Kim and Lex move to Australia !

We started a new blog !

2011-09-13T15:54:00.004+10:00

So, the last entry was in 2009, it's 2011 now. So much has happened in two years. Nothing negative, only positive. Tizz and Scamp are both very well, they're extremely happy here in Australia ( especially since we moved to a rural property not long ago ! ). Kim and me are still together, we are meant to happily live together the rest of our lives, of this I am sure.

I just wanted to post on our blog one final time to let anyone and everyone know that we have started a new blog today for family, friends and anyone else interested enough to read about our lives. We have recently moved to a rural property not far away from Brisbane ( about 25 minutes drive to Brisbane CBD, along the touristic road to Mt Nebo ).

Our new blog can be found here :
http://www.jollyslookout.com

Our very last post

2009-12-30T08:48:00.002+10:00

It's time to say goodbye to this blog : It is about Kim and Lex moving to Australia and we've been in Australia for a few months now. In the last month it has been getting busier on the Sunshine Coast ( due to summer holidays ) but it's nowhere as busy as in Holland. The beaches are now populated with 10-20 people instead of 1-2, there are a few more cars rolling around town, but no traffic jams or anything nasty. We are thoroughly enjoying beachlife and if we can make and maintain a living I think this might well be a spot where we will stay for quite a while. We're in the middle of starting up a company which should make us a reasonable living, but ofcourse we'll need a little luck to make it all happen. All we can do now is work hard and get things going, while at the same time not forget to keep living outdoors and doing sports like wake-boarding and kite-surfing to keep us fit.

Kim, Lex, Tizz and Scamp - Over and out

Next week it's Christmas

2009-12-20T16:08:00.003+10:00

It doesn't feel like Christmas with all these sunny, warm days. It's like we're in the middle of the summer holidays ( which we are, just not the European one ! ). I think this is going to be a strange Christmas, however New Year is going to be a lot better, partying on the beach into the warm nightly hours : It's definately something that we can live with. We sent out all the Xmas cards, let's hope they arrive in time at all the peeps around the world ( South Africa / Europe / Australia ). We brewed 44 litres of beer and all our bottles are filled up and waiting to be drunk : It's going to be one hell of a new year ! ( we bought a bottle of champagne too , just in case )

We're going to have a quiet Christmas, like we have done for the past years : It's the way we like it. No people to take care of, no big meals to cook, no people being disappointed that this Christmas wasn't better than last years, no fights between family members and no expectations : Just Kim, Me, Puss and Puppy.

We bought some Christmas presents for ourselves too : Two Kite Surfing Kites including two boards and two harnesses ! Yep, we're pretty serious about getting back in shape. Since we left Europe we already lost a lot of pounds just walking on the beach and eating better quality food : We're getting closer to our ideal weight now, and the kites will hopefully get us there. We're really looking forward to getting them in : It will take about 3-6 weeks before the kites are in. The boards should be in next week. That means we can start doing some wake-boarding while we wait for our boards to practice our board-skills.

We wish everyone a merry Christmas and a happy new year 2010 !
Kim + Lex + Tizz + Scamp

Australian Pale Ale Part 2

2009-12-09T13:58:00.003+10:00

Last week we started our own Australian Pale Ale brew, and this week it was bottling time ! Cleaning the bottles out took about 1 hour and was definately the most work. After we cleaned all the bottles and the bottle-caps, we opened the beer-tap. We knew straight away that our beer was good : It smelled fantastic, like fresh beer. It's hard to describe what "fresh beer" smells like, but you can compare it with having a bread from the supermarket, as opposed to just having created your first dough. The dough smells really good, you can smell the yeast and the freshness of your creation : The same applies to beer. We bottled the beer using Coopers "carbonization drops" which are like little sweets ( they are sugar-based ) and came out with 30 BIG ( 700ml ) bottles. So that's about 21 litres of fresh beer ! Not bad, the other two litres were "wasted" because we didn't want to bottle the bottom part of the tank where all the buildup and residue is : We want these first beers to succeed !

Now the big job is done, we can sit back and relax while we wait for our carbonization drops to perform the second part of the beer-magic : the bubbles.

We'll let you know in two weeks if our beer succeeded.

ps : Lex just cleaned the tank and tomorrow we're brewing Corona beer, yummmmmmy !

We went Wake Boarding !

2009-12-04T15:44:00.002+10:00

Well, yesterday we had a planned electricity outage. Energex replaced a big transformator here in the neighborhood and electricity was planned to be down the whole morning + afternoon, so we took a day off and decided to go wake-boarding ! We thought that since we want to go kite-surfing, and part of kite-surfing is wake-boarding, we'd get some wake-board experience. We didn't know pro-wakeboarders from all around the world came to practice at the cable park just around the corner here in Bli Bli on the Sunshine Coast, but it was fun to see them do the jumps and get their advice and tips. In fact, I was positively impressed by the brotherhood-feeling and the nice people that didn't laugh at newcomers but enthousiastically helped them and gave advice and spurred them on to try again until they finally did it. The same was true for Kim and I. It can be a bit overwhelming to be standing in front of the queue with these pro-wakeboarders and then ask "Ok, so what do I do now?". Generally speaking , this was the advice :
- Try and keep your knees bent
- Put more weight on your back leg than on your front leg
- at "launch" ( this is where you start ), make sure you don't try and steer, just let the board do the work for you
- at "launch" make sure you keep your elbows in and pull the rope all the way towards your belly and don't let it be pulled away from there.

So, first in line was now Lex, with Kim just behind. Wakeboard slightly angled, rope all the way down to his belly, knees bent. "Ok, you ready mate?". What are you going to say really ? "No, I'm not ready?" ... so "yes" and off the yellow line went. As you see the yellow line go you know that your near future has only two outcomes : Either you get out of the water or you will get face-down towed through the water. Guess what ? Lex got his sinuses cleared.

So after Lex crashed, Kim had a go. Kim cheated and went for the kneeboard first. She got the rope in her hands, and off she went, no nosedive, just off cruising. On my second attempt the guys told me that I had to hold the rope tighter "Don't let it pull your arms out", which is easier said than done, these things remind me of a ski-lift, and since they not only have to pull 10-20 full grown men but also at speed, the power of the rope is not to be underestimated. My arms got pulled, I went forwards, water got under the top of my wake-board ( a clear "crash imminent" warning ) and that was it , nosedive number two.

Kim by then had done a lap on her kneeboard and decided she'd join the big boys and got a wake-board also. Nosedive ! After two more tries I finally realized what I was doing wrong : I held the rope all the way down with stretched arms, and ofcourse you have no strength that way, so this time I decided to hold the rope higher up with my elbows and I had a big more success : I got out of the water and then fell on my back end : Next time I would get it !
Kim went just before me and I saw her get out of the water, and do at least 30 meters, cheering with 1 arm in the air and eventually falling off. But she did it ! Next try , I too got out of the water, and forgot to actually steer and landed about the same spot as Kim did. Kim called it for the day and I had one more go : I had all the knowledge now, and I knew that I would be able to get to the first bend if I just kept trying. So my last try I got not only to the first bend, I actually made half a lap ( 3 corners ) ! I was pretty tired and my muscles hurt all over, but I was very satisfied with our achievements. Next morning : Our muscles hurt even more !

Australian Pale Ale

2009-12-01T14:10:00.002+10:00

We met a German couple a few weeks ago. Amongst other things, Germans like to talk about beer. The discussion we had with the Germans was getting particularly interesting when they mentioned the words "Home brewing". Apparently, the Australian climate is perfect for fermenting beer, and our German friends lost no time in buying their own beer brewing set to make their own beer. "Beer hier ist immer so expensive !". And they are right, a sixpack of normal beer in the shops will cost you anything from 15 dollars to 30 dollars ( Corona beer is especially expensive around here ). The price of beer leaves a nasty taste in your mouth, but we now had the answer : Brew beer yourself for 1 dollar per litre. Now we're talking !

The Germans were months away from leaving Australia ( due to visa restrictions ) and had their complete set including bottles and all the extra's for sale for a mere 40 dollars. So we bought it from them. Yesterday I decided it was time to start brewing our Christmas beers, so I read the instruction book carefully again ( second time ). The Germans gave us some good advice about brewing beer. "The only thing that can go wrong is if you don't clean your stuff before you brew". Sounds easy, so we made sure everything was disinfected ( using Coopers beer kit cleaner ) and left our kit to clean overnight. Today we rinsed it off and created our "wort" which is the base of beers. It looks like sirup and to be honest I love the smell of it, but then again I love the smell of kerosine and diesel too, so that might not be much help.

We finally found a use for our second bathroom :)

Our beer set is being cleaned for the night :

The beer set is filled up with beer Wort ( "wurt" ) and is fermenting ( hopefully ) :

Oh shit ! a snake !

2009-12-01T11:26:00.003+10:00

Today we were working on our new company website when we heard a scuttle and saw a running puss come by the window. Normally our Tizz-Puss ain't all that fast and he likes to bake in the sun rather than walk around, so this strange behaviour prompted me to go and take a look at the front door where Tizz was running to. When I opened the front door I was standing face to face with a 1.5 meter olive green snake that our dear Tizz had cornered. Somehow it didn't come to mind, as later advised by Kim, to note all the details about his head-shape, eye color and general identification marks in case we got bitten and needed anti-venom, I just thought "Oh shit! a snake!". By that time the snake found a way out of his predicament, luckily not inside the house but outside onto the grass, with a Puss on it's tail. I tell you, that snake was fast ! I told Kim "Oh shit! a snake!" and she ran outside blindly rescueing her pussy cat by picking up a 10cm twig and running after the snake. Now this is commonly discouraged around these parts in Australia. I don't believe I ever saw a sign saying "Pick up the nearest and smallest twig you can find and wave it menacingly at the snake while you run after it". I came out with a bread knife which wasn't much bigger than Kim's twig, but Kim and her twig already chased the snake away. We made sure that Tizz wasn't bitten anywhere and luckily he wasn't.

Tizz will stay inside the house the rest of the day.

We got our boxes !

2009-11-22T11:08:00.003+10:00

We got our boxes delivered this week. I can't even remember what is in them, nothing that we can't do without, but still the cutlery was nice to get, we finally got rid of our green plastic camping gear. We also got our computers in, so we unpacked them and now we can sit behind a keyboard instead of a laptop. I won't update the blog as much anymore, since we arrived and everything is just fine over here. About once a week / two weeks is about it. It's sunny again, it's sunny everyday and it makes such a difference. It's getting warmer now, but still very bearable. We had 1-2 days where we really thought it was hot, but they are always followed by cooling showers in the afternoon, so the evenings are always nice and cool. When there's a breeze ( almost all the time ) the windows are open and it's really nice outside and inside.

Yesterday we did the Maroochy River walk, a very nice walk which reminded me of south of France actually. We swam in a little lagoon at the mouth of the river, Scamp really enjoyed himself he loves to swim and play : We're glad we could bring him along, both Tizz and Scamp are fine they love the nice weather. Tizz is usually sleeping on the veranda under the table and Scamp is usually barking at the birds passing by and playing with sticks in the garden.

Our first dive into the Pacific ocean.

2009-11-15T13:29:00.004+10:00

We went to Coolum Beach today for our first Pacific Ocean swim ! Both Kim and me have never in our lives swam in the Pacific Ocean so today we had our Pacific cherry popped. The weather is just perfect right now : It's about 28 degrees and the humidity isn't nearly as bad as everyone keeps telling us. Perhaps it's due to the fact that we don't have airconditioning in our rental place that we got used to the heat. It feels warm but not clammy like it did in Thailand for instance. There's also a constant breeze that cools the air, so it feels cool. The ocean is a warm 24-25 degrees, like a home swimming pool. It's actually just about as clear as a swimming pool, you can see the bottom crystal clear. The waves today were about 2 meters high, and that means lots of fun !
We decided to go to Coolum Beach because of the flags that mean that the beach is patrolled. Helicopters and planes scourge the coast all the time for shark alerts and stingrays etc... so swimming in the sea really feels very very safe, safer than anywhere I have swam before. I always wear shoes when I go into the sea, something I learned when I was about 10 years old and stepped onto some sea-pricklies, a lesson that I still remember today. However, I wouldn't mind going into this sea bare feet. The bottom is pure sand, no stones and no nasties. We had a good time swimming around in the waves. We just took a shower and we're back at home enjoying the nature in our back garden, it's a lovely day.

We went kite-surfing

2009-11-03T18:13:00.005+10:00

Today both Kim and I went kite-surfing for our first time ever : A little indulgence for Lex's birthday. It was great ! It was very tiring too, but we feel like this could be the sport for us. We had our lesson with Mike from Kitethrills. He's a qualified kite-surfing teacher and he won the first prize at the Coolum Beach Kite Festival this year, so we couldn't really go wrong. We went for the two-hour lesson. He started out by explaining beach safety and choosing the right location for kitesurfing. I won't go into the details but basically wind direction should be opposite from swell direction ( water flow ) and it should be as empty as possible. "And don't forget : Never kite between the yellow flags !". One thing that keeps amazing me over here is that Australians like to adhere to the rules. Even the kite-surfers ( who by nature are a bit anti-rules ) try and make life of other beach-participants like surfers and swimmers as easy as possible. In Europe there'd have to be rules for everything, here they just use their common sense and teach people how to behave correctly. I like it, less rules, more common sense : Makes sense to me ! Anyway, so we learned about the different beaches and starting points and wind direction and now comes the fun part : The powerzone ! I can't really explain it but generally the kite will try and fly away from you in the same direction as the wind, however, the more "central" it flies away from you, so not in the edges or high in the air but low in the air and straight in front of you, the more POWER your kite generates ( lift ). This is what you want ! You can feel this effect really well on the smaller kites ( 3 and 4 meters are relatively small but they will still pull you away from your spot in the powerzone ! ) So the trick is to get the kite in the powerwindow, but it will only stay there for a few seconds, then turn it by pulling on one side, back into the powerwindow, so generate traction. After that we learned how to use this powerwindow to let the kite pull us up from a sitting position ( which is the position you will be in when you put on your kiteboard ). After that the last 15 minutes were with a REAL KITE ! It was 7 meters but it packed a lot of power. I even got as far as doing jumps ( all on the beach ofcourse, we never got into the water : That's lesson two ) as high as 2 meters up and about 5 meters far. I didn't want to stretch my luck because the landings can be tough, so I only used about 20% of the kite's power to lift me up in the air. Mike gave me compliments on how fast I learned the skill-set : "You're a natural". Not sure if the compliments were included in the price of the lesson but still it felt good. Kim's still a little unsure about the control of the kite but she loved every moment of it. I think the next step will be the actual kite-surfing, I am sure I'll love the feeling of being in the sea and hanging in the harness, I think it's a bit like sailing but without having to buy a boat. A complete kite-surfing set will cost about 2500-2800 dollars per person, which I think is reasonable considering that after the initial purchase the wind is free. We loved spending the day on the beach being active, it was a real nice day again. Glad we put up loads of suncream because the sun can be burning. The wind keeps things cool but we'll definately be looking to buy some wetsuits for the bluebottles and more importantly the sun. A hat or cap is advised also, to protect against sunstroke. And ofcourse sunglasses, but you don't go anywhere without them here anyway. If you ever get the lucky chance to visit the Sunshine Coast, I definately recommend spending a few dollars on a lesson with Kitethrills.com, they're really good fun and you'll enjoy every moment of it.

Lex's Birthday, and our first kite-surfing lessons !

2009-11-03T09:19:00.000+10:00

Today is a first : It's Lex's birthday and the weather is nice ! No falling leaves, no autumn storms, no rain, no overcast and no winter looming. The weather is nice, it's warm today ( it feels like 27 degrees ) and there's a blue sky as far as we can see. Kim bought me some thongs for my birthday, nice leather ones that feel really comfy, I'll be wearing those a lot around here. Now before you think I turned gay and like wearing leather underwear in public : Thongs = slippers = flip flops = shoe wear, not female underwear.

Today is also the day that we will have our first kite-surfing lesson ! Well, hopefully anyway because the wind needs to pickup a little bit. If there's no wind, we'll have to postpone it to another day : It's in the hands of the wind-gods at the moment. Kim and I are both going to try it out, see if it's something that we'd like doing as a sport around here. We need to do something in the water we're pretty sure about that, and fishing isn't exactly our cup of tea. When you mention kite-surfing around here they all say "sure is an extreme sport, that". Not quite sure what they mean with that but what better way to find out than to try it for ourselves I say. People in Europe say that snowboarding and motor riding are "extreme" too, and we like doing both, I presume this will be the same. I might be positively surprised though and it might really be an extreme sport, something that I personally look forward to. It will be nice to be doing some outdoor sport activities again after years of sitting on the couch watching the gray skies from inside the house in Europe.

A beautiful saturday night

2009-10-31T17:54:00.000+10:00

We just came back from Maroochydore. We had an Angus Burger. Kim had the Mighty Angus and I had the Grand Angus. Some fine burgers they are ! We went to the drive-through McDonalds in Maroochydore and had our very tasty burgers sitting on the beach. The scenery around here is so perfect, it's like being in paradise itself : We are astonished every time that we remember that we actually live here and our house is just a few minutes up the hill. There's plenty of activities on the beach, Rotary clubs organizing sizzles ( BBQ's ) and people coming home from work jumping in for an evening swim. It's not the typical touristy-busy though, there's mainly locals on the beaches here. Some are fiddling with their cars on the beach parkings, some are just enjoying a sundowner on the beach, others are walking or exercising : It's a bit like Miami Vice 1980 style : Still unspoilt and "clean" somehow. Sometimes I wonder how long it will take before this is as messed up as it is in Europe, but then I quickly go back to enjoying the moment and knowing that for now at least, things are really good.

We're back online !

