them an get hired on the spot. Big W, K-mart, Woolworths, Coles, Supabarn, Magnet Mart, Bunnings, about 30 furniture stores, 15 BBQ shops, 20 garden centres and 7 shopping malls. The size of the shopping malls is nothing short of spectacular, especially the one in Canb city centre. That's like Rotterdam centre, but with a roof over it. Each has it's own food court and about 1,000 shops (well, at least 300). All airco'd, because hey, Australians laugh at global warming (I mean 44 or 46 degrees, who cares).

Coming Weekend is the Canberra Show  (http://canberrashow.org.au/), including farm animals, so we'll go real early on Friday and see if we can spot some racing pigs and other assorted weirdness. All in all we're having a great time and see things slowing down a bit by the end of the week. We haven't wiped the windscreen wipers for 3 days if we wanted to use the blinkers and are getting a handle on the left handed driving. Rotunda's still freak us out though, but so far so good.

 

It's a small step for man, but a very slow step for our kind

The first few days have passed by in a rush of heat (35-40 degrees), lots of trips to the (air conditioned) supermarket and many adjustment adventures. The B&B is great, the car is great, we're doing great trying to adapt, all is good with the world. Of course there a some things that go different than planned, but that's why we have plan B (and C and D). Life really moves at a slower pace here and we're finding it rather agreeable, be it somewhat inconvenient if you want to set up your new life. Then again, we've been here three full days now, lets give it a month ;-)

Take for example the bank. We were there, but the appointment had been wrongfully scheduled, so that took until today, but now we've got bankcards, three    accounts, visa cards coming and a lot of useful info on all things banking. Finally the pin machines make sense now, because apparently you have your everyday account, your bills account and your long term savings account and you get to choose which one you want to use. Not all that different from NL, but different enough to be somewhat alien. We now have glossy black passes with lots of silver shiny on them. Good stuff.

In the meanwhile we could probably start working as second hand car sales guys, as we've read so much about it now that we know every trick in the book on how to buy a good car. And it would be great if we would have a permanent address, so we could actually buy one. So rental car it is for another 2 weeks at least. We're probably going to downsize a little form our Holden Commodore SR6 19,000HP engine to a more suitable mid class boring car that is a tiny bit more eco friendly than the 16,5l/100km we're currently getting.

As far as housing is concerned, we're having a good time of visiting all sorts of open homes. Last Saturday we visited 8, one could not be shown because the key was missing and everyone seemed okay with that, so we just nodded along and drove off to the next in line. Monday (Today) there's 2, Tuesday another 3 and Wednesday and Thursday we've got some more scheduled. we're guessing that with no income and 2 furry weapons of mass deconstruction on the way, we're the ideal tenants, so we're taking potshots at the market and hope than someone will give us a break.

We're slowly gathering some intel on the job market and things are looking pretty good, but we're not actively seeking yet, which would be a big hassle with all the things we still need to arrange. We'll probably start inquiring somewhere halfway through March, so if there's news, we'll be sure to share it. Which is the Aussie way of saying: "get of my back mate". :-). We've visited the International Festival last Sunday and that was good fun, everyone celebrating that 25% percent of Canberra's population is not from Oz originally. Don't see that happening in NL...Yuum got some info on volunteer stuff involving animals (no not BBQ-ing them, but something preservational of sorts) and Gil spotted a Kung Fu sifu that he had not yet found but he will definitely check out his school

Thanks for all the support and positivity so far, we'll keep you posted if we haven't already skyped, emailed, whatsapped or phoned you, through this blog  and on Facebook.

A day in Singapore

We're 6 hours into the second part of the flight and seen to the fact that we must have the two loudest snoring people in the southern hemisphere sitting right behind us, we might as well spent time unwillingly awake in a more productive way and write a post. We hope they have really sore throats, as we have very sore eyes and ears and Gil's Asperger is kicking up like a %!$#!^%.

Singapore was quite the experience. In a "hey lets get food poisoning in a really bad way at the first place we eat and then break the world record of most public toilets visited in the space of 8 hours sort of way" But of course only Gil suffered from that, because Yumi "bowels of steel" Stamet could probably eat enriched plutonium 238, boiled in polonium enriched cooling water and still be allright. But enough anbout Gil's bowel movements...there was a whole city to see.

We started the day by catching some shuteye at the airside hotel and managed to get almost 5 hours of sleep, getting up at the local time of 12:00 (NL 05:00). We were up and out on the town with our public transport passes like real commoners at 14:00 and scoped out some lunch (all was still good then) and then went off to see Chinatown. We walked some more in a not so comfortable 895 degrees, but fortunately there was a cooling breeze of about 742 degrees, so no need to complain.

The city looks a lot like HK and KL, but a little more designed, planned and newer. It is indeed very clean and the signage telling you to not litter, smoke, eat, drink, park, run or act suspicious (no joke) in public was a big source of entertainment (pics will follow). By the time it was three and Gil was seriously considering going back to airport to die with some dignity, Yuum drugged him back from the light at the end of the tunnel with real Coca Cola (oh man that tastes awful!!) and aspirin and he started feeling somewhat less miserable. We trugged ahead, saw some temples, a lot of German cars and a Chinese Dancing dragon sponsored by Knorr (which makes complete sense)

Around 17:00 Gil was out for the count and making nice with another new public toilet. (tip from Gil, keep an eye on the cleaning schedule and remember that toilet paper gets dispensed when you come in and is not in the stall and no, he did not get caught with his pants down....) when the foodpoisoning seemed to have run its course and we entered the Singapore Flyer for a very spectacular view of the city from 168 meters up.

