Photo mega post!

Are you ready for this?

We finally have internet in our apartment, so I can upload a bunch of pictures for you! Hooray!

Pre-departure in Calgary. 6 suitcases to check, plus 4 carry-ons. The bellboy at the hotel was a little concerned that we wanted to put all of this luggage into our rental Kia Forte.

Getting ready to board our plane in YVR.

This is really happening!

Some bubbly in business class, whilst the rest of the passengers (unwashed masses) board.

This is the life!

On the ground in Brisbane.

One of two very full luggage carts. The cab drivers were laughing at us as we rolled up to the taxi line... Luckily there was a van cab that fit all of our stuff.

Real beer and ginger beer.

Couldn't resist buying this!

Phew, I was worried that stress incontinence wouldn't receive proper recognition in this country.

At a Canada Day BBQ on the Sunday after we arrived.

First try at picking up our car. This was as close as we got, but we did get a free coffee out of the deal so all was not lost.

Magnets from home. (Thanks Michelle!)

Second visit to dealership. We got closer...

We even got inside!

Air shipment arrives, plus a houseplant from Mom and Dad!

At the Queensland Reds game.

The view from our temporary apartment in Spring Hill.

Driving the car away from the dealership!!!!

New BBQ, which we christened with...

Shrimp on the Barbie!

Cheeky beer brand at the Bottle-O

View from our balcony (not sure why there was a police car on the river pathway though...)

On the CityCat with the Story Bridge in the background.

At our second Queensland Reds game! They lost this one, and the season ended, but we're all kitted out for next year!

New patio furniture!

More!

Sweat in the City bootcamp with Carrie Bradshaw (blue hat)

What a delectable place to live!

Well, Hello there!

It feels like only yesterday that I wrote a brief entry about being 3 weeks away from departure. And now we’ve been here for over 3 weeks. How time flies!

We’ve been getting involved in some different activities. I started a boot camp today with some new friends I made through the Brisbane Social Network, and it’s run by Carrie Bradshaw! Her company is called Sweat and the City, and I’m not joking, her name (once she gets married in a few weeks) is Carrie Bradshaw. It’s going to be good to get into shape and it’s great that I can spend time with new friends while doing it.

We also went out to the curling rink last week. I’m kicking myself now for not taking any pictures while we were there, but we’ll be back so I promise to take a few and post them for you. It was held in a figure skating arena, that they run the Zamboni over and then pebble using a garden hose.  They keep the curling rocks in a deep freezer, and when they bring them onto the ice, they put them on their sides so that they don’t stick to the ice. The rocks develop quite a layer of frost on them, and if you leave them on the running surface for too long, they will stick to the ice.  At home, we complain about the slightest imperfection in the ice, but here, you have the damage inflicted by toe picks and skate blades to contend with, and you can see when the rock runs over one of these. The ice is unbelievably heavy to begin but it does keen up after a little while. And it doesn’t curl all that much… At the end of the night, the rocks go back in the deep freeze until next week. We’re going to give it a shot, and see how we like it…

Lastly, I started taking tap dance lessons last week. At this point, my tap dancing abilities are basically limited to tap walking, but I am looking forward to learning more, and it’s definitely going to be a good workout for the legs!

I feel like my brain is playing tricks on me a little. We have been in our apartment for over a week now, and it’s been great to actually unpack our suitcases, and get settled in. However, I’m struggling a little with this notion of “getting settled”. The more settled we get, the more real everything becomes, and it starts to set in that this isn’t a trip or vacation, this is our new home. It’s really strange. As much as I want to settle in, I find myself resisting it a little because in my head, it confirms the fact that we’re staying. (Plus, I saw an ad on TV last night for a couch called the Baby Jasper, and it made me think of the pupperton.)

That being said, this is a pretty awesome place to be. It has been a little rainy over the past few weeks, which we’ve been told is unusual in the winter. But this is winter, and we’ve been wearing shorts, t-shirts and sandals! It feels similar to a Calgary autumn, with cooler nights, and a cool breeze offsetting the heat of the sun. I walked to boot camp this morning, and once you’re in the sun and moving, you warm up pretty fast.