2009-10-28T14:14:00.000+10:00

Well it's been a while since we posted on the blog. The main reason being that we didn't have internet in our new rental and that took a week to connect, plus we've been to Sydney for a small week. As usual we scrutinized all the internet providers and came up with the winner : Internode.com.au. Their Easy Broadband plan is not the cheapest ( although it's one of the cheaper plans available in our region ) but it's very stable and many people regard internode as the "best" ISP in Australia. So , we got 50 gigabytes for 50 bucks every month, that's reasonable I guess. We'll be putting on our downloaders a few days before the end of each month instead of "all the time" :) Never really had time to watch or listen to everything I downloaded anyway, and we wanted to get outside more anyway, which we're done so far : We go to the beach almost every day , and guess how many people ( on average ) are on the beach ? 0 ! The beaches are completely empty, it's so nice to not have to compete for your square meter of beach on a nice day, or pay 50 Euro's in parking fees for a few hours of beach, and then sit in traffic jams on the way back. So in the last 2 weeks we've left our Bed and Breakfast in Mango Hill and moved in to our new rental place in Buderim. We've also visited Kim's brother Tom and his wife Jane in Sydney while we picked up our cat and dog. It's been a very busy period and both Kim and me caught a bug on our way back from Sydney and this has confined us to bed for the last couple of days ( sleeping on the floor doesn't help ). In the last few days our bed has arrived and we got internet running, we have a fridge and washing machine + dishwasher, so we're getting used to the luxuries of western life again.

We are already confident that this was the right move for us, and Queensland ( especially the Sunshine Coast ) definitely feels right for us : We feel alive again and are very happy overall. When we drove back from Sydney to Queensland we felt like driving home, it feels like we have lived in Queensland for years already.

Furniture and BBQ day

2009-10-10T18:00:00.000+10:00

Today we went out again for a full day of shopping. We measured up the rental place and figured out what we needed. After having bought all our white goods yesterday ( a mix of Bosch / LG and Westinghouse ) at Harvey Norman's ( for a 15% discount ) we decided today was the day to buy the furniture and BBQ. We went into the furniture shops and selected the style we wanted and asked what the whole lot would cost us, which came back at 10.000 AUD, after which we decided we'd just do it in smaller chunks. So, we decided on the absolute minimum we'd need, and got the prices too :
- 1 Queen size mattress + wooden support slats = 1500 AUD
- Bedding + Cushions = 800 AUD
- a good BBQ + utensils and gas bottle and all the accessories = 1300 AUD
- Outside table + 6 chairs ( we calculated we'd need 6 chairs maximum ) = 700 AUD

That puts us back 4300 but then we can live in the rental for quite a while without missing out on the basic needs like sleeping / cooking and sitting. We decided to not buy a TV for a while because to be honest we haven't really missed it. We might go and buy a flat-screen later but we're so busy that there's no direct need for one.

We haven't bought any of the furniture yet, we'll give them a call on Monday and order the mattress and the other stuff, but we did buy a BBQ today. It's a very nice one indeed ! It's in the back of the car at the moment and will stay there until we get the keys of the rental on Monday. This is the BBQ we got : Weber Spirit E-320. In Europe people might think that a 1300 AUD BBQ ( about 700 Euro ) is expensive but we will be cooking on it almost every day , so it needed to be a good one. The weather is so nice here that there's no need to cook a lot on the inside kitchen. Perhaps we'll use the inside kitchen in the winter, but so far we've been using the barbie every day. On the side of the barbie there is a side-burner so you can fry an egg in a pan or steam your vegetables or make a sauce there. It comes with 7 year warranty on almost anything and lifetime on most other stuff, so we're set for at least 7 years. Kim's delighted with it, we'll try it out when we come back from Sydney in a week.

We picked up our RAV4 today !

2009-10-09T19:23:00.000+10:00

Today we picked up our RAV4 ! It drives like the Audi A3 we had before, even more stable actually, it's a real pleasure to drive. The size of the tires means that we don't feel many of the bumps in the road or the cat-eyes on the highway. We're very happy with it. We're happy we chose the paint-protection and the tinting and I'm sure we'll be happy in a few years with the electronic rust-protection and the interior protection. When you touch the car it feels like satin, apparently that's the paint protection on the car. We compared it with other cars without it and they certainly don't feel as smooth as the ones with paint protection on it. The tint is remarkably effective too , we had the car in the sun for a good 3-4 hours, normally it would be heated up like an oven, however when we sat in the car it didn't feel nearly as hot as the rental car would have been, so we're glad we chose the tinting. Also when you drive and the sun hits you from the side ( which happens quite a lot on the east coast when you drive north - south or south - north ) then the scorching sun won't feel like it's burning your skin ( it did in the rental ) , it actually doesn't even feel warm. So we're pleased we got our options fitted. The car got all the goodies we wanted and the navigation works a treat, so much better than the old Garmin we had : We use it all the time.

Here's a picture of our RAV4 :

There's more than enough space in the back for our kite-surfing gear :

Furniture shopping

2009-10-06T19:09:00.000+10:00

Today we went shopping for furniture. We didn't bring our old furniture with us because it would have been too expensive to transport over here and it wasn't that nice in the first place : It was old, second hand stuff that we still had from our student times, or gotten for free from parents and neighbors. In short, we were ready for some new furniture and would have bought new stuff anyway if we stayed longer in The Netherlands. We made a list of things that we would need the most and would only shop for those ( ye right... ) :
- Fridge and freezer, one of those big 2-door american ones
- Bed and bedding + some sidetables etc
- BBQ for cooking our meals on

That was the plan. Now if anyone comes to Brisbane / Sunshine Coast area there is only 1 place that you have to go to : Morayfield Road in Morayfield. The sheer amount of furniture shops is dazzling : They have all the different furniture shops there, all packed nicely together on 1 big industrial road called Morayfield Road. We left the Bed&Breakfast around 11:00 and it was about 20-25 minutes drive to the shopping area. There were a LOT of furniture shops and we're rather picky so we had to go into each of them just to make sure we made the right decision; we never even got to look at BBQ's or Fridges. We went in to look for beds, but then we also decided to take a look at desks which we'd need for our job ( we both work in IT ) and we also hopped by the dining space and the outdoor furniture. Eventually we just decided to refocus :

- Beds with matching sidetables and "tallboy"
- Dining table with comfy couch and tv table ( matching )
- Desk

We realized that it was possible to get all of this in the same style but we'd always dislike 1 piece and love the others, or the other way around, so eventually we decided that we'd not place the bed in the dining room anyway so that could be a different style. The desk however could possibly be put in the living room / dining room area, so we're still not sure about that.

After about 3 hours and 5 furniture shops we came to our first conclusion :
Fantastic Furniture and Aussie Life are not our cup of tea : We didn't like the presentation of the materials ( which really says a lot about the shop and the way they think about their own products ) and the prices were horrendous. Most of the designs were boring. Both Kim and me have very similar taste : We like refined materials but not too kitsch, we like rustic style but it shouldn't come with tree bark still on it if you know what I mean. And yes : We're quite picky, we take hours to decide on a pair of shoes, just imagine us buying a car or buying furniture which should last us for decades.

We decided that the two shops that we liked most were Super A-mart for a mix of good looking and reasonably priced furniture and Sleep City for well priced but decent quality beds. We must have seen at least 200 different bedroom suites : We tested the quality of the drawers first, if they didn't have rails we'd write them off right away, then , the quality of the rails was important too, some were really flimsy, some of the drawers didn't open correctly , some didn't open at all and some opened and fell out. About 90% of the bed suites can be filtered out just by testing the drawers. I'm one of those people who gets irritated by drawers that don't work correctly, so for me this was an absolute must. Then we'd look at the quality and strength of the bed ( we both hate creaking beds ), the wood quality ( hardwood / epoxy etc, and eventually the finish. By then we'd have only a few beds left and we chose the ones we liked best. We ended up with the final three. I think it was about 15:00 when we decided on which beds were in the final top three :

Sleep City : Fjord Queen Bed
Super A-Mart : Serengeti Queen Bed
Super A-Mart : Byron Style Queen Bed which I can't find on the web anywhere but which was very nice quality and looked great too

The Serengeti bed has a real "indonesian" feel to it, which we both liked. However the drawers wouldn't correctly open when trying to open standing at an angle ( usually you will open them at an angle, but these drawers will only open when you stand in front of them and pull them straight out ). So it did have the looks and feel, but not the quality we wanted. The Byron style definately had the quality, and most definately the best drawers of the whole 200 suites we saw, but the bed was not as well-built as the Fjord. The Fjord is the one that we currently deem the winner but we'll sleep on it tonight and tomorrow we'll decide.

Now , while we were looking for beds we also had a good look at all the different couches and chairs. Again, we're very picky on these. Kim's short and slender, I am taller and weigh a bit more, so finding the right couch wasn't going to be easy. We both do agree though, the absolute most comfortable chair we have ever sat in is the Super A-mart : Celebration Recliner. She's not the prettiest of chairs. In fact, even on display she looks like she's an old rug, a second hand student couch, a leftover from your grandpa's basement. But ooooh man does she sit comfortably ! You'll start yawning just looking at it after you tried it. The chair is so comfy that I think they made it this ugly on purpose, as a warning sign for any tired and unsuspecting hard worker who would never be able to get out of it again once he settles in it. It's the only chair that seconds as a one-armed bandit, the long stick on the side is meant to make getting out of it easier and yes it does help but no you don't want to get out of it. It's not the kind of chair that has the flair, the elegance, the picture-perfect looks. It's made to be comfy, at all costs. The color is terrible too : Chocolate. It just doesn't match with anything else you can get. But boy, does it sit comfortable. The couch too sits like a glove.

I'd never forgive myself to buy such uglyness though, I mean, if they made it creamy color, or "latte" as they call it now... Ah who knows, perhaps I'll just buy one anyway and hide it in the garage when visitors come around.

So , no Celebration then, but we saw a few very nice different diners. What amazes me is that Australian stuff isn't actually bad quality. We thought that most of the stuff would be held together by pieces of string and sticky tape but most of this stuff is imported stuff, it's actually a lot better quality than Ikea stuff which most Europeans buy nowadays. We decided not to go and have a look at Ikea because we already know what Ikea makes : Cheap stuff that lasts 2 years. We wanted something that would last us a little longer, and also wanted something decent quality. We figured that spending a little more would pay off in the long run, and we'd also support the local economy a little bit. We're not quite sure if we want a light diner yet, or a darker one. The light ( silverpine ) is very nice, but requires light chairs also. Silverpine doesn't match chocolate colors ( see where I'm going ? ).

We didn't bother looking at the fridge yet since we want to have a second look at the kitchen in the rental before we do. Our next big challenge will be to find a BBQ. We found a nice shop in Maroochydore that specializes in BBQ's, so I'm sure we'll find what we want over there.

We got ourselves a rental for a year !

2009-10-06T10:10:00.000+10:00

Before we found a nice rental we went all over the Sunshine Coast, we have seen about 10-20 rentals and man... do you get some rundown places around here! The absolute worst place we saw was actually in one of the nicest settings : On the beachfront. The house was absolutely disgusting, the previous tenants or owners must have been pigs ( literally ). If the dead bird in front of the entrance wasn't enough warning, the 100's of dead cockroaches ( 4-5 cm big ) certainly were. The property manager even had the audacity to ask us how we liked the place, to which I was all too happy to respond : "I think it's a dump. This place should be bulldozered". The place was up for rent for 480 per week, imagine that ! The paint was ugly, the wallpaper was falling off, even the ceiling-ventilators were rusty and broken, I won't even tell you about the kitchen and the toilet. The place was dark too, there were only 2-3 windows. If Hannibal Lecter ever visited Australia I knew where he stayed : On Ocean Drive in Warana.

However, we managed to find a really nice place and we signed the lease yesterday. In Europe it would be called a rental agreement but here's it's called a lease. We signed up for a 12 month lease for a few good reasons. First of all, there aren't that many renters looking for houses around at the moment, but signs are strong that within a few months that will change : After all the Sunshine Coast attracts a lot of people during summer : The Australian rental markets are usually very overcrowded, so we decided we wanted to be sure of at least one year of housing, after which we will probably build anyway. Usually you will meet about 12-15 people per rental house viewing. Houses for rent at 350 or less per week will, even during these times, attract dozens of couples per viewing, and you'll have to compete with them and of course everyone has better references than we do, since we're migrants and have no references. Some couples will go to great lengths to "secure themselves" a rental place : They will offer anywhere from 20 to 50 dollars per month extra on top of the asking price just to be considered. The phrase "secure yourself" is used a lot when trying to rush the sheeple into buying something : "secure yourself a future now, buy this house now prices are still low" etc, while prices are just about to collapse.

So , in our infinite wisdom, we thought we'd do the opposite : We'd go and have a look at houses above the usual price bracket that most people would look at on the internet and offer LESS than the asking price : How's that for a genius plan. Anyway, we went to see this house which was up for 380 per week, it's a real nice house in the middle of a rain forest clearing, lots of palm trees all around and well maintained houses, something that is not an obvious thing here in Australia. We offered 350 per week for it and eventually settled on 365, which we eagerly accepted. For 365 per week we got a clean , well maintained property in one of the nicest neighborhoods in the Sunshine Coast : Buderim. Buderim is a hilly place with some nice pockets of rain forest and doesn't have the busy feel that most of the newer estates like Mango Hill have. The houses still have plenty of privacy and room around them instead of being packet 50cm from each other. The house doesn't have air conditioning but it has a forest right at the back of the garden ( which no doubt is home to some scary native spiders ! ) which provides shade over the house almost the whole day, while the garden gets sun all day. Perfect for sitting outside in the sun when you want to , yet cool enough to be able to sleep at night. We'll be sure to post some pictures when the lease goes in, which is next week Monday.

Quicksilver and ripcurls

2009-10-04T15:57:00.000+10:00

Last week we went to a surfing shop. They sell surfer outfits which enable you to blend in with the Australians. We felt it was time we stopped looking like tourists and buy something trendy instead. If I had known in 1980 that I would be living in Australia when I grew up, I would definitely have kept my clothes back then. Stepping through the surf shop's door felt like being warped back in time. The baseball caps, the clothes, everything could have come straight out of the "Back to the future" trilogy, which by the way was a great movie ( at the time ).

We were greeted by a tanned and cool looking surfer dude. His light curly hair trapped under a green baseball cap which seemed to be missing a propeller on top of it. He was the typical surfer : Loose sitting T-shirt, tanned and this air of carelessness about him which read "I'm cool and you're not and you know it". I must admit, he was pretty cool. He must have spotted us from a mile away by our lost looks and lured us further into the shop to make sure we wouldn't run out and buy something in another shop. "How's it goin' guys, What can I do you for ?". It was only then that I realized that the shop was only busy because of all the staff working in it, there weren't actually that many customers. After we came in though, some other people ventured in and eventually it was quite a buzz in the shop. I told him that I was looking for some nice swimming gear and that I didn't want to look like Mr Bean on the beach. I'm not a swimsuit model and I quite well know it, my body proportions aren't perfect ( and that's giving myself a compliment ) and I have pale skin which luckily after a week of recent sun is getting a bit of a tan. He smiled and said that that was a good idea, and showed me some of the latest model "baggies" ( swim gear which reaches the over the knee and sits loosely ). The choice was rather simple : If you wanted to be cool, you would have to get Ripcurl, Quicksilver or Billabong. It's allowed to mix the different brands, although people will usually buy something that their favorite surfer is wearing. I learned that Kelly "Quicksilver" Slater had been 9 year surfer champion so you couldn't really go wrong with some Quicksilvers. He was quick to add a reassuring "But don't worry, the other brands are just as good". He advised "The thing to avoid buying are the external elastic bands, only Mr Bean wears those, so make sure your pants have straight edges". I tried on a few pants that didn't seem to fit me but then spotted a very nice Black / Grey / White Ripcurl that was made for me. Tried it on, fitted like a glove : This would be the one. We thanked the cool guy and proceeded to the counter, when I remembered that I still needed some head wear for the sun. I always fancied a Crocodile Dundee hat, one of those leathery cowboy hats, so I tried some of them on. Cool guy quickly intervened, almost running to my rescue "Nooo, no. You don't wanna do that, mate" and quickly put the hat back, as if it was cursed. "Only grandpa wears a hat like that". His advice was to buy a baseball cap like he was wearing, they're the thing at the moment. I realized that this was not a sales pitch but he was honestly trying to help me when I noticed the prices of the caps were a lot lower than the Crocodile Dundee hat. I tried on 10 different hats and eventually bought myself a blue Quicksilver cap. I was now cool again and ready for the beach.

Kim&Lex 2 - Arachnids 0

2009-10-04T15:01:00.000+10:00

Arachnophobia is a movie about scary spiders. We, however, have seen 0 spiders. If they are around then they're not in Mango Hill. I've looked everywhere, I saw an uninhabited spiderweb under a bench but that's it. Dale told me that the rain "draws them out" , it almost sounded as if they were the Vietcong army, sitting silently in their underground tunnels and preparing their ambush; at first signs of rain they would massively crawl out of the bush and start scaring us : Most probably using the cover of darkness. All that I know so far is that Australia's scariest predator is commonly found strolling the coastline, wears a bikini, has gray hair and doesn't shave.

Sunday

2009-10-04T08:20:00.000+10:00

It's 08:20 now on our second Sunday here in Queensland and once again the skies are a perfect blue, a cooling breeze keeps temperatures very comfortable and we cannot keep from smiling when we look outside. The sound of the birds over here is something that we enjoy every day. Harley Davidson motorbikes that have been eagerly awaiting the weekend are riding out their LUGs ( Lock-up Garages ), most certainly heading for some coastal road around here.
Today we are going to the Coolum Beach Kite Festival, which is a two day event where kites of all sorts and shapes are being showed around. We don't really know what to expect from it so we're going open-minded. We saw a few more rental places on the internet which we'd like to drive past to see if we like the neighborhood they are in. We have applied for a rental in the Sunshine Coast and we expect to know more about it upcoming Monday or Tuesday, in the meantime we'll keep looking for other rental places until we sign a lease contract ( rental agreement ).
We are just about to have some brekkie now ( breakfast ) and then we're heading off to the Sunshine Coast. ( for the people who missed where we settled , we're currently in a Bed&Breakfast in Mango Hill which is located between north Brisbane and Redcliffe ). We have seen "Big Kart Track" on one of Bruce Highway's exits, so we might just take a peek around there to see how big this kart track really is.