Afterwards we completed a nice walk along the riverfront, saw the Raffles hotel and snapped a pic of Orchard road for Gil's mom (check, it's still there) but as it was getting dark and Gil found himself looking for new a new restroom to befriend, we decided to call it a day and head back to the airport for our hand luggage, a meal for Yuum, the last souvenir and a well needed shower. Before we knew it we were boarding and on our way in this big-ass A380 on the upper deck.

While this is written, we're flying very close to Canberra and with only 60 minutes of flight time we're getting ready to start a new day. It's 10:30 where we are and our plan is to get the luggage, get the rental, get the airfreight and be on our way. We'll let you know how that went somewhere later today or maybe tomorrow.

The end of it all

The last few days have been somewhat more eventful then the previous four weeks.
Right now we're flying over Thailand, 3 hrs out of Signapore, well fed and hydrated.
The last night from Thursday to Friday in Poortugaal we spent sleeping in the living room, surrounded by our last earthly possessions. The Friday went of without a hitch. Day start was at 06.00 for the last shower, last vacuum, last fridge clean and such. At 09.00 we dropped the last of our stuff of at Gil's sister's friend and after a last waste drop off stop at 10.00 a quick stop at Gil's parents and dropping off the rental van, we were officially done with Poortugaal and headed to Huissen at 13.00. But first we got some great sandwiches from Sol food in Rhoon, because hey, we gots to eat right?!

Huissen was the oasis of tranquility it always is, except for the now four (!) cats occassionally attempting a sneak assissination attempt on each other. We made a few walks, spent  a lot of time eating or talking about food as is the Stamet tradition, had our last family dinner at da Claudio's and had a really good time. After all that goodness it was extremely tough to leave Huissen and say goodbye to Yuum's mum and dad. They are just the sweetest people you can imagine and they tried so hard to put on a brave face, but in the end everybody just cried. And that's okay.

Before we arrived at Gil's parents' house, we (Yuum) had to go on an epic journey to secure two suitcase security straps. Yeah...that's just what you need at the last moment! We could not find them because clearly it's not the season for those things....Fortunately Gil's parents had them and they are now in the cargohold making sure that our suitcases are safe, secure, strapped and probably some other s'es as well.

The last night at Gil's parents was blissfully uneventful. We checked out some cars we might buy, found out that some of the houses we picked are already gone (que sera sera) and before we knew it, it was 05.00 and time to start the day, say goodbye to Gil's mom at 06.15, drive to S'hol with Hester, Gil's sister and dad to meet Just and go through security at 07.30. There was a slight hickup with the visa being granted on the old passport, but a quick phonecall by ubersturmhauptfrau Immergeregelt made that all go away. Saying goodbye to the last of these lovely people that got up really early to send us off, was really hard, but we kept it together throughout most of it and eased our way through waiting by eating and walking. Sometimes at the same time, we're crazy that way, don't try it at home, only for trained pro's.

So far everything is right according to plan, eventhough the flight attendant has just informed Gil they are out of Diet Coke and he's just stopped breathing into a  paper bag.We'll be landing in Singapore in just under 2.5 hours, sleep some, see some sights (incl. the Singapore flyer) and report back when we are on red  soil.

99% complete and empty

Our planning efforts for the Big Move are starting to make the Normandy Invasion look like the Annual Poortugaal Boy Scout field day  and after last weekend and Monday we can now safely say that the biggest part is behind us. 

The Saturday Send off  (See-you-later-this-is not-goodbye) party started with Gil picking up the 020 family from Roffa CS and giving them a short tour of the hood he grew up in (Zuidhoek re.pre.sent) before arriving in Poortugaal. Soon enough everyone, including 5 kids, which is sort of a record for our house, was there and we had a big cake-eating fest and snackorama. Fortunately, most people also took something home with them or at least reserved it for future delivery. As with all good parties, we finished late and ate Chinese food, which is about as good as it gets when partying in Poortguaal.

Sunday was all about getting rid off most of the big pieces of furniture to Gil's Sister's twice-removed cousin's cleaning lady's poker buddy's stripper's friend from Oostvoorne (of all places). When her brother showed up with just a flat bed trailer one and a half hour later than agreed, we thought....well, never mind what we thought, but it turned out that the guy had some serious stacking skills and more binders than you'd think possible, so in just under two hours with four cars, three drives and a little help from her friends, neighbors and random Hoogvliet strangers, the lady was set up with our stuff and our house was 75% empty.

Before

After

On Monday we lugged the another 22% downstairs (the other 2% is in the suitcases), which is the stuff we planned to take with us to Oz from the start. The move guy and Gil both agreed that it would amount to about 3m3 or 20 boxes and old hands as they are at estimating the exact number of nearly everything, it turned out that we had 22 boxes, 2 bicycles, 2 paintings, 2 toolboxes and 2 diving kits. Because the power of the number two started to freak Asperger Gil out, we included 1 box full of clothes hangers (about 64, which is 2x2x2x2x2x2). Needless to say there were 2 movers and it took them 2 hours to get it all packed and ready. 

Right now there's nothing left to do than to pay some bills, watch a few movies, write some thank you cards (finding the right words takes a lot more time than you'd think), buy some last minute essentials (because OMG we will soooo die if we do not have these really important things, like international power plug adapters...,) cleaning the house (hahahahah....no), eat the remaining food ( oh yeah!) and wait for Friday to arrive so we can leave Poortugaal once and for all and check in at the Stamet Hotel in Huissen. On Monday we'll migrate the circus to the Kruidenier Rhoon Residence, where Hester (a.k.a.Die-hard-early-riser- supermom-BFF) picks us up to take us and Gil's dad and sister to Schiphol on Tuesday morning where we'll be greeted and amazed by some more family and friends with banners, fireworks, ponies and clowns around 07:30'ish. Expect another update in a week, unless we crash, than it might be a little later. (finding good free WiFi can be such a pain :-)).