Are you guys ok??

Have no fear mates, we are ok!!! Many of you have been wondering why we haven't posted anything for a few days, and are we ok, etc etc....

Just letting you all know that our hunt for a flat STILL resumes....with 1,000 people moving to Brisbane each week, our competition is pretty stiff. All our energy and time is being used to go to each viewing for flats, applying for each one, etc, and that is very time consuming. We were approved for all the ones we DIDN'T want. (of course, right?) So, we pick ourselves back up, organise our paperwork and research, (yes, organise it is spelled with an s here) and continue on...

We'll update later this weekend on that but everything else is going beautifully. We got our Queensland driver's licenses, figured out how to wire our money over from Wells Fargo back home to our bank here, and have started applying for jobs.

Summer is trying very hard to not let Brian buy a motorbike, (the Dept. of Transport here transferred over his motorbike license-yikes!) Brian is trying to not let Summer buy shoes, and together we are learning a lot about how to immerse ourselves into Aussie life.

The most common thing we are learning about the people here is that they think America is pretty ridiculous. "Americans don't travel and don't know anything about the rest of the world, Americans buy stupid off roading bloody SUVs that they don't even take off roading, Americans are too uptight and worried about what they own, what they do for a living, and how much bloody money they are making, blah, blah, blah." Rest assured that although we agree with many of their points, we defend our homeland too. :) I mean, we DID come up with the IPhone and In N Out, didn't we?

We are quickly realizing that Aussies live very reasonably. Small, efficient cars, small portions, hardly any electrical outlets to conserve energy, and we have had to learn to shift our wasteful, gluttonous, American habits VERY fast. They buy locally grown food here, stop for tea and coffee at every corner, and don't start working until around 9:30 a.m.! I think we're going to fit in just fine....

Also, hopefully none of you do anything dumb where you get featured on the news. Why? Because the news here on TV is like 60% American news stories! The other day a really white trash group of people from small town, USA were being interviewed about how they just want to own guns to go shooting and protect themselves and Brian and I cringed a little on the inside.

Nevertheless, it has been very insightful to see how the rest of the world views Americans. Brian and I reflect on our last year living the suburbia dream in Tempe and the Vitamin Water from Costco that we HAD to drink out of an individual plastic bottle 3 times a day, and the growing gas prices we whined about, and the laundry that took so long to dry in our huge dryer, and the water that we wasted to water the plants in our desert landscape, and the restaurants that didn't have free refills for our massive soft drinks....it's ALL laughing matter around here. We don't have any of that now, and the Aussies have never had any of this! (They hand wash dishes, they dry clothes outside, they wait for a big rain shower to take longer showers, vitamin water is a treat here that costs over $4.00, gas- or as they call it- petrol costs over $5.00 a gallon, and no restaurant, gas station, or fast food place sells soft drinks in cups where you can get a refill. Everything is in a separate bottle or small can of soda.)

Brian and I look at each other frequently and think "Damn, we had it made". So do us a favor and live green, reasonably, graciously, and don't be on the news. Cuz we'll see you on TV over here.