Arvo :
It's almost 15:00 here and we've just come back from the Sunshine Coast. We grow more and more attached to the Sunshine Coast and we feel we've been here all our lives. Everything just makes sense now, we aren't stressed anymore, the people around the Sunshine Coast area are very relaxed and friendly and never in a hurry. We haven't seen Brisbane yet, something that is still on the agenda but we're not in a hurry to go there, we know that the Sunshine Coast offers us anything we came to Australia for. The wages in Brisbane are a lot higher than the ones on the sunshine coast, but the cost of living in Brisbane is much higher. So whether we get a job in Sunshine Coast or Brisbane won't matter since the commute times will be offset by higher earnings. That said, there are job in Maroochydore and they fit with our ambitions and lifestyle ( remember, this is major recession times ) so when the economy picks up in a while, we'll get jobs in Sunshine Coast. We have decided we initially want to settle in the Sunshine Coast because much work is offered by word of mouth around here, and we'd miss out on that if we lived in Brissie. Also our dog and cat would love it in the Coast, it will after all be their retirement village.

The Coolum Kite Festival was great, not too busy but busy enough for it to be interesting. A lot of kitesurfers, chinese kiters, some very strange ( or very big ) kites all around, BBQ's around the place and icecreams all over. Events like these are well patrolled, with beach patrols and police all over the place. The police seemed to enjoy themselves on the beach, as did everyone else. We didn't go for a swim because the sun was really hot and we didn't want to get sunburnt the first week, we decided to take it easy and be a bit risk-free until we have a rental and picked up the dog + cat, after which we can really start enjoying being here. I'm not sure whether we had a small depression in The Netherlands or if it was just stress but we feel so much better around here, it feels like we are finally where we were meant to be. I certainly hope the feeling will stay , but if it doesn't , well there are plenty of other places around the world we can live. One thing is very sure : We are enjoying the change of lifestyle for now. On a sunday like everyone will get their boats ( usually small fishing boats but also some speedboats ) and scramblers ( motorcross ) out of the shed and drive em around to wherever the action is. It seems we made the right choice by buying a RAV4 with towbar instead of a Corolla but only time will tell.

Gary Moore, Dire Straits and Monster Trucks

2009-10-03T16:15:00.000+10:00

It's saturday today and we have decided to relax. Gary Moore blues in the background ( he just has the vibe ) mixed with some Dire Straits, we saw an add for Monster Trucks in the Sunshine Coast newspaper. It was part of our master plan to go see the some serious destruction racing when we got here. The only thing we know that comes anywhere near the Monster Madness is an event called Tractor Pulling. We share a love for big engines and power and the two things we wanted to see in Australia is the Monster Trucks and the Jetboat races. Unfortunately we don't have our camcorder yet and really want to start recording things for the home front. We found a great camera shop online which ships them free across Australia but we first will need a rental address where we can ship it to, which by the way we are in the process of organizing, but more on that when we hear the good ( or bad ) news this monday.

The day today started a bit overcast around 07:00 , but by 09:00 the sky was completely blue again, and now it's hot outside. It's ok in the shade though, so we're sitting behind our computers on the patio outside. The weather is definately not clammy or sweaty ( yet ? ) , it's really nice, it actually feels dry rather than humid but I'm sure that can't be true. We're enjoying the day with some ( believe it or not ) Erdinger Weizbier and Bifteki Burgers on the barbie.

Life doesn't get much better than this.

The order in which things are done

2009-10-03T08:53:00.001+10:00

I thought I'd make a small post of the order in which things are done over here. With "things" I mean the paperwork required to get a rental , and bank account and a driver's license.

1) Get a rental car for 3 weeks. Without one, you're stuck
2) Get a Bed and Breakfast which allows you to use their address for paper-mail, or get a friend or family home address. Without an address, you will be stuck. PO boxes are NOT recognized and you won't get anything without an address. The address needs to obviously be in the same state as you are migrating to.
3) Get a prepaid mobile phone from Telstra. You can not get a non-prepaid one yet. This takes about 30 minutes to fill in a paper sheet with your address ( B&B / friend etc )
4) Go to Commonwealth Bank and get a Commonwealth bank account using your passport and prepaid phone number and address from your B&B / friend / family. They will ship the debit mastercard ( not a credit card, you can't get one yet ) to your address provided, this takes exactly 7 days. Make sure you get a "change of address form" WITH STAMP AND DATE AND SIGNATURE from the Commonwealth which declares that you are living at your B&B, you will need this later. They will tell you that you don't have a TFN number yet and that you will be taxed higher, tell them that's ok you will amend that later.
5) Go to Medicare and order a medicare card using your "change of address form" and prepaid and passport + visa. This will take 3-4 weeks before it arrives at the address specified
6) Go online and get a TFN number, which is a tax file number. This takes about 3-4 weeks to be posted to the address also. You can fill it in completely online, the website can be googled
7) The hardest step : Go to an RTA customer centra and get your Driver License. You will need proof of address ( Commonwealth "Change of address form" WITH STAMP and date ), passport , visa ( which should be in your passport ) , your old bank card from Europe or Credit Card WHICH MUST BE SIGNED ON THE BACK. Make sure you fill in "C+R" ( Car + Motorbike ) or "C" ( Car ) or "R" ( Motorbike ) and *NOT* "A+B" or something European, they will completely lock up and will refuse to give you your driver license. If one customer centre makes problems, then go to another one, there are plenty all over and after 2-3 centres and prepared and filled in documents, you will eventually get your driver license.
8) Use your driver license to get an 18+ card in the same RTA centre, because the 18+ card also counts as points towards authentication.

After step 8, you will have all documentation required to get anything done , like buying a car at a dealership, getting a non-prepaid mobile phone, renting a place etc. You can do all this in 1 single day and you can then focus on getting a rental place for 6 months or 12 months.

Driving on the ozzie roads.

2009-10-02T18:29:00.001+10:00

When we arrived a week ago we had already arranged our rental car with Thrifty. We were expecting a cheap Hyundai Getz but were surprised that the smallest car that Thrifty rents out is a Ford Focus, which in Europe would be a very reasonable car to drive. The driving out of the airport was relatively easy, they made it fool-proof ( 1 lane only, no left or rights ) and plenty of signs stating "Keep Left". The roads in Queensland are undergoing major maintenance at the moment under a government initiative called "Safer Roads Sooner" which implies that their roads weren't very safe like most people have told us. We were warned of potholes the size of small moon craters, deranged wallabies ( a wallaby is like a wannabe rat ) and aggressive kangaroos blocking the road and road trains driving past at 110 kilometers an hour ( this one is actually true ! ). The potholes are a myth, there are more potholes in European roads than on the roads we have driven on so far here in Queensland. Almost every road here has been refurbished in the last few years. There are a LOT of roadworks everywhere. From small town roads to major highway works. They do work very efficiently, which made me think of the Dutch roadworks. They work mostly at night on the highways and the next day you'll just see 5 new kilometers of fresh tarmac, it's amazing how fast they work.
After driving out of the airport terrain, things get more tricky. We made sure we had a GPS ( a small Garmin Nuvi ) with us because with didn't want to have to look up things on maps, and we also had rented an automatic car, which really helped ( tip : When you rent a car in Australia, get an automatic one ). With automatic, you can focus on driving on the right side of the road... which really means left side. Right, so the left side. The inside mirror takes some getting used to since you are sitting on the right side of the car instead of the left side, which can be confusing at first. Even now, a week later we still sometimes try and get in on the passenger seat to drive. ( usually excused by a "I was just checking if the door was still hanging on the car"-kind of excuse ). So you drive out the airport and it's dark outside ( most planes land after dark in Brisbane ) and you're driving on the other side of the road after a 27 hour flight, and you're jetlagged, believe me we were happy with our automatic transmission and GPS !

You get used to driving on the left side of the road real quick, the real caveat is that you forget it sometimes, Kim usually is very quick to point out "LEFT LEFT LEFT !!!! EEEK! " while squirming and making all kinds of hand gestures in the car when I evade a big SUV coming straight at us. It does keep you awake to have a few of those episodes. Lately we haven't had any though, only the first 2-3 days and only when I'm thinking of something else, or looking at houses or just outside at the beautiful scenery.

--To be continued, we're going to do a sundowner with Dale and Francine now--

--The next morning, with another beautiful blue sky--

Having a Sundowner means having an evening beer on the veranda outside. Dale and Francine are our hosts here at our Bed&Breakfast in Mango Hill. They're both in their 30's and moved here from the UK about 4 years ago for the same reasons as most people move here : Sunshine and lifestyle. Had a nice evening with them despite the fact that we all were very tired from work and running around everywhere. Dale brews his own beer because the beer in the shops is terribly expensive ( about 3 dollars per beer, although you can get cheaper beers but also more expensive ones for that matter ). His beers are delicious : They taste just like Corona beer ! 1 beer did it for me though, I think the alcohol % is a tad higher than the average beer.

The highways here are well organized. You get long ( I mean, LONG ) ramps as exits and entries to the highway, which means that most trucks enter the highway at 100 kilometers an hour and don't disrupt traffic. There aren't many exits or ramp ups ( usually 1 ramp every 10 kilometers. Ofcourse, you get more ramps the closer you get to the big cities, but we've mostly been driving the Bruce Highway up and down the sunshine coast. The roads at night are not lighted, but there are cat-eyes ( the little reflectors in the middle and sides of the road ) all along the roads so it's much safer driving than the dark highways in for instance Belgium, you can see where the road is heading for kilometers ahead, just using the headlights and the cat-eyes in the road. The highways are usually straight and when there's a bend it's a very soft bend, nothing like the german "U-turn"-like bends you get sometimes. The quality of the road is good : It's tarmac all the way ( unlike the concrete-slab-highways is Belgium which make terrible noise when you drive over them ). On highways you can usually drive 120 except some spots where 110 or 100 is the limit. Overall I never had the idea that we were going too slow ( like I did in the USA ). It also seems that everyone drives about the same speed. There are very few slowpokes on the road. Everyone uses their cruise control at 100 kilometers an hour and people are fine with that. The trucks are usually driving faster than the cars at 110-120 per hour, no matter how large they are. The Queenslanders are good drivers compared to Europeans : They are courteous and I haven't met a road-rager yet. In fact, I have yet to hear someone honking. People will adhere to zebra crossings for pedestrians, they will always stop for them, something that in holland is a rarity. When two roads merge, people will let you merge without you having to fight for your right. However people expect you to keep driving on your side of the road until the very last end where everyone "zips in". All in all I'm impressed by the friendliness of the Queensland driver.
Once in a while there are pieces of tires on the highways ( big pieces , usually from blown tires off heavy road trains ). They will be picked up the same day but the next day it seems another blown tire from another truck is left at a slightly different spot. There is no M.O.T. ( APK Keuring ) in Queensland which means that people will drive their tires literally till they blow up, which is reflected by the amount of tire "residue" on the highways. The roads are clean and the shoulders are nice and tidy.
Driving over the Bruce Highway reminded us of the road from Vancouver to Calgary in Canada. There are big green forests ( plantations actually ) along most of the highway, something that at first sounds very strange : A dry and water-deprived country like Australia having huge green forests. It looks a bit like Canada, but then cleaner ( Our impression of Canada is that it's a bit messy , loads of big rusty road signs everywhere spoiling the views and the pristine outlooks ). Not a lot of signs out here in Australia, but a similar scenery.

We'll try and make some short movies and add them to the blog posts so people can get an idea of what we're talking about.

Sunglasses

2009-10-02T07:24:00.001+10:00

I'm a bit late with this topic but we were very busy the first few days and really didn't have time to update our blog. We bought new sunglasses the second day we came here, and it's worth it's own topic. Sunglasses in Queensland are a major part of your outfit, they are just as essential to your everyday life as underwear or thongs ( not the underwear but the footwear : The European word for thongs would be slippers ). It's therefor important that they fit well, look well and are comfortable. In The Netherlands when you buy sunglasses you just go to a shop, pick out a pair and walk out with em, after all you only use them once in a while. Here, you will wear your sunglasses 80% of the time during the day, so if they are scratchy or too heavy or bulky then you will start feeling them and this can be very unpleasant. So, make sure you take at least a few hours to get the right pair of sunglasses. Sunglasses in Queensland are very cheap compared to Europe, you can buy "the best" ( there are not really any "best" but there are better ones and less good ones around ) sunglasses for about 250 dollars which is about 135 euro's.

There's a few things you need to know about sunglasses. First of all , you *NEED* UV protection. The good thing is that Queensland has a law that enforces all sunglasses sold in official sunglass shops ( Like for instance the popular and good shop "Sunglass Hut" ) to have a minimum of UV protection. However, it's always good to inform about the amount of UV protection on the sunglasses, the higher is obviously better and not always more expensive. The second thing that you absolutely *NEED* is polarized sunglasses. They will remove reflections from the sea and other kinds of reflective materials. Without ( I think they are called de-polarized ) polarized sunglasses you'll see glares everywhere, and you will keep squinting despite the fact that you are wearing sunglasses, and this can be very , very irritating after a few hours : You'll get headaches and feel tired, trust me : It's not worth it , get the polarized glasses. They are more expensive but more than worth the price. Another benefit of polarized glasses we only found out a bit later, at the sea. With our glasses on we could see right to the bottom of the sea ! Without them , you'll just see normal sea levels. The polarized glasses really make a world of difference, they certainly make the sea more beautiful, an unexpected but welcome surprise.

Now something that we didn't know : The shading (color) of the sunglasses is very important too. Luckily, most glasses come in all shades, so you just have to know "your shade". If you pick the wrong shade, you will start to feel nauseous over time, or "drunk" or sick. I found out that my shade is green ( I have blue eyes ) but Kim's shade is brown ( she has green eyes ). When either of us wear eachother's sunglasses, we start feeling nauseous after a while. So make sure you pick the right shade. The good thing is that most official shops like the Sunglass Hut will exchange your sunglasses for free within two weeks as long as they aren't scratched or damaged, so don't worry if you accidentally get the wrong one, just bring them back and exchange them for a different shade.

Another thing we didn't know is that the surface of sunglasses is not always perfectly "ocular". What this means is basically that when you have your sunglasses on and you look at different objects in the distance at different angles through your sunglasses, they will slightly deform because the angle at which you look through your sunglasses goes through a thicker part or a thinner part of glass. ( actually, very few sunglasses here are made of glass , it's usually polycarbonate or "plastic" ). This effect is barely noticeable at first but make sure you ask the lady where you buy the glasses to have a "test run" outside in the open air and walk around a little bit, turning your head as if you were sight-seeing. If you start to notice the deformations, or you start feeling a bit ill, then dump the glasses.
The only brand of glasses that never deform ( and they are marketing this to the fullest around here ) are the Oakley's because they are molded instead of "whatever process other glass makers use". Oakley's are very popular here and a good choice if you don't want deforms.

Lastly, the materials. You can buy either glass glasses or polycarbonate glasses. 99% of the sunglasses around here will be polycarbonate, they are lighter and cheaper than the glass ones. The only reason you'd want glass is because they scratch less easily. However it comes at a price and that is that they weigh a lot more, noticeably, and this weight will be resting on your head the whole day, so not a lot of people around here wear em. If you take good care of your glasses they won't scratch anyway, you get a nice protective container ( which you can clip on your pants ) if you buy the brand Maui Jim. The frame itself can be made of a few different materials, the most common ones being simple plastic and titanium. The titanium ones will be more expensive but they will be stonger. Weight is about the same. Most brands do offer lifetime guarantee on the plastic, so if it breaks then you can just get new ones ( obviously, read the fine-print here coz the warranty options can be quite different between brands )

I think that covers most of the sunglass stuff you need to know. So.. now you ask yourself : Which sunglasses did Kim and Lex buy ?

We bought ourselves 1 pair each of Maui Jim's type MJ-407-02 sunglasses ! Kim got the brown tint ( shade ) and I got the green tint. We paid 150 AUD dollars for each pair ( we had a 50 AUD dollar rebate on each pair , special offer ). We're very happy with our sunglasses, and this is after 7 days of wearing and tearing them. No scratches, they weigh a few grams ( literally, they are so light you don't notice you have them on ) and they don't hurt anywhere behind the ears or on top of your nose : They really are perfect ! ( you can google them up on the web ). They don't deform either, which really makes these glasses incredible value for money.

About the shops

2009-10-01T08:12:00.000+10:00

So we've been shopping around a lot lately, from cars to wall power plug converters. So how different are the Australian shops to the Dutch shops ? Quite different indeed. For general food shopping you have a choice here of two major shops : Either Coles or Woolworths ( Woolies as they call them here ). Woolies and Coles are pretty similar in setup, choice and quality. In fact you could probably walk into a shop blindfolded and not be able to say if you were in a Coles or a Woolies if not for all the advertising they do in the shops. The shops are all air conditioned to perfection ( somehow the Australians have mastered the art of cooling and conditioning air without it being noticeable ) so you won't get either too hot or too cold in them. The shops are a good size, they all seem to have a minimum size of about 4 times the size of an average Dutch supermarket. The choice is plentiful : From Danish cheeses to German beers, they will have it all. Want some goat's milk feta cheese , no problem. Need some Veil Schnitzels, they got that too. Another thing that amazed me is that everything is fresh here. The Australians take great pride in the quality of what they sell, and they will feel personally offended and ashamed if you would ever find anything in their shops that is even close to the expiry date. Now we know for a fact that in the Dutch shops this ain't exactly the same , they try and fool you, trick you, into putting that one rotting apple or overdate bread in your trolley. If you forget just one time to check the expiry on the food in The Netherlands, then you'll probably end up buying something that is already over date and you'll have to throw it out the moment you get home and unpack the food : It's shameful.

