Freedom at last

(For full memory lane effect, start harp music here)

2 years ago on this day at 11.30am we landed in Sydney to start a new chapter in our lives. I cannot remember exactly how I felt (aside from better than in Singapore with food poisoning) but I think we were full of confidence, hope and positivity. Yumi was probably just thinking about food.

Story of my life with Yumi

We picked up our final essentials at customs and well and truly arrived at the B&B of Robyn and Peter Major at 18.30 after a sunny drive from Sydney to the ACT in our way-too-big rental car. 10 days later we had a car, house, new documents, insurance, healthcare, appliances and makeshift furniture. And we started to understand that around here kangaroos are like rabbits, they’re everywhere, no reason to get excited every time you see one because, there’s another one, and another one and another one….

A typical day in the ACT

Flash forward to today and it is safe to say that things have improved and changed significantly since then. I ended up working with Peter Major, after his wife introduced me to his boss, who then later gave me my first assignment when I started my own business because the ACT is small and everyone knows everyone. They sold their house and B&B recently, but to us, that address just 5 kilometres away from where we live now will always be where our adventure truly started.

Serving the 2 year sentence

2 years is a significant milestone, not just because by now we’ve seen all seasons twice and driving on the wrong side of the road no longer freaks us out completely, it’s also the time we agreed to spend in the ACT when we applied for our visa. From today on, we are free to go and settle wherever we like in Australia. We found out later that it’s actually more of a gentle(wo)man’s agreement and nothing holds you back from leaving from Sydney, Perth or Melbourne on day one, but hey, who’d want to do that, right?!

Well…..that would be us. We were happy to get the visa and come here, but in our minds we always pictured ourselves in one of the bigger cities and as all of you who’ve known us a bit longer already know, it generally works out for us. So by April 2016 we’ll be moving to Melbourne. 1/47 Austral Avenue, 3056 Brunswick to be exact. Yep, you read that right, the universe conspired again to make good things happen for us. I guess we were really good people in previous lives to be so fortunate. Yumi’s work created an opportunity to move, I can run my type of business from anywhere and it’s what we wanted so we just made the decision to leave it all behind once more.

Story of Yumi's life with me

The ACT is a great place to live

Even after 2 years there’s still nothing that comes to mind that is a real negative (aside from the shoe thing, but I’ll not go on a rant right now). People are generally friendly, helpful and fun loving. The food is great, everything is nearby, fuel is cheap, traffic is light, there’s always some event on, you can cycle to most places, see kangaroos, nature and mountain backdrops everywhere and winter is really more like an average Dutch summer. That’s not taking into consideration the lovely people (Australian and Dutch) we’ve met and who’ve become dear friends. Life is good in the village that is the ACT. It’s a bit like the Hotel California, you can check out, but people expect you to come back some time and you’d be welcome, without it being creepy.

Yes, tell me again how cold you are, I did not get it the first 15 times this morning

Things do change

While I will never, ever, ever, ever wear flip flops or shorts on a work day or to the office in general, I now do wear shorts sometime when we go for a walk and recently I bought flip flops. I know, shocking right?! I’ve found passable yoghurt, accepted that Coke Zero is less disgusting than Diet Coke here and just yesterday bought two polo shirts at RM Williams (the bush outfitter). I love that we’ve slowly adopted the “shoebeawlride” attitude that I find the most endearing trait of the Aussies. We now think of a 300km ride as a totally acceptable distance to go and visit a town or heap of rocks, just because we can. I now call men mate and don’t think it’s weird and no longer get annoyed when people think I am Canadian/Danish/South African or from Amsterdam (yeah, I know it’s not a country). Still no clue about cricket though….

 Year one had a bit of a rocky start on the family side of things, year two could not have been more different. We get really excited when we look back and see how much has changed in just these two years, what could happen in the next two?!  Here’s the things we considered the year 2 highlights:

• Suzanne and Alex have another daughter, Elize, in January
• We celebrate our 1 year anniversary in Australia in February
• We visit the Melbourne F1 in March
• Hester visits us in April
• Just visits us in May
• Gil starts his volunteer work with his 80 year old new bestie Marlis in June
• Gil quits the best job he ever had to start his own business in July
• We start Kendo (marriage counselling with swords) in July
• Gil rediscovers cycling in August and clocked about 2,000km since
• Gil gets his second surgery done in September
• Joop and Henny celebrate their 25^th wedding anniversary in Oz in October
• Gil starts his first assignment in October
• Yumi lands the Melbourne opportunity in November like a boss
• We go on our first real holiday to Tassie in December
• We find a house in Melbourne on the first try in January

True story

·         Pretty disgusting isn’t it? By the way, yes, Yumi was just BBQ-ing, eating and/or snoozing most of that time.

What comes next

February, March and April will be super busy with both our jobs ending here and new chapters being added in Melbourne. Saying goodbye to all the friends and goodness we’ve collected over the past 2 years will not be quite as hard as leaving the Netherlands, but it’s really not something we’re looking forward to. Then again, in true Aussie spirit: “Should be alright, mate!”

Stay Safe, keep to the left!