We are loving our new apartment. It is right on the Brisbane River, with a green area and the river pathway right in our backyard. Jasper has been approved as a tenant, and this location is perfect for him.  It has lots of windows to capture the city breeze, plus a tile floor that will help it stay cool in the hot summers. We have three bedrooms each with their own balcony, plus a large living area, and a big patio overlooking the river. At this point we have rental furniture until our sea container arrives, but we’ve purchased some new patio furniture, a BBQ and some patio plants to make it feel more like home. You really can’t beat enjoying a beer on the patio, looking at the river, and watching the CityCat (public transit catamaran) go by. Sigh. You’ll have to come and see for yourself!

Our internet gets hooked up tomorrow, so be prepared for a lot of pictures on the blog! Plus, we’re hoping to take some road trips on the upcoming weekends and our first stop will be the ocean so watch this space!

Bad Blogger Apologies

I've neglected this blog over the past few weeks. But in my defence, things have been slightly busy. We found an apartment and moved in over the weekend, so now we are nesting. It's right on the river, so we have a pretty peaceful view from our balcony.

We also are now the proud owners of a Subaru XV (finally!) so we've been out driving around Brisbane and I keep repeating the "keep left, give way to the right and whatever you do, don't stop for pedestrians" mantra over and over in my head. Pedestrians do not have the right of way here, which is probably one of the hardest things to get used to.

I promise to write more later, but that's all for now folks, I have a FaceTime date with my bro in California!

What's an international move without a few hiccups?

The last few days have been fun, in a few different ways. Some things have been surprisingly easy, while others have been, let's just say, special. But one observation has remained the same during the last few days. Australians are so friendly and helpful!

Getting Queensland Drivers licenses - Relatively easy, even with a trip to the immigration office for Visa stickers. Fresh off the plane on Friday we decided to see what we would need to get our Queensland drivers licenses. In actuality we aren't required to have them, our Canadian licenses are fine, which seems weird given that we drive on the other side of the road back home, but we needed to get a certain number in order to register our car, and the helpful girl at the transportation office said they would be handy to have. We had most of the required documentation, but needed a few additional things... One being a Visa sticker in our passport, which we could get at the immigration office a few streets over. When told of this, I just pictured endless line ups, and miserable people, but we went to find the immigration office and after about a 10 minute wait and a pleasant chat about Saskatoon and Winnipeg with the guy working there, we had them! So, back to the transportation office we went. 20 minutes longer there, and we were done. It took 90 minutes at most. And we dealt with two of the most friendly ladies I have ever encountered on the other side of a desk. Seriously, they were lovely.

Getting our mobile phones arranged - Given our experience on Friday getting the licenses, we pictured this task being a breeze. We brought our unlocked iPhones with us, so all we needed was a service plan. To Telstra we went! As it turns out, it was quite good that we arranged the drivers licenses, because the staff at Telstra said that having them usually meant that the credit check required to initiate a service plan wouldn't be a problem... But they were actually quite wrong. So, not only would they not set up a service plan on the phones that we brought, but this also meant that we were "locked out" so to speak, from having another credit check for 6 months. And the only thing they could set up for us in the meantime was a restricted home phone service. We are currently in a temporary apartment with a phone, so we don't need one at the moment. And the kicker is that with this restricted home phone service, we would only be able to make local calls. So, we don't have a credit history in Australia because we arrived 24 hours ago from another country, and in being denied credit, the only product you can offer us is something we don't need, and can't even use to call the country we came from? Awesome!

Getting bank accounts set up - Pretty straight forward, but Alan had applied online a few weeks back so everything was all set up for us. There's no money in the Australian bank account we have set up, but it's there and ready, so that is good.

Getting car insurance - Super easy. All done online.

Getting car - Sigh. This has been (and continues to be) a gong show! Went to dealership with bank draft. Saw our shiny new car, touched it. Went to business managers office and gave him bank draft. Big problems ensue. Dealership cannot accept international bank draft, even though it is drawn on an Australian bank. They would have to keep the car until the funds clear, ~4-6 weeks. They suggest we go talk to a branch manager at this Australian bank, and there's a branch just up the road. So, away we go. Talk to branch manager, who is absolutely lovely, despite us opening our accounts just that morning at another bank. And in a very lovely way, she tells us there really isn't anything she can do to help us. Back to the dealership we go, feeling very dejected and sad. Friendly dealership people feel bad for us, and instead of calling a cab, one of the employees drives us home. Try to talk to Canadian bank to see about cancelling draft or other options. This goes surprisingly well given that it's a holiday in Canada and it's past midnight. That's about all I can say about this for now. We still don't have our car. :(

Will keep you posted, and hopefully post some pics of the new wheels very soon!