Australian shops are nothing like that : They want to sell you good food for a fair price. For instance, they will have a well sized bread department in the Coles. There will be two sides in the bread department, one side which reads "New freshbaked today" and the other reading "one day old". You will usually pay a bit more for the freshbaked breads, like 40 cents or something ( on a 2 dollar loaf ). But they actually do give you the choice. Battlers ( families who struggle financially ) will go to the 1day old bread, and people who can afford the freshbaked will go to the freshbaked part. Then , at night, the freshbaked bread moves to the 1day old section, and the 1day old gets thrown out ( maybe fed to the sheep, who knows ). The 1day old breads are fresher than the "fresh baked" breads in The Netherlands by the way, just to give you an idea of the freshness of the bread. Usually ( depending on the heat outside and where and how you keep your bread ) the breads here will last about a week.

The choice of meat is abundant : About 50 meters of meat exposed in all it's splendor. You can get every kind of meat you can think of, and some that you never thought of. That's just the meat. The chook section ( chicken ) is about the same and has all the chickens , every part of the chicken, and every marinade you fancy. If you ask the shopkeepers which is the best meat for the barbie, they'll always answer "All of it is good, mate !" so that doesn't really help, you'll just have to find out by trial and error. ( tip : Don't buy the bitter cucumbers ( a 'special kind of cucumber', they're horrible ! However they have the normal cucumbers too which really taste good ) They got 2-3 different kinds of cucumbers here, never saw em in Europe. Then ofcourse you got a Deli section of about the same size which includes all the 'ready made' meats and foods and sauces.

In general , you'll have plenty of choice whatever you're looking for. For instance, you can buy salt, natural salt, big grain salt, small grain salt, herby salt, spicery salt, even salt mixed with pepper !

The veggies are fresh and HUGE, some are priced by the piece, some by the kilo. Plenty of choice here too and the taste is so much more "full" than the Dutch veggies : You can literally taste the healthy food , rather than the watery dull vegetables in The Netherlands. I even started eating some tomatoes, they just taste so different around here !

The prices of food are about the same as in The Netherlands. Some meat is very expensive, some is very cheap, it all depends which meat you would like. But while the price is about the same, the quality is a lot higher, it's in a different league all together. The shopping trolleys don't have the little dongles on them where you have to put 1 euro in to release them from their chained captivity, they are being picked up by shop staff in the parking lots on a very regular interval. Usually people will put them back in the trolley station, some people who are in a hurry ( not a lot of those around here ) will leave their trolleys in the parking lot but then people who arrive will take those to the shop and use them, or they will be picked up by the shop staff.

Paying is rather easy too. Obviously you can get a Woolies or a Coles membership card, they will automatically make you member of the Qantas frequent flyer group, which in theory should allow you to fly around a bit more. The paying is done in either one of two ways : You can do it yourself or you can go to one of the aisles where a lady will pack your goods in little plastic bags for you so you can easily put them in your trolley and car. The do-it-yourself automated check-out option we haven't tried yet, but it's very popular , 50% of the people use it. Especially if you have 2-3 things , it will go very fast, you just scan-and-bleep then put your bank card in the machine and walk out of the shop, literally in seconds.
We don't have our Commonwealth Bank cards yet, so we have to use the cash option and go through the lady at the checkout. There is hardly any waiting, if ever. I think the most we have waited at a checkout is about 20 seconds. Australians don't like to wait, that's for sure : When things take more than a few minutes, they will get really agitated and complain about the huge delays and queues ( which, after being in Europe for so long sounds really ridiculous but I heard that you get used to it rather fast ).

One thing that we noticed is the size of the coins here ! A 50 cent coin will weigh about 2 kilo's ( ok, not really but they're really big and thick ) so your wallet will soon be full. We empty our wallet every evening just because the coins are so big and don't fit in it. I'll try and make a picture and upload it on here if I have time. The real size of a coin is about an 4 centimeters and about 4 millimeters thick, which for one coin is certainly respectable. They are mostly going cashless here , like in most parts of the world using debit and credit cards for the most part.

The parking all around the Sunshine coast is free, we haven't seen paid parkings anywhere yet, and the parking lots are all made for big SUVs so you'll have plenty of spare room if you drive anything Europe-sized ( think of USA a bit ).

The shops are usually located in big shopping centres which have plentiful parking spaces. The centres will usually have every type of shop you need : Electronics, electrics, travel agencies, banks, centrelink / medicare etc , sport shops, clothing shops, bottlo's ( bottle shops ) etc. When you go shopping you will always go to the big shopping centres ( and some of them are REALLY big like the Sunshine Plaza in Maroochydore which is almost as big as a small village in Europe ) They are almost always covered and well shaded with trees all around and parks and plenty of food and restaurant shops. It's a real treat not having to hike around town to find a particular shop, just go to a shopping mall and you'll get everything you need.

One noticeable thing in shops : The staff is really helpful and friendly. It sounds hard to believe but when we got here we were surprised by the friendliness of the people in general, and staff too. They take their time to help you, they are courteous and open. We might just have been lucky , but what a difference to what we were used to ! Obviously here in Queensland, the customer is still king. ( in The Netherlands the king has been dethroned for quite a while now )

Yes, we like the Australian shops.

We bought a car !

2009-09-30T15:16:00.001+10:00

We bought a car today. Now before I tell you which car it is, let me explain why we chose this particular car. First of all , most cars around here are white Japanese cars and for a good reason : They're cheap, white doesn't attract too much heat and they are very reliable. You'll see plenty of Honda, Toyota, Mitsubishi, Subaru and Mazda's ( sorry if I forgot a few makes ). Holden here is considered a "younger generation car" ( read : Pimp car ) and European cars are exclusive cars, mostly driven by ignorant European immigrants who buy their favorite European brand and then find themselves locked to huge service bills and garages refusing to help you.
So that shortens the list quite a lot. If you're 25+ , you really don't want to be seen driving a Holden, and you certainly don't want a Peugeot or Volkswagen or something like that unless you're a millionaire and you import your own spare parts. So the choice over here is pretty much limited to Mazda / Toyota / Subaru / Mitsubishi / Honda. All of them are good cars, they're pretty much all the same in fuel consumption ( their smallest models will have a 140 hp 1.8 engine, their top models anything like a V6 or V8 ).

Now here's where the sheep-technique comes in. Ever been sent to the shop to buy wine for anyone, and found yourself lost in the choice of different wines ? My tactic is simple , just pick the wine that is almost sold out ( the one that everyone else took ). It's guaranteed to be the best ( or at least : a very good ) wine. If you transpose this onto the car market, you'll find that Toyota is a winner. Not by a mile, only marginally more than the others, but still there are clearly more Toyota's on the road here than anything else. ( about 20% of the cars on the road here is a Toyota ). So that choice was made : We will buy a white Toyota. But what make ?

We went to the Toyota dealership and asked if we could test drive their models. To our surprise, they had EVERY possible car available for test drive, and no fuss was made about driving one. You wanna drive a V6 400 horsepower truck, no worries. You'll need to sign a quick insurance waiver ( a A4 that basically tells you that you will be liable for a certain amount of damage if you crash, usually anything between 500 and 3500 dollars ). TIP : This can be an indicator for how good the dealership will be for you by looking at those numbers, the higher they are, the more scroogey they will be and the more expensive your car will be. So if they ask you to sign a waiver at 3500 at one dealership, and 1000 at the other ( for the same car mind you ) then you should try and talk to the dealership with the 1000 waivers.

We sat in a few different models : The Aygo, the Yaris, the Corolla and the RAV4. Anything beyond the RAV4 will cost you serious bucks and also costs a lot to drive ( 17 liters of petrol per 100 kilometers etc ). The Aygo and Yaris are way too small to even consider, if the potholes don't kill you a rampant road train certainly will. So Aygo and Yaris are a big no-no. The choice was really between a Corolla and a RAV4. In other words, the heart versus the head choice. The RAV4 obviously is a lot more expensive than the Corolla and will use more petrol, but then again the RAV4 fits the Australian lifestyle better ( remember : 50% of cars here are SUVs and the cars that aren't SUVs are the big commodores and Aureons with big V6s or V8s ). Compared to the "average" vehicle on the road, a 4cylinder RAV4 would be quite economical , a good trade-off between lifestyle and cheap and green driving. The RAV4's are very popular here , the corolla's are "the wife's car". Also when towing anything of reasonable length or weight ( a boat, a horse trailer, a big trailer for home renovations etc ), the Corolla would not be sufficient whereas a RAV4 would do a good job with ease.

So... we bought the Toyota RAV4 4cylinder !! It's an "Edge" model which includes a lot "dooblies" as the salespeople call them : Roof rails ( not racks, the rails look a lot better and are welded on the chassis and therefor can only be fitted at production of the car) , Luxury steering wheel ( hey , you're gonna be using that about all of the time in the car, it might as well have a good feel ! ), parking sensors in the back ( a little beep that tells you if you are driving back into something ) , tinted glass ( looks cool and IS cool = keeps a lot of heat out of the car ) , 17" alloy wheels, Air Conditioning , Cruise Control etc etc...
We added a Nudge Bar on the front ( like a bull bar but only the middle bit ) and a tow bar at the back ( for our boat trailer, one's gotta have dreams you know ! ) and an integrated SatNav on it since our little Garmin is dying.

All in all it's a super luxurious car that would cost about 50.000 euro's in The Netherlands and which we certainly would never have bought there. We paid a total of 40000 dollars for it : That's 20.000 euro's ! You can buy a second-hand Hyundai Getz with 200.000 mileage on it for that price in Europe, if you're lucky ! Ok , that was exaggerated, realistically you would be able to buy a new Hyundai Getz for that.

We're very happy with the deal, and it only took us two garages and lots of internet research to get this price. On the internet we saw a second-hand RAV4 from 2005 listed for 34900 ( didn't even bother looking at the mileage ) and in another Toyota dealership ( The Toyota dealer in Mango Hill, don't go there ! ) we got a quote of 50.000 for this car.

At Toyota Maroochidore ( good one, go here for good deals ! ) we got a good deal and he threw in a pair of "Bush-tucking lights" on the nudge bar too ( these will cost you 500 dollars new mind you ) so we do some bush driving with it.

The only thing we couldn't get was a WHITE RAV4, which we initially set our mind to. The Edge model is a bit of a sold out model and only red / black / blue / graphite / metallic silver were available. We took the graphite one, it looks real good with the black tinted windows and the nudge bar and roof rails. We actually tested the white versus black car theory by sitting in cars that had been standing in the sun for hours outside the dealership. First we sat in a black car : HOT ! Then we sat in a white car : JUST AS HOT ! No difference at all , apparently it's the interior ( which usually is black ) that attracts the heat more than anything else. So it wasn't a big issue and I must say that graphite grows on you. It's a bit like a light-black ( huh? ) metallic color. Some people call it "carbon" or "charcoal" but it's a bit lighter than that, it's a nice color and we are happy to have chosen it. It's also a metallic paint which in theory is a lot more expensive than the plain white paint.

We decided to fit some extra's in the car which will help protect it from the Queensland sun :
- An electronic rust protector
- UV window protection tint
- Paint protection
- Interior protection

Now whether or not those things work doesn't really matter, I've always been sceptical about it and never really thought they were much use. However, if you buy those items, you will get 10 years ( lifetime, but in reality it's 10 years ) warranty on your paint, your interior , rust. The window protection is also helpful because it will make your car glass darker which looks cool, and it will make it cooler inside when you first step in. Obviously there is no reason to have it past that because you have air conditioning anyway, but it also blocks some UV which is linked to cancer etc. The tinting is also an interesting one. The Queensland law says that all window tinting fitted by a dealer prior to delivery to the customer is street legal. So although we will have a very dark car it will be street legal anyway. There is 10 years warrantee on the tinting, so if there are any bubbles forming after installation ( due to sun, heat or whatever ) then they will fix it for us at no charge. Also , the resale value of the car will go up as will the trade-in. Everything together this cost 2000 AUD dollars but for 10 years warranty on literally everything in your car : You can't really go wrong. Also , I won't get mad when someone spills any coffee on our seats , because I know it will be fixed by the Toyota dealer.

Another great deal that Toyota offers is their 3-year fixed price servicing, which can be ( and we did ) lengthened by another 3 years, so 6 years. You will pay 300 dollars per year to service your car, no matter what's wrong with it : This is what you will pay for 6 years. This is well worth taking up , some other manufacturers also offer this so it's not unique to Toyota here, but it sure isn't the same in Europe. So that's 6 years service and warranty at a fixed price without worries. Good on ya, Toyota !

The average mileage of our RAV4 ( which we will pick up next week, just as our rental expires ) is 9.6/100 , the Corolla had a 7.6/100 so we're using 2 liters more per 100 kilometers. Seeing as the fuel over here is 1,10 dollars ( that's right : about 60 euro cents ! ) and doing 20.000 kilometers on average per year, it will cost us 440 dollars extra ( at current fuel prices ) to drive the RAV4 compared to the Corolla. The insurance ( full comprehensive, which means that if ANY damage is caused by ANYthing , you will be insured for it ) costs 550 dollars per year ( corrolla = 450 dollars ) and the "Reggo" ( taxes etc etc ) cost about 400 per year, about the same as the corolla ( it's calculated per cylinder not quite sure how exactly though, but both have equal cylinders = 4 ).

So, long story short : We'll pick up our new Toyota RAV4 with lots of gadgets up next week ! We'll try and put some pictures up during the weekend. We're still very busy at the moment getting a rental, but that's a separate post.

We got our driver licenses !

2009-09-30T14:10:00.000+10:00

Today we crossed a big line : We got our driver licenses ! Now you might think this would be a simple thing to get ( after all, the driver license is nothing more than a piece of ordinary paper printed by a dot matrix printer and your photo next to it, and then plastified with the most normal machines. In other words : It's not a very secure document , in European standards.

However, all is not as it seems. In Australia, your driver license is worth equal identification points to your passport ! This means that you can use your driver license for almost any form of authentication. In fact, your driver license is NEEDED in most cases because without it you will need a proof of settlement in Australia, which is basically a document ( not any document, a legal one ) like a rental agreement, or a home ownership document. These documents are obviously very hard to get initially when you settle in Australia, but here's the good part : The driver license IS SUCH A DOCUMENT ! Your address is printed on it so people readily accept this as a formal proof of settlement in Australia.

Obviously the driver license is THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT document that you will have to get once you settle in Australia, we knew this so we tried to get it asap when we got here. The second day we got here we went into the Road and Transportation Association customer service center ( what a long word that is ). If you have trouble finding them , here's a listing of the addresses of all the RTA offices in Queensland. We went inside and got told that we didn't have enough points to authenticate ( you'll get used to the point system , it's very easy : driver license = 40 points, passport = 40 points, 18+ card = 20 points, medicare card = 20 points, Visa ( which is inside your passport ) = 20 points or something etc etc ). We told her that we just arrived and that we didn't know where to get our points. She said that a Bank Card with our name on it and our signature would be sufficient together with the Visa and the Passport and a Credit Card or foreign Bank Card. You will realize soon that the requirements are flaky at best : In another RTA office we were told completely different things and that lady would accept another document but not the one that the first lady accepted. We found out later that the only REAL authentication you need is a bit of personal charm and flattery towards the person behind the counter, this will get you a lot further. Something like "We just moved here and we love it, (fill in the town you're in) is really beautiful ( doesn't matter if it is or not ) and what lovely beaches and friendly people over here, Queensland definately is the best place on earth !" will be worth a lot more points than any document you can come up with. It took us two days to find this out.

So the first day we failed. We got the application forms with us though, and ended up with this magical combination of points :

- Commonwealth "Change of Address confirmation" that we got when we signed up with commonwealth bank and which states your "new" address which in our case was our B&B for three weeks. TIP: If you're staying in a hotel you're screwed, you won't get anything done since you don't have a real address and the bank ( and everyone else ) DO NOT ACCEPT A POSTBOX ADDRESS. Remember : To get a bank account you will need a telephone ( prepaid, since you cannot get anything else ) and an address. The bank told us they don't use the points system anymore and they will happily help you with just your passport and some flattery-points ( plus the phone number and the address )

- Credit Card ( if you have any ) or your old bank card from your European bank as long as it has a signature on the back ( very important : no signature = no legal document )

- Passport

- Visa ( in our case it's a 175 visa which is in our passport but this is not always the case )

- B&B Booking confirmation + payment slip ( important ! )

Those 5 things will get you a driver's license : But not everywhere.

We went back to Maroochydore RTA customer centre, went in armed with our documents, and here comes the surprise : The classes are different ! So let's say I have a A+B license in The Netherlands ( same as in the UK btw or any other european country ) then that means that I can drive a Motorbike ( A ) and a Car ( B ) without trailer.
In Australia however, that would equate to a C ( Car + Trailer ) and R ( rider = motorbike ) ( you also get RE which is 250CC or lower, make sure you get the full R one , not the RE !! ).
Since I filled in AB in the driver license code on the application form, I got told that they don't accept untranslated driver licenses. I gave her the International Driver License which is a translation of it in english and 50 other languages, after which they got irritated ( our flattery points turned negative right here ) and they
said that that was not a legal document. I told them it was, they looked it up , they said "it's only for driving, not for requesting a driver license" and that was basically it. So we asked what we could do and the lady told us we had to go to the consulate to ask for a translated driver license. A young Danish guy stepped in and told us he had to do the same and showed us his version of his Danish translated driver license. This would take weeks !

But I don't give up that quickly. I had learned and I knew exactly where it went bottoms up : My non-Australian knowledge of their license classes. After all we're talking about the single most important document you'll ever get in Australia : Your driver license. It was late and we had other things to do ( see next post ) so we called it for the day. We did however take a new empty license request form with us, which would come in handy later.

Next day, we decided that we'd note down the addresses of some of the nearby RTA offices ( of which there are many ) and use the GPS navigator ( an old , outdated Garmin Nuvi which doesn't really work well but better still than reading paper maps ) to drive to all of them : If they would decline us the driver license, we'd just move to the next one until we would learn enough about the Australian way to get it without hassle. At home we filled in the empty forms and this time we put "C + R" in them , not "AB".

