By This weekend marked our first four months in Australia. It has been four busy months with house hunting, day care search, me starting new job and Søren starting job hunting. We’ve had guests for about two months out of the four. We’ve moved into our new home, the kids have started day care and I’ve completed my first big project at work and presented it to more than 300 clients and colleagues.
In short, we are not bored, and we love it!
The long story follows here – I normally don’t write these long posts, but this is an exception, I mean we’ve just moved to another part of the world and started a new life. So bear with me.
After three months of traveling we were pretty happy when we were finally allowed to go to Australia. The visa came on a Monday when we had just arrived in Kuala Lumpur. We flew to Sydney on Friday, and on Monday morning – exactly one week after receiving the visa – I walked into my new office.
The first month and a half we stayed in two different short term rental apartments. In two very different neighborhoods. One in Surry Hills and one in Rozelle. We looked at houses in both areas, but ended up in a completely different neighborhood – so much better if you ask me!
After arriving late Friday night we already had four house inspections on Saturday morning lined up! Again, the kids were so amazing and just accepted being dragged around the city. We didn’t find anything on that first Saturday, and for the week that followed Søren and the kids went out every day to look at houses. Sometimes they showed up to houses that were already rented out, and other times they were shocked by the poor condition of the places. But at the end of our first week in Sydney we found our little gem of a house. We would have to wait almost a month for it. But the house is amazing, and exactly what we dreamed of back in Denmark – a three-storey terrace house in a perfect spot. With the help of our friend Rasmus, who was visiting when we moved in, the house got a makeover with new paint and a good clean down.
There are two things that made me fall in love with this particular house. First of all it is very central, basically anything in Sydney centre is within walking distance. My job is a 20 minute walk away, we have a big shopping centre 5 minutes away, and at the same time our little street is quiet and very local. The area we live in is called Glebe, and it is filled with coffee shops and restaurants and people of all types.
The second thing I love about our house is that the indoor and outdoor areas seamlessly melt together. Big doors open up to our yard and the kitchen window opens up completely. So when you are in the kitchen you are basically outside. I’m looking forward to warm summer nights on the porch with a cold glass of wine. And there is nothing better than seeing the kids running around outside and playing in the small garden.
BUT with a house and a garden comes gardening…! Here is a weeks worth of bamboo that grow in our garden – it’s almost like to you can watch them grow… On top of that we have to look out for spiders and cockroaches and the like. But so far we haven’t met any of the scary kinds, just the big huntsmen spiders who seem to like the porch when it gets dark.
Because we came here with just what we could carry in our bags, we had to buy everything, – as in EVERYTHING. In the beginning our dining table was a few boxes and our sofa was a picnic blanket. It’s a petty big effort to get everything from scratch, but we’ve gone with it and have not had a single complaint from the kids, who have just enjoyed everything all along. Now we are almost completely settled in, – that is after my parents arrive next week with our coffee grinder so we can get a decent coffee again. Or I should really say at home, cause I’ve never been to a place that has such good coffee all over (except from Copenhagen)!
Even the kids are on the coffee-craze here and probably one of the first things Gustav could say was ‘babycino’ (a cup of warm milk with cocoa powder). Nothing better than getting a babycino when Mommy and Daddy are getting their coffee.
Carla celebrated her 4 year birthday shortly after we arrived in Sydney, and one of her biggest wishes was to have a party with lots of guests. Well, as our travels went on and on, we were a bit afraid that we would not make it for her birthday. But we did, and even before coming here we knew quite a few people living in Sydney, so the birthday was a great success. Lots of guests came, and Carla was so happy!
Another part in making it a success was probably the fact that she was spoiled with presents. A few months earlier we had taken all the kids’ toys away from them, so this being the second week here, we ended up buying so many presents for her. A big joy for both her and Gustav, and a big challenge to make the next birthday just as great!