It proved we're fast learners : The first RTA customer centre we went to was Redcliffe ( Kippa Ring actually ). We came in to the RTA office and there weren't that many people there ( there never are in Australia, but a queue of more than 10 peopls here is considered VERY busy ) I think there were 3-4 people there and after waiting less than a minute we were greeted. Now this is the absolute critical moment in Ozzie socializing behaviour : The greet. It will make or break your entire conversation. If you respond like a Pommie then that's how you will be treated. If on the other hand you respond like an Indian they won't take you seriously.
They have different variations of greets ( to fool the immigrants obviously ) and the game is played like a chess gambit. On opening E2-E4 , the correct response would be D2-D4, but you could also use a E2-E4, after which the horses will come out. If you try and move your rook , they'll figure you out, if you move the A2-A4 pawn they'll think you're a beginner.

"Hi, how are you today, and how may I help ?" ( Whaaaa she played the shrude Sicilian opening, clearly advanced and long-time Australian. )
"Very well thank you. It's lovely weather, what could possibly go wrong today ? We really love this town and love the friendly people over here. How are you ?" ( carefully parried that first move there, if you answer "I'm ok, I need you to convert my driver license" then you just lost the game )
"Fine thanks. Now what can I do for you today ?" ( the original question again, but this time they expect you to answer it )
"We just migrated to Queensland six days ago and we hope to convert our current license into a Queensland driver license. We have read up on the application process and have the completed forms right here, we also brought along the needed documents" ( we're on a win here )
"Let me see that. Oh... wait you have a Commonwealth Change of Address form, but you don't have the Commonwealth Bank Card yet, we'll need some other form of proof of residency from you" ( now, this is a very tactical move, she just moved her Queen and your king is checked. Ofcourse we knew the commonwealth bank documents were sufficient without the bank card, after all we used them in the other RTA office where they were no problem. However, if you play that card it's a check mate and you'll never get your license here. )
"We have the rent agreement with us, will that do ?"
"Hmm... lemme check all that. I'll just copy these documents right here and be right back"

YOU WIN ! She's just been check-mated and will now be open for requests.
15 minutes later and 200 dollars lighter ( 75 for a 5-year driver license and 25 for an 18+ card , times two people ), we got our driver license , and used this driver license to complete the application form for our 18+ card which is also valued at 20 points.
A big job done, especially since we just bought a car ! ( and you need your driver license to buy a car over here, there's no other way )

Maroochydore -> Noosa

2009-09-30T10:05:00.000+10:00

Yesterday we drove from Maroochydore to Noosa over the coastal highway. The further north you go , the prettier the places get. Noosa being the "Hollywood of Australia" it's a very pretty place, loads of hills and VERY expensive looking houses ( and they are probably even more expensive to buy than they look ). It's a very touristic place, a bit like Caloundra but instead of highrises they have hills and smaller unit-blocks.
There's nature all over in Noosa and the views to the ocean are priceless. It's not a place that is easy to reach from the civilized world though, it will take you about 40 minutes from Maroochydore to Noosa over the coastline roads, more when there are roadworks ( and there are quite a few roadworks in Queensland : a good thing ). Noosa is too far from the Bruce Highway, and too far from the Sunshine Coast CBD ( Maroochydore ) so it's a place where you retire, not a place you go to work, unless ofcourse you're lucky and work with retirees or in tourism. We liked Noosa. A bit southeast of Noosa you get Sunshine beach, they're pretty close together and you get lovely views over there on the David Low way. Sunshine beach has been developed over the last few years and looks well maintained and there seem to be proud people living over there : Proud of their boats that is, because everyone over there seems to drive boats instead of cars ( boats are all over the carparks / driveways there ). More south is Sunrise beach which has hill tops looking over the ocean and reasonably big houses but fewer boats. The roads get a big bigger over here, people drive a bit faster and this is really the furthest that most Australians will drive to Maroochydore for work. South of Sunrise beach, along the David Low way there is Castaways (beach) which is like a small settlement next to the big open road. However these people have the best views over the ocean that you can imagine, it's a tradeoff between having a "cliffside" house and being next to a busy traffic road ( the David Low way looks more like a motorway here ). Marcus Beach and Peregian beach are nice but didn't impress us as much as the northern suburbs. If you like old original Queenslanders then this is the place to buy one though. You won't have much views but the prices are lower in these area's ( still very unaffordable though, which says less about our financial situation than the dire overpriced housing market in Australia ). Overpriced is ofcourse relative to what you get. Yes you do get a nice view, you get a reasonable plot and the houses are reasonably built, but the wages here don't allow the prices, it's really as simple as that. Jobs here will pay anything from 30.000 AUD ( cleaner / mechanic etc ) to 50.000 AUD ( real estate agents / government jobs / car salesmen ) to 70.000 ( Senior IT with 10+ years experience / Managers / Senior Bank staff ). These wages don't warrant houseprices of more than 250.000 for small worker homes to 500.000 for luxury manager homes. The prices of homes here START at 500.000 for very small and run-down places, and they go anywhere to 3 million and more for the reasonably luxurious places. The very expensive places in and around Noosa reach 5-15 million each, private tennis court included of course.

So, we have decided to rent. You see, the math is quite simple :

A house on the beach ( literally ON the beach ) costs about 500 to rent. This equates to about 26000 per year in rent.
Now, this same house would be on the market for 1 million. That would be about 60000 yearly interest repayments. In other words, we'd be saving 34000 by renting the EXACT same place. And then I'm not even calculating the yearly repairs, the yearly taxes, the insurances, the ACTUAL REPAYMENT OF THE LOAN ( I just calculated the interest repayments, the loan will stay the same unless you pay EVEN MORE than 60000 ).

Yes, the housing market in Australia is in an interesting era. How long will the housing market survive ? I think about 1-2 years, then we'll see a substantial correction either in rental prices ( inflation of wages basically ) or a correction in houseprices ( 50% off at least, a bit more than in the USA ).

Caloundra - > Maroochidore

2009-09-28T21:33:00.000+10:00

We visited Caloundra today. It's a touristic place, it's busy and a bit hectic in the centre, but near the beach it's wonderful. Dickie beach is really nice, it was reasonably busy ( only 100 people on 2 kilometers of beach go figure ) and a bit further along the coast there are views of the ocean to kill for. A very nice place but there are better places along the coast, like Coolum Beach for instance, or Yaroomba Beach. We haven't been to every place yet, and Noosa apparently is very pretty also. Between Caloundra and Maroochydore there are a lot of industry parks, a lot of new-builds and it's basically 1 big building pit. Too bad, the region really looks poor there. I'm talking about Wurtulla and the likes, they are being built in by massive building projects, it really ruins most of the landscape so we quickly passed by there and went to Maroochydore. If Caloundra is the tourist centre then Maroochydore is the shopping centre and business centre. Most big companies have settled in Maroochydore and this made the town grow to be the biggest suburb in the Sunshine coast. There's a buzz in Maroochy that just isn't there in Caloundra. Ofcourse, this is our personal opinion only and we never liked highrises and busy area's.

Tomorrow we will do the upper part of the Sunshine Coast : From Maroochy to Noosa.

About the spiders

2009-09-28T21:30:00.000+10:00

So far, after 4 days, we have seen 0 spiders. They either hide very well or they are just not as abundant as people wanted to make us believe. No white-tails, no red-backs, nothing. Not 1 spider anywhere to be seen and believe me we looked for them everywhere. We did however see whales in the sea and a wild kangaroo in the middle of a field, many birds and some friendly bugs. No snakes, no spiders, no nasties.

I will keep you updated if we spot any :)

Medicare, Bank, Driver's License, Tax file number etc

2009-09-28T21:16:00.000+10:00

On the second day we started to get organized. Most shops are open on saturday and sunday over here, but they close around 17:00. We went back to the Sunshine Coast and this time we went to the Sunshine Plaza in Maroochydore : A fantastic shopping centre that has it all. We first went to the driver license office where we couldn't get our license because we needed an Australian bank card for identification purposes. We went to the bank ( Commonwealth or CBA in short ) and couldn't get a bank card because we didn't have a phone number. So we went to the phone shop and couldn't get a phone because we didn't have a bank account. Chicken and egg.

So after some thinking we bought a prepaid phone which didn't require a bank card, got a bank account from the CBA using our prepaid phone, got our medicare arranged too and filed for a TFN ( which we will need to give to the bank still ) which will all pretty much arrive in 2-3 weeks except the CBA which should arrive in 4-5 days.
The only problem we had is that all of these required an address, but they will happily use the address of our rental ( B&B room ) so we used that. We told em to use a "paperless" account which means you get all your mail online, saves the hassle.

Then we went to the Woolies ( Woolworths ) and got our first things :
- Notebook to write down things in ( should have brought this from Europe... doh )
- Some bread + muesli + milk ( "Light White" milk tastes good we think )
- 2 Australia -> Euro converter plugs for 220 volts ( laptops / music etc )
- Danish Cheese ( Arla : The best cheese in the world , round and red )
- Meat ( burgers + Steak )
- Mayo
- Butter

And some more stuff. We bought 3 small peanutbutters ( all different ones ) but we threw them all out because they tasted like american / english peanutbutter. We might have to buy some Calve in the Dutch Shop in Brissie or Caloundra.

The day was over quickly and we had a cookie for dinner and some bread, still jetlagged from our travels.

Coolum Beach + Yaroomba

2009-09-28T20:57:00.000+10:00

After we left the Toyota dealership, pretty amazed by the prices of new cars over here ( positively surprised that is ) we went to Coolum Beach where we saw our first glimpse of the ocean.

IT IS BEAUTIFUL ! It's amazing, the water is so clear that you can see 10 meters deep and it's a beautiful light blue color. Beautiful white sandy beaches complete this picturesque image. It's truly amazing. Kim says it looks like Capetown in South Africa ( a place she loves ). We spotted whales in the distance, it really is like living in a dream. This is when we remembered what we all did it for and it was like getting our reward for all our hard work and 1.5 years waiting.

After Coolum Beach we went to Yaroomba where went to see this home which proved to be a real dump. It would take at least 100.000 to make it liveable and we didn't like the neighborhood. The electric wires in the middle of the ocean view are terrible and there were some other issues with a homeless man living under the house ( we went to see the house without notifying the owner or the real estate agent ). We decided not to proceed with it and not even make an offer because quite frankly the property ( if you can still call it that ) was worth more in the region of 100.000 than 629.000. We decided to rent for the first 6 months and we would look for some nice rental places on the internet before we would even consider buying a place.

Quite frankly, Ozzie houseprices are completely out of synch with reality. Houses here start at a minimum of 400.000 ( a complete dump in a reasonable neighborhood or a new house in a complete dump ) but if you want anything nice, you'll be spending around 750.000. Now, that 750.000 dollar house, you can RENT for 300 per week.

Quick maths tell anyone ( except an ozzie ) that renting is MUCH better financially than buying. The root of this problem is CGT and GST tax returns and some other things like the "australian dream of owning your own home".

TIP : Don't buy a home until the houseprices dropped at least 50%. Or buy it now at a 50% discount, whichever suits you :)

Gary Crick car dealership

2009-09-28T20:22:00.000+10:00

After our lovely drive over the Sunshine Motorway ( which is just off the Bruce Highway ) which boasts lovely palm trees and gumtrees all over, our first task was to find a car. We had rented our Thrifty Ford Focus for only 3 weeks and thus would need another car quickly. We did some research prior to coming over here and found out that second hand cars are very very pricey here. As an example, a second hand Subary Forrester with 150000 kilometers and 7 years old will still cost you about 17000 dollars. A completely new Forrester including 3 years warranty costs 32000 : You do the math and quickly come to the conclusion that buying second hand cars is not something you do lightly, especially when you find out that Queensland has no M.O.T. test at all ! You can buy a barrel of rust for 17000 or a reasonable second hand with 150000, but we didn't want to take that risk. I always liked VW Golf new DSG automatic , and thus we went in and checked the Golf dealership. To make a long story short : A 1.6 TDI DSG7 automatic Golf with air conditioning and no further extra's will cost you 40000 dollars. That's about 22000 euro's which would still be a reasonable price in Europe. The problem , as we later found out from someone we met in a grocery shop, is that European cars aren't accepted in any garage over here, and you'll pay dearly for any repairs at an official VW dealer, who ofcourse knows that he is the only one who has the parts from Europe. This would be a very , very expensive mistake. We left Gary Crick's VW dealership and never looked back.

On the other side of Gary Crick was a Toyota dealership though, so we decided to have a look there. We had to walk all the way around because BOTH dealerships had built big walls between the VW and Toyota dealerships, something that made me think a little of the Berlin wall, but it's length was more reminiscent of the Chinese wall. After going all the way around the wall, we finally walked onto the Toyota dealership. We were amazed how cheap the toyota's sell for here. A brand new Toyota Corolla Edge , including 16" wheels, navigation GPS, 1.8 VTTi engine and LOADS more options was priced at 28.000 AUD dollars ( RRP = Retail Price, which means you can usually get around 10% off this price ). Dealers here love to haggle about prices, so make sure you always pay less than 10% of the RRP ( they are legally obliged to quote you the RRP using their computer systems ). They are only allowed here to speak in "Drive Away Prices" which means that whatever they quote you is what you pay at the counter and drive off. There are no hidden costs after this.
When I say there are no hidden costs, I'm actually lying , because although your car will drive fine, you'll find out that the sun and sea salt will have a disastrous effect on your car's overall health, so you really need to protect it. They have a whole arsenal of apparatus to fight this, and this could be seen as a "hidden cost" although technically you can drive away just fine and have no trouble for 1-2 years. A few of the options are buying 35 tinted windows ( keeps the car cooler when standing in the sun all day ) and paint protection and rust protection. When I say "protection" it basically means you get 10 year warranty on the paint and rust of the car : If the sun bleaches it, you get a new paint job , if there's a little rust, it's insured too. It's worth getting these extra's because they will make your car a lot more valuable in a few years down the road ( hence, now you understand why the second hand cars are so pricey ). There are a lot of other options beyond titanium paint, ECI ( electronic rust inhibitor which prevents rust ) and tinted windows which block 65% light and 98% UV ( helps against cancer, some people say ). The tinted window foil is placed on top of the already tinted windows so the car will have very dark windows ( but they all have that over here ). Some options are definately worth getting, and personally I would choose the Tint, the ECI and the titanium paint job, because they will ensure your car will maximize resale value in the future. You can only fit some of these options ( like the paint for instance ) when you initially buy the car because it's basically like an extra coating of very strong protection-paint, so choose wisely.

We did not decide what to buy that day. Perhaps a Golf, or a Corolla, or a Tiguan, or a Rav4. And that was just the two dealerships we went to , there are plenty other dealers here who all want your business and will fight for it ( price-wise ).

From what we have seen on the roads here, this is how the cars are divided :
20% of all cars are Toyota
15% of all cars are Mitsubishi
15% of all cars are Mazda
15% of all cars are Subaru
15% of all cars are Holden
5% of all cars is Nissan
1% is Peugeot + VW + mercedes + BMW ( these are very very exclusive cars here )
We never saw a Renault, I think they don't exist over here. We saw 1 ( !!! ) Peugeot and about 10 volkswagens ( compared to about 100000 Toyota's ).

50% of all cars are SUVs. Small cars are almost non-existant and the smallest engines here are 1.8 liter 130 HP cars ( 100 kw ). Big sedan cars like Holden Aurion or Toyota Camry are very popular here too. Either people have a big sedan, or a big SUV.

Small cars are for "men who sit down to pee" ( gays )

Waking up to Jumanji Orchestra

2009-09-28T20:11:00.000+10:00

I slept steady through the night, and we woke up around 05:00 AM, the sun was slowly coming up and there were noises we never heard before, it sounded like a jungle, it was nice to hear something different than crows fighting over a piece of your roof back in Europe. We realized that morning that we didn't check the bed for spiders, nor the bathroom, nor anything else for that matter : We were so tired that we just didn't think of it, and happily fell asleep. Dale had left us some bread with ham and some cookies which we ate for breakfast. The early morning weather was reasonably cold and dew was on the table and chairs outside. It was officially friday and thus people were already going to work around 06:00 including Dale who had a job in Dicky Beach ( Sunshine Coast ). Around 06:30 we decided to check out those terrible traffic jams on the Bruce Highway that we heard everyone talk about. When we drove over the Bruce Highway which leads up from Mango Hill where our rental room is, to the Sunshine Coast we didn't notice a single traffic jam. It was a little clogged up, something that European's would call "driving 90 instead of 110" at some points but the traffic was really enjoyable, after 20 kilometers north of Brisbane the traffic thinned out completely and we drove without problems to the Sunshine Coast. Now I must admit this is the Schoolies period ( Like Spring Break in the USA ) where kids have 2 weeks holiday after getting their diploma's. Perhaps that's why there's less traffic but as far as we know, there just aren't any traffic jams on the Bruce Highway at all. In fact, till today I yet have to see even a small 100meter traffic jam, let alone the 20kilometers long daily "dutch jams" which I imagine are similar to the M1 and M4 near London each morning. Nothing like that over here, people already complain about heavy traffic when they can see more than 10 cars on the road : You get the picture.

Arrival in Brissie

2009-09-28T19:54:00.000+10:00

After the cold night in the plane from Singapore to Brisbane it was a relief to be in the warmer Airport hall. Again there is air conditioning everywhere so it's never really hot anywhere. After we passed the initial "stamp booth" where a customs officer stamped out date of arrival and thus activated our visa, we picked up our luggage from the conveyor belts and proceeded to the long queue which had formed at the border security tables. There were 4 tables and there were two customs officers at each table. There was also a waggly dog and if he sat down next to your bags you'd be in BIG trouble ( dog sitting down = drugs detected ). We had filled in the little cards that you get in the plane from Singapore to declare some wooden items and some leather bag. We were surprised that about 80% of the people all declared something. If they pick you out of the line ( we were picked out ) and you don't have anything declared on paper then they will search your bags, which can take up to 2-4 hours. If you have declared something, they will put your bags through the Xray and if they see nothing strange you can go. This happened to us and before we knew it we were in Australia.
We picked up our car from Thrifty Rentals ( Tip : Thrifty Rental cars is the cheapest rental there , we checked ) and got our bags in the trunk and very carefully inspected the car from inside to make sure there were no big spiders in ambush mode ready for the attack on us. It was dark and thus this barely helped and we stepped in hoping that the spiders would leave us alone. ( of course, there wasn't a single spider anywhere near ).

Driving on the left side of the road was surprisingly easy considering we had just done 27 hours travel. The hardest part is the positioning of the mirrors which are completely different when sitting on the "right" side. We brought our Garmin Nuvi with us ( which I already had installed the Australian maps on in Europe ) and simply put the address in there and this helped a lot : The ease of GPS !

We were greeted by Dale , the home owner here who rents the room out to migrants. It's a smallish room of about 4 by 5 meters + ensuite bathroom. There are cooking plates in the room but we haven't used them for several reasons ( smelly food in the bedroom is not fun ). We do however use the small gas BBQ outside almost every day to cook our meat on, but more on that later. Dale showed us around the place and gave us the keys, we all needed to get up early the next morning and decided to call it a night.

Singapore

2009-09-27T16:58:00.000+10:00

Singapore Airlines crew was very nice during the flight. You get plenty of food and there are games and movies on demand on your private TV screen which is in the back of the chair in front of you. You can order any drinks ( including wine and strong drinks etc and cola and 7up, tomato juice , apple juice ) you want free of charge. Also, you can order in-between-meal sandwiches which were better than I expected them to be. I decided to close my eyes the whole flight, not sleeping but trying to get some rest and not use the TV's and games. Kim would mostly be watching TV and play some games : She's more comfortable in planes than I am. The flight was very smooth , no turbulence at all and before we knew it we were in Singapore ! Singapore was warm and there was a tropical storm raging there ( it somehow formed within 5 minutes after we landed and only lasted about 2 hours ). The airport was a delight : It was silent and clean and not crowded at all ( makes you wonder how one of the biggest airports in the world can be less crowded than unheard-of Schiphol ). The airport itself was huge : 3 terminals with robotic light-rail trains connecting each of them. Each building has air conditioning so you feel rather cold than warm, so we were glad we were wearing woolen pullovers. We looked up prices of camcorders because we want to buy one and thought Singapore would be cheaper , however we were surprised to find out that Singapore electronics are MORE EXPENSIVE than european electronic shops, EVEN with the duty free. ( later we found out that Australian shops are cheaper than European ones, so we were quite happy we didn't buy the camcorder in Singapore or Europe ). After 3 quick hours ( 2 of them were spent shopping ) we headed for our gate which was a train ride and some conveyors further. We got on board without problems and before we knew it we were on our way to our final destination : Brisbane Airport ! The flight was very cold, we had 1 tshirt , 1 woolen pullover and 3 blankets ( courtesy of Singapore Airlines ) on us. With 3 blankets the cold was ok, but I was glad I wore a lot of clothes. A lot of people were sneezing and caughing at the end of the flight ( including Kim ) but I was lucky enough to have escaped the ordeal : I had my eyes closed all the time and was snuggling under 3 blankets :) I actually managed to get 4 hours sleep on this flight which was a total of 7,5 hours. The original flight from Amsterdam to Singapore was 13 hours ( we had tail wind and did it in 12 hours ). Again plenty of food, good service and no crying kids, we felt really lucky.

Our first post from Australia !

2009-09-27T16:27:00.000+10:00

It's been three days since we arrived in Australia now and it's time to post an update on what has been going on since our last post. After our last post, we packed our suitcases and our laptops plus some last minute packing. We went to the Schiphol airport around 13:00 together with our parents who wanted to wave us off at the terminal. Around 15:00 we arrived at the airport hotel called CitizenM and which is really nice. It's a smallish room but you got everything there and there's plenty of gadgets for the 30+ kids , so we weren't bored. Also free movies on demand and easy check in and check out ( all done with computers , very fast and efficient ) made our stay at the CitizenM very comfortable. We had a Burger King meal at the airport but they did have sandwiches at the hotel in case we wanted something healthier. At 19:00 we went to bed, the sound insulation in the hotel was so good that we could not hear the planes taking off 100 meters down the runway ( no idea how they do that ). I didn't get much sleep that night, perhaps I dozed for about half an hour or so but the stress of the emigration kept me up most of the night. That said, just laying on the bed proved to be enough anyway. We woke up at 07:20 and after showering and having a takeaway brekkie we walked to the terminal ( 3 minutes walk ) and checked in our luggage around 09:00. Our luggage was about 5 kilo's overweight but Singapore Airlines was very friendly and didn't charge us extra. In total our luggage weighted 75 kilo's ( and as emigrants we were allowed 30 kilo's per person ) and we had about 12 kilo's of hand luggage with us ( mostly the breakable stuff like laptops and mediaplayers and the like ). After checking in we met up with the parents in the terminal and stood outside in the fresh air for about 1 hour till we decided to go catch our flight ( which was scheduled for boarding at 11:30 ). One thing I never got used to in The Netherlands was the constant amalgamation of human presence. Wherever I would stand, there'd be 2-4 people within a minute and this "group effect" only got worse. After 1 hour of standing outside , I counted about 22 people who amalgamated around my presence. Strangely, when we got there, we were the only ones. I will never get used to it; it's typical Dutch herding mentality and you see it on campings too. If you see a group of caravans standing on top of eachother with wide space everywhere else , then you can bet they are dutch. Anyway, back to where we were : The goodbye's.

The farewells were hard. Our parents and Lex's brother were there to wave us off. I think I only saw my mother cry once before and that's when my grandmother passed away. It was a difficult goodbye, tears and quick jokes to 'keep the spirits high' all over the place. The queue was quite long and by the time we were at passport control, we lost sight of them. After passing by the passport control, we moved to the gate and grabbed a chair at the gate opposite of ours ( less crowded, but the same views ) and sat down for an hour and went to the toilet a few times : I've never been an easy passenger I must admit, however when I pilot something myself then I love it : I think the loss of control is what gets to me. Don't like trains, don't like planes ; never have and never will. We got on board the plane and after a short taxi we were off in the air !

It felt good to leave Europe behind.

Counting days : Our last post from The Netherlands

2009-09-22T16:23:00.000+10:00

Well, this will be our last post from The Netherlands. We are leaving for the Amsterdam Schiphol Airport in 5 hours where we have booked a Hotel for the night. We want to go to bed around 20:00 tonight in order to get a good rest before the flight. We have been getting up at 07:00 every day for the last week and it helped us feel more relaxed during the day. Our flight leaves at 11:30 on Wednesday ( Singapore Airlines ) and we will arrive early morning on Thursday. The total trip takes 27 hours so we will try and get some sleep on the second flight from Singapore to Brisbane. We took some flight tablets with us ( PrimaTour ) which hopefully will make our flights a little less aggravating. We got some pictures today from our Puppy and our Puss ! Puss looked a bit angry and unsettled, the puppy looked a bit lost also, but they are both doing reasonably ok and Lex has taught our Puppy what the words "We'll be back" mean so he's convinced the Puppy will tell the Puss that everything is indeed ok and that we will be picking them up in 3.5 weeks. Lex has a job interview next week , a job on the Sunshine Coast ! It's a simple job fixing desktop computers, but it would be a nice start and most importantly it will be on the Sunshine Coast. We are weighing our bags at the moment and making sure none of the bags is heavier than 32 kilo's while taking as much as possible of course. We have gotten everything we wanted to take with us and everything's ready. Some final dust cleaning to leave the house clean when we leave, and then we wait a few hours.
We'll be glad when we finally land in Brisbane and we can stop counting days, hours , minutes. And then we'll catch ourselves counting "Only 3 weeks till we can pickup the pets"

two more sleeps !

2009-09-21T16:34:00.000+10:00

I still remember like the day of yesterday when we said "Only 5 months now". Well, guess what ? Now it's only 2 more sleeps ! It's scary and exciting and a mix of emotions all at once. Tuesday we will be leaving for the Hotel in Amsterdam Schiphol ( the Airport ) and stay there for the night. The Hotel is at walking distance from the departure hall so we don't have to worry about parking tickets, breakdowns or flat tires or anything else actually : It's a real nice feeling and it's a great way to start a long trip like this one.

Our parents will be there to wave us off at the airport ( they have booked a hotel in the area also ) so we'll probably see some tears flowing. Before they know it they will say "Only 5 months now" :)

Flight Tracker

2009-09-20T16:50:00.000+10:00

By now, everyone will have lost the Flight Tracker links I'm sure, so here they are again due to popular demand :

Brisbane arrivals :
http://bne.webtrak-lochard.com/template/index.html

Singapore tracker :
http://www.flightview.com/TravelTools/default.asp

They work by following the plane beacon that every commercial plane is obliged to have on board and which transmits data every so many seconds. This data is then plotted on google maps ( or microsoft Live maps ) and results in an actual location plot of the plane. Good luck tracking us :)

Our pets have landed !

2009-09-19T03:32:00.000+10:00

We tracked the plane that our pets were on and they have just landed. We hope they are all right and we'll call the Sydney quarantine on Monday to make sure they are OK.

Puppy and Puss are on the plane !

2009-09-18T16:22:00.000+10:00

This morning was an early one, we stood up at 04:00 AM in order to be in front of the dutch traffic jams. It's good we did too, because when we left at 05:00 AM , the roads were already getting busier. This is one big part of The Netherlands that I will never miss : The insane traffic. We packed the Puss and the Puppy in their transporter boxes which we already bought 1 year ago to get them acclimatized, and set sail ( wheel ) to VCK Live Animal Transports at the Amsterdam Airport. The roads were incredibly busy but we only had two small 1-2 kilometers of traffic jams, which is a lot better than the usual 30-80 kilometers of traffic jams every morning on that road. Ofcourse, you have to get out of bed at 04:00 for this luxury.
When we arrived we were greeted by the very friendly Linda from VCK who seemed to have done this thing a million times before : Something that was reassuring. She took some photocopies of everything, then put them in a few different envelopes and went to get the animals. We had to replace Puss's quarters with a certified kennel-carrier, but the Puppy had a certified one which saved us 200 Euro's. They will arrive in about 24-27 hours from now in Sydney and go in quarantine for 30 days. Brisbane doesn't have a quarantine quarters so we'll have to pick em up by car , which is ok because we'll see some of Sydney too.

We miss our babies a lot.

How much is 1 cubic meter ( 1m3 ) ?

2009-09-15T20:27:00.001+10:00

I had trouble at first to imagine how big 1m3 really was. Was it 17 boxes, 10 boxes, 5 boxes ? And how big were those boxes ? Well, here are two pictures of how much 1m3 really is ( 6 big boxes + 2 small ones in our case ). I put the shoe and water bottle (1.5 liters) on there so you have a reference to the dimensions of the boxes. ( Uninteresting trivia : it's a real Harley-Davidson shoe that we bought in America while we did the Route66 on our rented Harley Davidson motorbikes ! )

1 week to go , keeping it stress-free is the challenge

2009-09-15T17:41:00.001+10:00

We've recently been cleaning up ( read : eating ) the freezer. Some stuff in there would have better gotten thrown away so we feel a bit nauseous from the spaghetti two days ago. Decided not to clean up the freezer and just throw away everything : Much safer this way. We'll buy some veggies and some breads to clear this last week. I have a tendency to get sick in planes when I don't sleep enough or eat fast food, so we'll go to bed at 21:00 every day from now on, then wake up at 07:00 so that we don't feel bad when we stand up at 08:00 on the departure date. We have ordered a Hotel at the Schiphol airport in Amsterdam within walking distance of the Terminal. It's well worth saving ourselves the hassle and stress of standing in traffic jams, or worse a car breakdown or flat tire.

Our dog and cat are due to leave in two days from now, we'll miss them to bits !

I got back one application response and this was a very positive one : The unfortunate part is that the job is offered in Darwin, which would completely change our plans and preparations so far, so I have declined the job offer/interview for now. I hope to find something in Brissie or Sunshine Coast. Once there, things will hopefully move faster and I'm sure that once we settle we'll get into the mouth-to-mouth job market and opportunities will arise that aren't on seek.com.au and mycareer.com.au.

The choice is really a simple one :
- Follow our hearts = Sunshine Coast for the lifestyle and beaches and nature
- Follow our heads = Brisbane City for the job opportunities and the money

They say there are many ways to get rich and only one of them is made of money.
That said, we don't want to end up without a job either. This recession doesn't make our choice any easier. We have also been playing our heads with starting a new company in Australia, something that we have been thinking of doing for quite a while. We fully understand the risks and the time involved because both our parents had their own companies, so we're not going in completely blind.

Choices choices ...

2 weeks to go : Bring it on !

2009-09-11T05:59:00.000+10:00

We still find it hard to believe that in 2 weeks we will be in Queensland ! We still haven't decided where to go to but we're pretty sure that it's somewhere in the region of Gold Coast - Brisbane - Sunshine Coast. We have been thinking hard about what we really wanted out of this move and we both concluded that we want a change in lifestyle. Ideally we hope to settle on the Sunshine Coast. I have sent three job applications so far and Kim has sent in one. We can always find work in North Brisbane and drive back and forth until the recession is over. We are pretty confident of finding work in Brisbane. Our big adventure is about to start !

European Health Insurance Card + International Driver's License ordered.

2009-09-01T23:23:00.000+10:00

Today we ordered our European Health Insurance Cards through www.ehic.nl and they should arrive within a week from now. These passes are accepted in Australia as official health insurance cards. Let's hope we won't need them ! I also got my International Driver's License from the local ANWB shop ( 13 euro's ). As soon as we arrive in Australia we will convert both into Australian versions but at least we will be fully covered during our flight and arrival. My all-year-round travel insurance will cover any money lost and / or motored vehicle accidents during our initial days.

Fire !!

2009-08-20T21:38:00.000+10:00

Yesterday while sitting behind our computer at 22:00 we suddenly heard a very loud banging on our front door. It was so loud and hectic that we ran to the door knowing something was amiss. We saw the flashlights through the small side-door window and knew right away this was either the police or the fire department and that something bad was happening. First thought : The neighbors house is on fire : Poor them.
When I opened the door I saw a fire hose rolled out on our lawn and 2 firemen telling us that our house was on fire ! Blue flashlights from the huge firetruck completed the dreaded scene and of course all the neighbors were out to come and see what this noise was all about. Quite shaken we ran upstairs to check the fire out, and what have you : No fire at all ! We came downstairs and told the fireman that there was no fire at all. He replied that this has happened a few times in the last few days and they would go after the prank caller. What a night !

1 cubic meter

2009-08-20T21:33:00.000+10:00

We bought our boxes yesterday. We totaled 6 Large boxes and 2 small ones, for a total of 0.96 cubic meters. We wanted to make sure we didn't go over 1 cubic meter, who knows what extra costs might be involved. Overall the 6 boxes LOOK more than 1 cubic meter, and we're quite certain that we can fit all the stuff we want in them. In all we decided to bring the following items :

- 2 Desktop PC's + 2 flat screens and cables and accessories = 2 boxes
- CD's and DVD's + some books + random small stuff = 1 box
- Tools + some power tools = 1 box
- Kitchen stuff ( pots and pans and cutlery ) plus some random small stuff = 1 box
- spare box for random stuff = 1 box
- 2 small boxes "just in case"

We'll keep you updated as we pack.

Boxes, tape and polystyrene

2009-08-20T01:10:00.000+10:00

Today we're going to buy our boxes. After we order our boxes we will have the total size ( in cubic meters ) of our belongings and we will order 1m3 transport to Brisbane using www.onlineshipping.nu We calculated that 1m3 is about 17 medium sized boxes, which should be more than enough for the few things we want to take with us. We already agreed that we would leave all the furniture and our car back in Europe, and we'll buy everything new ( or second hand ) in Australia. We're hoping to find people who are doing the same in Australia, so we can buy their furniture and car.

We leave next month !

2009-08-06T07:38:00.000+10:00

Our great adventure is about to start : Next month we will be on the plane to the other side of the world. The moon will look different, the stars will look different, we'll be leaving just after the summer and we'll be arriving just before the summer.
We have prepared and we're traveling lightly. We found a great website through which we will be sending 1m3 of stuff to Australia : www.onlineshipping.nu.
We calculated that sending 1m3 will cost us about 250 Euro's, which is quite acceptable to us. For this price, the shipper will pick up our goods ( boxes ) at home and do all the customs paperwork ! We will take the most important stuff in our luggage, which includes most of our paperwork. We really are looking forward to moving out of Europe and see some more of what our small world has to offer : After all, you only do live once ! ( except perhaps for James Bond ). I hope to update this blog a little more during our final preparations and after our arrival.

We're leaving in September 2009 !

2009-07-01T02:51:00.000+10:00

Well... we booked our flights ! That's right, we're leaving in September 2009. 10 weeks ! We have no idea what's in store for us in Australia but we really needed change, and we're quite certain that almost everything is going to be different. It you think it's hard to imagine a Chrismas without snow, imagine a Chrismas with a BBQ and searing heat ! They even drive on the wrong side of the road over there ( although we might say the same about Europe in a few years ). Lately the question we get asked most is "Will you miss anything from The Netherlands and what will it be ?". It's tough to answer a question like that, because at this moment we have no clue : We've never been in Australia. I'll be sure to keep the blog updated with the answer in a year or two. It might be nice to review my opinion in a few years, so here it goes , the top 5 things I will miss from The Netherlands :

- Social security ( unemployment benefits and health care mainly )
- Stable internet and electricity
- Cold, snowy Chrismas
- Calve Pindakaas ( The *BEST* peanutbutter in the world, for sure )
- Frikandellen en Kroketten en Bitterballen ( Dutch "specialities" )

In a few years I'll update this list with the real things I miss and it will probably look completely different !