With house hunting successfully done already after one and a half week, the next project for Søren and the kids was to find daycare. And so began a new adventure of understanding how the child care system works. The good thing is that waiting lists are nothing like in Copenhagen, the bad thing is that the price is five times the price in Copenhagen…! But since we want the kids to have the true Aussie experience we only thought of Au Pair in a short second, and quickly went back to the daycare solution. Søren and the kids visited a lot of centres, and after a while they found the perfect place. It’s about a 10 minute walk from our new home. Until January they are only there two days a week, and it’s the best introduction to Australian daycare, and to the English language.
It really has been the best possible introduction to a new country for the kids. They are spending a lot of time with their dad, and are having a smooth transition to their new life and new language. I couldn’t have imaged a better start for them here in Australia!
And if you are worried about how they cope with a new language – don’t be! I think Carla decided to start speaking English when we arrived in Sydney. She was so determined and after a very short time she now speaks almost fluent English. Here after four months I even have a feeling she thinks in English. If she wakes up at night she will speak English. When she talks to her brother she speaks English. Basically she prefers English, so our job now is to make sure she speaks Danish at home.
Meanwhile, Gustav is also beginning to say words and a few sentences here and there, and I wonder what language he will speak. So far the words he say are a mix. But it doesn’t matter if we speak to him in English or Danish. He understands what we are saying.
I can’t wait until the day we visit my American family again and they can speak with our kids for the first time!
And while we’ve build a new home and life here in Sydney, I have been working. I walked into my new office on a rainy Monday morning. And I found my desk covered in Aussie flags and snacks.
It’s funny how you move to the other side of the world, and then find things almost exactly like they are back home. My job is the same as the one I left, just in a different setting with new colleagues and clients. And a different size. We are the largest media agency in Australia, so probably the biggest difference is that I will most likely never know what’s going on with all clients as I’m used to. But there are also a different set of resources to back up the work we do. I love it!
Very soon after stepping into the office I learnt my first important lesson – the names of our meeting rooms are names of Sydney beaches. So going to a meeting in Manly and then Bondi the next minute is not a logistical nightmare. It’s perfectly doable, but left me a bit confused when I opened up my email for the first time… However, it’s not the only time I’ve felt a slight culture clash, but here after 4 months I now know my way around the office. I even know where to go to get a coffee without using google maps.
I’ve also learned that when somebody tells you about ‘my dad wrote a porno’, they are actually talking about a podcast…! I went through a really awkward meeting before realizing that the guy I was talking to did not have a “famous“ dad, and that what he talked about was not related to his actual dad at all but just a popular podcast.
Over the last four months, I’ve met so many people, and have started so many great projects. I’m so excited for our future and the choices we have made!
But it hasn’t been all work and house hunting. We have had time to enjoy ourselves as well, and have done quite a bit of sightseeing around Sydney. Since coming here we’ve had two friends visiting from Denmark. How great is it that you move so far away and people still think of a visit as a somewhat spontaneous idea? That was at least what happened when Kenneth came for a little more than a week. Rasmus came for a longer visit, and in between Sydney he also went on some trips around the country. But with both visitors we have had a chance to explore the city and its surroundings as tourists. It’s been two visits to Taronga Zoo and a few beach days to this point. And since summer has just arrived, I’m expecting a lot more beach days coming up soon!
We’ve also taken a few day trips around Sydney, and have visited Ku Ring Gai Chase National Park and Royal National Park, as well as a trip to Blue Mountains (well, I didn’t go to Blue Mountains, but Søren, the kids and Kenneth did). And in addition we have just enjoyed the company of good friends.
One thing that the kids love about Australia is the many many playgrounds that are everywhere. Within five minutes walking from our house is at least four great playgrounds.
It’s now December 3rd, and summer started this weekend – quite literally with much warmer temperatures! So did Christmas, and while I assembled (!?) our fake Christmas tree, and played Christmas music it even started to feel a little like Christmas!
GoCargus 