We've decided where we want to move !

2009-05-15T18:35:00.000+10:00

And here's a picture of our city of choice !
10 points to the one who can guess which city this is.
( Hint : It's a tricky one )

Kim has passed her PMP exam !

2009-04-27T19:29:00.000+10:00

In all the excitement I forgot to post that Kim has managed to pass her PMP exam with flying colors ! She studied hard to get her PMP diploma and she is now in possession of a strong arsenal of Project Management certificates. Together with her Prince2 and Itil certifications, this new PMP certificate will no doubt prove very valuable when she starts up her own consultancy business in Australia. I'm very happy and I am very proud of her.

The big question : Which city to move to ?

2009-04-25T23:41:00.000+10:00

So, here's a question that we have been asking ourselves for a while : Which city do we move to ? Both Kim and me are quite sure we want a change in our life. Also we want a nicer ( read : more sunny ) lifestyle than we have had in Europe. We understand that the sun always shines, the problem is the clouds, and in The Netherlands there are plenty of clouds. Escaping from the cloudy, gloomy weather pattern is thus a must and I have come up with two cities that tick most of our boxes.

Perth :

Brisbane :

Overall, I think it's clear that both of these cities have a lot of sunshine all year round. Perth can get hotter than Brisbane in the summer but then again Perth is dryer ( and a bit more windy ) than Brisbane, so people say Perth 'feels' different than Brisbane. So overall Perth seems to win the climate side of things ( only marginally though ). The downside of Perth is that the city is the most remote city in the world, the closest 'real city' nearby is something like 5 hours flying.
People say that Perth is a nice , clean city, organized and there is not a lot of traffic ( obviously due to the fact that the nearest town is located at 5 hours flight ). Brisbane on the other hand is located near the Sunshine Coast and the Gold Coast, very lively area's of Australia ( also very popular tourist area's -- and those are the ones we want to get away from ).

Here's a guy with a clear opinion about Perth :

"My name is Jumbo Celcius. I fell asleep on a plane and woke up in 1973. Was I mad, or in a coma or just in Perth?"

We got our Visa grant letter !

2009-04-24T19:49:00.000+10:00

Dear Mr xxxx,
I am pleased to advise that your application for a Class VE, subclass 175 Skilled - Independent
visa was approved on xxxxxx April 2009 and visas granted to the following applicants:

WOW !.. Couldn't believe it when the mail came in. The complete letter is quite big and although the title said "grant" I made sure to read the whole letter before I told Kim. Tears of happiness !
So this is really it : We're now Australian permanent residents ! We can finally start moving forwards again ! Our lives have been on hold ( well... we both got loads of certificates in the meantime ) for about a year now. We don't see it as a lost year but it certainly feels good to be able to plan ahead again. We stopped buying clothes, stopped subscriptions etc because we would end up having to throw them out when we would go to Australia.

One-way ticket to Brisbane ?... or Perth ?... Sydney perhaps ?... We're not sure yet, but our visa allows us to settle wherever we want ! One thing is for sure : We want a change, we want nice weather : No more clouds. We will visit some towns when we arrive in Australia and make our decision where to settle on our gut feelings. My gut feeling (and my research) says we'll end up either in Perth or in Brisbane, but I have been wrong before. For all we know we might end up in Cairns / Darwin or Sydney !

I found a nifty little device called a Campbell-Stokes recorder. On this page you can find a LOT of information about Australian weather. It even includes 'sunshine maps' ! Ofcourse the yearly average is pretty useless, but the monthly averages are helpful. You can see that Brisbane has a lot of sun all over, and Perth has a lot of sun too but maybe a little bit too much in January / February. It seems that Brisbane is more 'temperately warm all over'. You guessed it : I did a lot of research , and Brisbane is my #1 , Perth my #2. For work conditions we would be better off in Melbourne / Sydney but we pretty much concluded that if we move , we really want a change : This includes climate. If we move to Melbourne we might as well stay in Europe.

But like I said before nothing has been decided and the decision is not only mine to make, and perhaps when we get physically there we might hate the place ( this happened to us before when we visited San Diego ).

First CCVP exam completed !

2009-04-07T23:25:00.000+10:00

And with a whopping score of 976/1000 it's a another pass ! This exam dealed with the concepts of Quality of Service ( QoS ). QoS provides guaranteed bandwidth to delay-sensitive traffic such as Voice at the expense of other less sensitive traffic. Now this might seem like an easy concept , and quite honestly : I agree ! It's pure logic and this is where I excel. 1+1 = 2 : I like logic. Most people think this is the hardest exam of the whole CCVP path, so I feel happy to have passed the exam with such relative ease. Next module is called CVoice and handles most of the hardware part of VoIP.
I need to keep the pace up because Australia is just around the corner. Before we know it we'll be over there !

EDIT : Just an edit to say that Lex ( soon to be known as Alex ) has passed all the remaining CCVP exams and thus is now CCVP Certified !

Thinking about where to settle

2009-04-04T19:03:00.000+10:00

Kim and I have been thinking about where we would like to settle in Australia. There are many places to go to and every place has it's charms and it's perks. Currently Brisbane looks favorable. We initially planned to go to Sydney but most of the IT jobs there have been outsourced to cheaper countries and reading on forums has made us realize that although Sydney is big and has a lot of jobs, it also has a lot of people applying for these jobs. Brissie seems to become a
'technology centre' which would mean loads of work for us techies.

Luckily we found a map that might help us make the right choice :

Flight Tracker website

2009-03-26T21:36:00.001+10:00

This is a genius website that tracks the location of planes in real time. For nosy parents who can check exactly when our plane will land for example.

Webtrack

For other airports like Melbourne, just change the web address to point to http://mel.webtrak-lochard.com/template/index.html for instance.

Lex is CCNP certified !

2009-03-19T22:36:00.000+10:00

Today I passed my ONT exam after 8 long days studying ( on average from 10:00 in the morning to 22:00 in the evening ). A score of 945/1000 !
This means that I am now officially CCNA and CCNP certified !

Next in line is CCVP. I will take some more time to study CCVP because this is the actual field that I want to work in in Australia. On top of this there are some things I want to do in the garden now that it's nice weather and we also are planning to spend a day in The Efteling. Let's hope for good weather.

I have bought a few more hardware from ebay and I plan to spend some more time getting hands-on experience with VoIP.

Australia to cut back immigration of skilled workers to protect population from unemployment

2009-03-16T18:25:00.000+10:00

While I have been busy getting my CCNP, the Australian government has not been sitting still. Although disputed in the news, the Australian Prime Minister Keving Rudd and Immigration Minister Chris Evans, have decided to cut skilled immigration by 18500.
As per direct, the Critical Skills List ( CSL ) will be amended and jobs not on the CSL will certainly not get their visa's this year. The CSL will now comprise mainly health and medical, engineering and IT workers.

This is sad news for the builders, welders, sparky's and brickies but it's good news for us IT people, who will now get faster allocation to CO's.

ISCW passed !

2009-03-12T01:44:00.000+10:00

With a nice score of 963/1000 I passed the ISCW exam today. I've been studying non-stop for the last two weeks to pass this exam so it's a well earned score. ISCW focuses on securing and implementing WANs. I have loads of experience in the security field which made this particular exam easier than any other so far. There is only one exam remaining now : ONT ( it should actually have been called OCCN : Optimizing Cisco Converged Networks )
This module deals with only three things : Wireless LANs , Voice-over-IP and QoS
QoS and VoIP are bound together. You cannot have a good VoIP network without QoS, so this has been bundled up in this last module. Wireless LANs should not be a problem, I like WLANs and think they are the future ( albeit in a different way that many may think it will be, I think Wireless Broadband will take off between now and 2 years )

I decided to keep ONT for the very end, mainly because it's straight up my street of knowledge but also covers the basics of cisco VoIP, which will come in very handy when I pursue my end-goal : CCVP ( Certified Cisco Voice Professional )

Some positive news

2009-03-12T01:40:00.001+10:00

According to the latest automated mail reply after sending an empty mail to aspc.processing@immi.gov.au the deadline for CSL applications is end of May 2009. This means that they will process CSL applications much faster than anticipated and we should hear something about our Visa any day now.

The Bailout Game is here

2009-03-05T05:18:00.000+10:00

http://www.thebailoutgame.us/

Now you get the chance to bailout too.

BSCI passed !

2009-03-03T02:18:00.000+10:00

Well today was exam day again, this time BSCI. For many this is an interesting module, mainly about routing IP traffic between very large multinationals and countries. Although this might seem very interesting to the masses, I just could not get myself to like it. I guess it's just one of those modules that I have to bite myself through "bit by bit". Luckily I was the only one in the test centre today so I didn't have to enjoy the sounds of keyboard ticking and mouseclicking, always a nice thing to have silence. I chose to go on exam on a monday instead of a friday as mostly people will use their fridays to get the exams done and then move straight on to their weekends. The passing score for this exam was 790 and I got a very respectable 877/1000. This is less than I had for my previous exams and I have to honestly say that I didn't prepare as well for this exam as the previous ones because of the lack of interest in the module subjects.
Now come the last two exams : ISCW and ONT. I have reviewed the subjects and they are more hands-on. ISCW will be next and I will keep ONT for last since that is the subject that best fits with Voice and QoS.
( remember, I was going for CCVP initially, but took the CCNA + CCNP detour )

CCNP while we wait for our Visa

2009-02-18T00:44:00.000+10:00

Well I decided that after passing CCNA I would go on with Cisco certifications. I think they will be valuable assets in Australia and would help with getting work or starting our own company. I have set the end-goal to be CCVP, which is the Cisco Certified Voice Professional, and certifies you as being a capable Voice-over-IP technician.
There is a possibility to go straight from CCNA to CCVP but the required knowledge for CCVP is quite advanced and most of the basics of CCVP are discussed in CCNP. So... I have decided to get CCNP first !

Now CCNP consists of 4 modules : BCMSN, BSCI, ISCW and ONT
BCMSN is all about setting up networks in SME's utilizing all the capabilities of the Cisco hardware available. Mostly this module deals with Cisco layer-3 switches. The functionality of layer3 switches is switching + routing. So you can have different VLANs .... hold on this has nothing to do with Australia !

In short : I PASSED BCMSN TODAY !! 950/1000

Only 3 Modules to go for CCNP ( and then 5 more for CCVP )

Lex is now a Certified Cisco specialist ( CCNA ) !

2009-02-09T22:03:00.001+10:00

3 hurrays for Lex who passed his CCNA exam with a fantastic score of 965 out of 1000. CCNA definately will help getting a job in Australia !

Australia new immigration laws out february 13th.

2009-02-09T22:01:00.000+10:00

Well, since 1 januari 2009 there's a new list, the CSL list. Luckily we're on it. The bad news is that all the sponsored visa's get precedence over our visa application. The good news is that they are almost done. 15th Februari we will hopefully start hearing about 175 visa's getting allocated to C/O's again.

13th Februari the immi.gov.au will update the new immigration policies.
Let's hope we still get our visa before the borders close completely.

Australia rethinks immigration ( oh oh )

2008-10-10T19:14:00.000+10:00

http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/Aust-rethinks-immigration-boost-as-global-financia-KA7D8?OpenDocument

Well... it seems that Australia is about to stop immigration due to the global financial crisis. I hope our Visa request was in just in time to be processed before this decision is made.

By the looks of it, it seems like Australia is closing it's borders. Bah...

Prison Break season 4 has started !

2008-09-18T23:27:00.000+10:00

One of our favorite series Prison Break has just started season 4 !
I can't wait till the season is out so that we and our friends can enjoy this fantastic series again. I might even have a sneak peak :)

We bought the pooper his own place

2008-09-18T00:10:00.001+10:00

This little pooper :

got his present today :

It's an official Pet Porter ! The flying companies require official transport methods and this was ideal. The biggest problem finding this type of thing is that the height , length and width all need to be very specific. The size of this one is perfect for our little doggy, he'll be more than happy travelling. Now we can get him used to his own space while he's flying to Australia. If everything goes well, he should be on his way about a week before we do. This little home will provide him some comfort.

And for 30 Euro's , I reckon it's a bargain !

Washing machine woes

2008-09-17T23:54:00.001+10:00

Our washing machine broke down. We bought it in 2004 and it's already broken. I need to correct myself, the washing machine still works it just spills the water on the floor instead of down the drain. Luckily we have 6 year guarantee on it which means that it will be repaired for free. Called the tech guys and they will send someone over tuesday.

No news yet

2008-09-17T02:15:00.000+10:00

No news from this side. We're in waiting mode now. Selling the houses is our main focus now. That said, in two days it will be KIM'S BIRTHDAY ! I'll keep it a mystery how old she's getting. She's not too fussed about the whole birthday thing, and neither am I, so we decided to have a nice Bifteki in our favorite restaurant. I actually managed to reproduce a fairly good copy of the Bifteki they make, but Bifteki 2.0 doesn't taste as good as Bifteki 1.0 (yet!). I used too much mint and not enough parsley. I'm sure next time Bif2.0 will be better !

As present for her birthday she opted to combine her birthday and her Xmas gifts and I'll give her a new lens for her Nikon D200. But first we need to go to Australia, no point in buying things over here when we'll move anyway.

The stockmarkets today took a big plunge, and the ASX didn't get spared. This gives us hope that the houseprices in Australia will soon come under pressure. A good old forex crisis with the Australian dollar should give us a double whammy : A higher exchange rate for our Euro's , and lower houseprices once we settle in Australia. If houseprices haven't plunged when we get there we'll keep renting until they do : They have an unmanageable position up in Australia with houseprices : My bet is they're set for 40% nosedive.

Some Art

2008-09-05T16:28:00.000+10:00

Since I didn't have much else to do than waiting for the visa and the plasterer here at home I decided to make a little fun with kangaroo art. I think it came out pretty good :)

Renewed driving license !

2008-09-03T19:46:00.001+10:00

Today I picked up my new drivers license. My old one was due to expire in 2012 and I decided to renew it. The new one is valid until 2018. It's also in new creditcard format, and there's the english title "Driving License" on it, great for in Australia !

Received mail from the medical centre stating they are waiting for Form 26

2008-09-01T19:03:00.000+10:00

It seems we're still on track. The health operations centre has received our form 160 ( the radiology x-thorax ) and is now awaiting our form 26 ( the medical test we did last thursday ).

Australian Government
Department of Immigration and Citizenship

Client ID: xxxxxxxxxxx

Dear Kim

I refer to your medical results received by the Health Operations Centre
(HOC) for your Australian visa application. The HOC requires further
information before we can determine whether you meet the health criteria
for entry to Australia.

You are required to provide:

Medical examination (Form 26) completed by a recognised Panel Doctor.
Pathology report for HIVas you are over 15 years of age.

Please advise the Panel Doctor to forward the report, along with a copy of
this mail, to:

Health Operations Centre
Level 3, 26 Lee Street
Sydney NSW Australia 2000

A list of Panel Doctors recognised by DIAC can be found at this website:
http://www.immi.gov.au/contacts/panel-doctors/index.htm

Processing requirements provide a time limit of 28 days (plus 21 days to
allow for postage) for the report to be forwarded to the HOC. If your
health assessment has not been finalised by this time, your case-officer
may proceed to decide your application on the basis of the available
information.

Please contact the HOC immediately by return email if you are unable to
meet the requested timeframe.

Yours sincerely

Vasuki Vadivale
Health Operations Centre
Department of Immigration and Citizenship
Fax: +61 (0)2 8666 5900 / 5901
Email: Health.Operations.Centre@immi.gov.au

Everything is done !!

2008-08-28T22:30:00.001+10:00

We've done everything !!..

Now, we can only wait.

Final Medical checks done !

2008-08-28T22:24:00.000+10:00

Today we did the final checks. Everything's ok , we don't expect any issues.
We glues little notes all over the house "Pee in CUP !!" so we wouldn't forget to bring the pee to the doctor :)

First we were weighed ( ouch ) and our height , bloodpressure was noted down, then we had a short vision test. Then we met the doctor who checked reflexes, ears and eye reaction moving. He also checked kidneys, liver and back. After that, he tested our balance and the 'drunk-test' where you move your finger to your nose. He looked into the eyes with a measuring tool, and after that we were done. We then had to go do a bloodsample test at a clinic close by, which was even quicker ( 15 minutes for both of us, including parking and driving ! ). The blood test will show if we have any diseases ( it also checks for HIV ). The TBC picture we already took 2 weeks ago in Tilburg.

All in all it wasn't as dreaded as we would think it would be. We're fairly confident we're both healthy.

The doctor said that if there were any big issues he would let us know.

135 scanned in documents sent to Adelaide !

2008-08-27T20:50:00.001+10:00

Today I emailed all the attachments needed for our application to the immigration service in Adelaide. They have received the attachments and now the waiting game begins. Tomorrow we will have our medical check in Utrecht, which is the last of the documents that the ASPC in Adelaide needs.
Basically, for us the work is now done, and it's now just a matter of waiting for a result. The total amount of files were 135, which amounted to about 40 megabytes of scanned documents. I have divided them up in 25 mails : Took me about 2 hours to send up all the documents and have them ordered and classed accordingly.

Tractor Pulling !

2008-08-24T08:15:00.001+10:00

So while I was writing up the virtual barbershop post I heard something that resembles most like Kim after a meal of beans. Apparently, this time I was wrong : It was the sound of tractor pulling about 7 kilometers away from here.

So we decided to move there. It was already late ( about 22:00 ) so we had to be quick. When we arrived we had to pay 3 euro's for parking , but that was most worth it. We were just in time to see some the final tractors : the big boys

The deafening soundwaves go straight to your chest. The vibrations... what an experience. We surely have to go to more of these races in Australia !

Intermezzo : The Virtual Barber Shop

2008-08-24T05:52:00.000+10:00

What does a virtual barber shop have to do with migrating to Australia ?
I have no idea, please let me know if you do. However , I wouldn't put this file on our blog if it wasn't interesting. I won't give anything away, just listen to this MP3, it's an amazing effect.

Get some nice headphones. Don't play this mp3 on your speakers, it will ruin the effect. Once you have your headphones on, start the mp3 and close your eyes.
If you don't open them until the mp3 finished playing, you'll get the best effect.

Go to the virtual barbershop

Both Kim and me tried it and we were amazed by this new technology. In our hearts we're both techno-junkies.

Enjoy !

Driver license woes

2008-08-23T03:10:00.000+10:00

So today I had the genius idea to replace my old paper driver license with a new plastic one : Apparently the plastic ones are totally hacker-proof, so I needed to have one. ( they also cost 45 euro's ). The main reason I want to replace it is because I'm not sure that Australia will recognize my paper driver license. I already had trouble with it in USA, so I didn't want to take any risks. On top of this, it will be valid for another 10 years ( my paper one expires in 3 years ).

So , a few good reasons to get the new one. After all the trouble I had at the council of Helmond before, I wanted to be well prepared. The grocery list was simple : Passport + Passport photo + old driver license. Easy enough.

So I came in Helmond, the lovely lady asked if I had all the groceries with me, and I proudly said "yes ofcourse I do".
She asked if she could see my passport photo. I gave it to her, after which she took a millimeter measurement tool, and said "no.. this photo isn't the right format". I asked her how it could possibly not be the right format since I used THEIR passport photo machine ( which is INSIDE the council building ), after which she said "no you didn't, and that machine is broken now, so you'll have to go in town".
I'm sure I heard "conveniently broken" instead of just "broken" but ok. I didn't want to make a mess so I went into town to the local photo shop and got myself 4 shiny photo's. ( I look a bit angry on them... that will look good on my drivers license... it's always good to be able to commemorate how I was feeling in The Netherlands. In case I get homesick, I'll just pop out my drivers license and everything will be sorted in 1 second.

Anyway , got back , had to wait 45 minutes ( I was about to change their big new shiny policy sign that said "we try to help you within 15 minutes. If you have to wait longer than 30 minutes, the coffee is free" into "we try to help you within 115 minutes". Would have been more accurate.

Anyway, I got the receipt, and I'm 45 euro's lighter : But next friday I can pick up my new driver's license. 1 less worry.

Paint it black ( or... rather white, in our case )

2008-08-16T06:06:00.000+10:00

We've started painting our house white. Inside first, if it doesn't sell we might consider the outside too. And man is it different ! We should have painted the rooms earlier , but I guess we got used to the dark wooden ceilings and walls.
The hall is already painted, 4 layers done, but it's very white. Funny how the rooms look bigger when they are white. We're now painting the living room area which used to be part of the hall before. Painting it white will 'pull' it to the main livingroom, and after the first layer, things already look so much better.

So, for the next few days ( weeks ?... ) we'll be painting. Keeps the mind off the visa wait too.

More 'For Sale' signs on the house

2008-08-15T17:36:00.000+10:00

We put some additional 'For Sale' signs on the house. I thought the 2 signs that were there didn't adequately show the house was for sale. So we called the real estate agent and we got 2 more signs. I put them up and now everyone can see from all the different roads that our house is for sale.

I might do the same with our other house. At the moment there are 2 signs up, but it never hurts to put one more sign up I guess. We have had quite a lot of viewers. Even some really interested people, but they weren't able to secure a mortgage. Bummer, but we still have loads of time to sell them. If we can't sell them before December, we will remove them from sale and put them up for rent.

X-rays done ! Form 160 is hereby 'completed'

2008-08-15T04:10:00.000+10:00

Today we went to Tilburg. A complex called the GGD which is specialized in Tuberculosis prevention. Since it's holidays here in The Netherlands now, we didn't have a lot of traffic. When we arrived there, we were immediately and adequately helped by people who were also perfectionists. They had had too many problems with Australian Visa x-rays and forms that they knew exactly what to do. They checked the forms 4 times, we checked the forms 2 times , and then we went into the Xray room. Didn't take long to take the xrays, about 5 minutes for both of us. Real nice people and very helpful. They will send the information to the DIAC in Australia in Adelaide for us too. In 2 weeks we will go to Utrecht for our next medical test ( and our final big task before the long wait !

Character checks

2008-08-13T07:13:00.001+10:00

Apparently, Kim needs 2 more character checks for the Visa. Every 12 months for the last 10 years, needs a character check. Since she lived in UK , South Africa and The Netherlands, she will need 3 character checks.

It's high on my to-do list, knowing that these checks could potentially take a long time, especially coming from South Africa.

Acknowledgement letter is in !

2008-08-13T07:10:00.001+10:00

Our acknowledgement letter is in. This means that our Visa application has been received. 20 Juli is the official date. I got the all important numbers that I needed for the medical checks this thursday and thursday in 2 weeks from now.
So, we're still on course and things are still looking positive. Now we need to wait 6 to 12 months for our official result. In the meantime, only the medicals remain to be done.

Mysteries of modern times : My mobile telephone prepaid amount has disappeared !...

2008-08-08T01:33:00.000+10:00

Yes. I was sure I had 34 Euro's on my mobile telephone when I left for south of France to meet my parents and generally enjoy a few days off the visa stresses.

Now... when I came back and wanted to listen to my voicemail, I got the message "Your account balance is not high enough, please upgrade your prepaid credit"

Hmm... strange ? I am sure I haven't used my phone in France, I just brought it along in case we had car troubles. So why was my credit gone ?

After long investigation, I found out why : When other people called me and spoke into my voicemail, this costs ME money ! Yes, in fact, it costs me as much as if I was calling The Netherlands from France, plus some extra's because of the prepaid. I got 3 nonsense voicemails, and those messages cost me 34 Euro's !

I have turned off my voicemail for good.

Medicals ordered !

2008-08-08T01:23:00.000+10:00

Next thursday , we'll go to Tilburg to have a lung photo taken, this is mainly to check for TBC. And 2 weeks later, we will get our complete medical check in Utrecht at one of the panel doctors. This ofcourse, does come at a meager price of 600 euro's.

Our visa is still not filed

2008-08-08T01:21:00.000+10:00

After sending about 8 mails to DIAC ( the government agency responsible for immigration services ) I have gotten the answer. Apparently, our digital application was too big for the system to be processed normally, and thus it hung in the system database. I asked them if they could fix it, and they said the only solution was to convert it to a paper application. Needless to say that we agreed as long as they provided all the paperwork. In short : We still have not filed our Visa now.

Still no acknowledgement mail

2008-08-03T21:53:00.000+10:00

Well,

We've been offline for a bit. Doing some reno's on the house as we want it sold asap. Painting everything white, removing old lamps and putting up new ones really makes a difference. Lex takes care of the inside, and Kim manages the outside of the house. A perfect team !

While we were offline, we haven't heard anything from the Visa department. I have thus emailed them to ask why it's taking so long to get the acknowledgement. Apparently, something was wrong with my Visa application and it's somehow 'stuck' in the system. I'll send them another mail today asking if it can be resolved. I still cannot upload documents and I still cannot get the EH forms needed for the medicals.

Lex

We applied for our visa today !

2008-07-21T01:48:00.000+10:00

Our house is up for sale !

2008-07-10T00:09:00.000+10:00

Today the real estate agent dropped by. I already had put the house on ebay, just to get an initial idea of the price I could ask. Now the house is officially being sold by the Real Estate agent. Very strange to get 'For Sale' signs up soon !

A trip to the Council of Helmond again

2008-07-09T07:21:00.000+10:00

Today I went to the Council in Helmond . As usual, I was confronted with inadequate and rude council workers who didn't know what they were doing but acted like they did. If you would ask me which people I have trouble accepting, you'd find that close to the top are the 'fake intelligent' people : The kind of person who continuously sets up a facade and hides behind bureaucratic regulation in order to try and 'outsmart' you, or in my case, tries and get rid of you. They live the saying "If you can't bedazzle them with your brilliance, baffle them with your bullshit". And the Council in Helmond is indeed full of bullshit. Here are my experiences of today ( it's written in dutch, I might translate it when I make time for it ) :

Ik ben echt kwaad op ze, en heb ook een officiele klacht ingediend over hun incompetente tegenwerkende gedrag. Ik werd vandaag behandeld als een hond in Helmond Stadswinkel. Uitleg : Ik kwam voor twee zaken : APOSTILLE gekut + VOG inleveren.

Eerst de VOG : Ik kwam aan en kwam meteen in de drukte terecht, minstens 30 man. Ik kreeg een C nummer, maar daar had ik al snel spijt van, de een na de andere A en J nummers werden afgehandeld, maar geen C. Na 20 minuten 1 C'tje, en dan weer 20 minuten wachten. Dus ik ging klagen bij de balie over waarom mensen die al 40 minuten binnen zaten te wachten zo lang moesten wachten terwijl mensen die NET binnenkwamen met een A of J nummer meteen werden geholpen ?? Ik vroeg of er een nieuwe subsidie-regeling was ofzo, dat zou het wel verklaren.
Geen reactie : Gewoon wachten moet je. Dus ik terug, en 30 minuten later EINDELIJK mijn nummer. Ik werd al ziek van dat gekrijs van al die koters, dus ik was toen al in een slechte bui ( dankzij de stadswinkel Helmond dus ). Kwam aan, zat een of andere trut achter de balie waar ik al eens ruzie mee heb gehad over een apostille ( lees "Over de Apostille" hieronder ) dus ik had al zoiets van oh nee niet weer die bitch die overal moeilijk over doet. Dus ik denk ik begin makkelijk, ik handig eerst de VOG aanvraag over, alvorens ik over de Apostille begin.
Ze bekijkt de VOG aanvraag en zegt dat hij niet compleet is.... Dus ik vraag haar "hoezo niet compleet ? Wat mist er dan ?"
"Ja, je moet kunnen bewijzen dat dit voor een visum aanvraag is" zegt ze onbenullig. Ik antwoord dat ik dat toch aangevinkt heb op de aanvraag, en dat ik persoonlijk tegen haar zeg dat het voor een Visum aanvraag is, en dat ik het document naar de Australische Ambassade in nederland gestuurd heb om het hun te laten invullen. "De stempel en de handtekening van de ambassade bewijzen dat toch ?".
"Nee.. je moet bewijzen dat dit voor een visum is. Ik ga nu de volgende persoon afhandelen", zegt ze.
"Echt niet !" zeg ik, "Jij gaat voor mij die VOG aanvraag insturen omdat hij helemaal klopt, en ik WEET dat het klopt omdat ik het onderzocht heb."
Ik vraag haar "Als er zogenaamd een document bij moet, welk document is dat dan ? Print het even uit dan vul ik het in"
Gepikeert zegt ze "Ik print niets voor jou uit, jij gaat dat maar mooi thuis doen, en dan kom je MET dat document EN dit VOG formulier terug en DAN zal ik het voor je afhandelen". Dus ik zeg dat ik het er niet mee eens ben en dat ik het boekje wil zien waar zij deze stomme regel vandaan haalt, waarop ze antwoord ( zoals ze al eerder heeft gedaan met de Apostille ) "Ik ben het zat, ik stuur je door naar balie 10 !" en ze pakt de papieren op en dumpt mijn papierhoop bij een collega neer van balie 10.
Die heer komt met hetzelfde verhaal "Ja meneer ik ga u niet helpen, u weet dat u een document van de ambassade nodig heeft om te bewijzen dat dit voor een visum aanvraag is". Ik vroeg weer "Ja maar WELK document, hoezo document, waar kan ik dat formulier downloaden ?" Waarop hij zegt "Ja dat mag u zelf uitzoeken". En bedankt. Dus ik vraag "Maar waar haal JIJ die regel dan vandaan ? Ik zeg dat er geen regel is, jij zegt van wel maar je wilt niet zeggen welke ?!" Dus hij loopt naar achteren en komt aan met een klein info boekje met de toepasselijke titel "De Verklaring Omtrent het Gedrag" en zegt "Hier, daar staat het in, ik ga nu iemand anders helpen" Dus ik zeg "Nee nee, ik heb nog iets waar ik voor kom, namelijk de Apostille" En geef hem de Apostille documenten terwijl ik het boekje doorneem.

In het boekje vind ik de volgende zin :
Ik citeer : "Voor het aanvragen van een VOG in verband met emigratie, een visum of werkvergunning gelden speciale regels. Aanvragers lukt het niet altijd om een, door de buitenlandse vertegenwoordiging, ingevuld en ondertekend aanvraagformulier aan te leveren. De aanvrager dient in dat geval het aanvraagformulier zelf in te vullen en in aanvulling op het aanvraagformulier een officieel document van de ambassade, het consulaat of de buitenlandse organisatie/instelling aan te leveren. Dit document dient op naam gesteld te zijn en bevestigt het doel van de aanvraag".

Dus ik vraag de baliemedewerker "Wat was je cijfer op de middelbare school voor het vak nederlands ?", waarop zijn gezicht rood aantrekt en schreeuwt "Als we zo gaan beginnen dan help ik u niet meer !! Ga maar naar Balie 16 !! ... Ik had trouwens een 7 !". Ik zeg dat hij incapabel is en dat hij zijn werk niet goed doet en dat ik ( de belastingbetaler ) hem betaal om mij te dienen, niet andersom. Ik zeg dat als hij even die passage leest dat ie dan wel inziet dat ik gelijk heb, maar tevergeefs hij pakt mijn spullen op en verwijst me door naar balie 16.
Ik wacht 15 minuten op iemand van 'balie 16' die maar niet komt, dus ik ga terug naar die gast van balie 10 om te zeggen dat terwijl ik toch niets te doen heb en mijn tijd verdoe bij balie 16 dat ik net zo goed een klachtenformulier kan invullen, dus of hij even wil zeggen waar ik moet zijn om een officiele klacht in te dienen tegen hem en die vrouw van balie 7 die ook al zo onbehulpzaam was, waarop hij wijst naar de ingang en zegt "daar.. "

Dus ik vul mijn klacht in terwijl ik wacht, en dan moet ik nog 25 minuten wachten tot die medewerkster van balie 16 EINDELIJK d'r koffie eens op heeft en zich naar beneden begeeft. Ik zeg tegen haar dat ik toch echt wel gelijk heb, en dat ze mijn VOG in behandeling moet nemen. Ze zegt "Dat kan ik niet doen.. maar ik kan wel de CoVOG bellen voor u als u dit wilt ?". "Graag", zeg ik, "Ik weet namelijk dat ik gelijk heb en dat die twee niet weten waar ze het over hebben, dus bel ze maar op en vraag maar wat de regelgeving is".
Ze belt, moet 10 minuten aan de telefoon wachten , en dan komt het hoor "Ja.. hallo, met blabla van de stadswinkel Helmond, ik heb hier een meneer tegenover mij zitten die een VOG wil aanvragen maar geen begeleidende brief bij zich heeft, kan dit zomaar ?".
Aan de andere kant hoor ik iemand zeggen "Door wie is hij ingevuld ?" waarop Mevrouw 16 zegt "De ambassade, en er staat een stempel onder, en ook een handtekening van de ambassade". "Dan is het geen probleem hoor, stuur maar zo op", is het antwoord.
Mevrouw 16, die niet doorheeft dat ik het gesprek kon volgen, hangt op en zegt "Het is een uitzonderlijke situatie, maar ik zal het eens bespreken met mijn collega's" waarop ze wegloopt en 40 (!!!!) minuten weg blijft ! Ik kan het bijna niet geloven als ze toch echt niet doorgespoeld is door de plee en terugkomt met de papieren : "Balie 8 zal uw aanvraag behandelen". U mag blij zijn dat we u helpen want hier ( ze wijst de geciteerde passage aan uit het boekje ) staat toch echt dat er een brief nodig is van de ambassade, maar voor u maken we een uitzondering.
Ik kon het toch niet laten en zei heel hard zodat de hele stadswinkel kon meegenieten : "Mevrouw, als u die passage nog eens leest en BEGRIJPT dan ziet u dat dat NIET het geval is en dat IK gelijk had en dat deze stadswinkel toch wel HEEL erg incompetent is en dat ik blij ben dat ik een klacht heb ingediend. Dat had ik veel eerder moeten doen namelijk. Ik snap wel dat u niet graag uw ongelijk toegeeft, maar ik heb duidelijk gelijk." waarop ik naar balie 8 ga en mijn VOG zonder enig probleem ingevuld wordt en opgestuurd.

Over de Apostille :
Mijn tweede verzoek was de Apostille. Nu , ik kwam aan bij de stadswinkel en bij de entree krijg je een nummertje ( een C nummer in mijn geval , traagste nummer ooit ). Ik zei dat ik kwam voor VOG en Apostille. "Apostille ??" vroeg de receptioniste ? "Ja.. Apostille, ik had er ook nog nooit van gehoord hoor voordat ik hier in Helmond kwam wonen, maar blijkbaar kun je tegenwoordig niet meer zonder en wordt je niet geholpen tenzij je een Apostille hebt". Ze zegt "nouja, hier is je nummer, veel succes er mee"
Het verhaal is als volgt. Mijn vriendin is gescheiden in Engeland. En ze is geboren in Swaziland ( ze is een blanke zuid-afrikaanse die gevlucht is uit zuid afrika wegens gevaar ). Afijn, de stadswinkel heeft haar ooit verkeerd ingeschreven ( verkeerde letters, omdat ze daar ook al niet kunnen typen ) waarop wij allebei zeiden "Hey.. er staat daar een typfout, kun je dat even aanpassen ?". "Oeps, te laat", zei de baliemedewerker, "het is nu al verwerkt, u moet over 2 weken gewoon terugkomen met uw paspoort om het te laten aanpassen omdat ik niet precies weet hoe dit systeem werkt"
zucht... dus wij 2 weken later terug, met paspoort. "Kunt u het aanpassen ?". Waarop die baliemedewerkster ( de bitch van verhaal 1 ) zegt "Ho.. heb je geboortebewijs , trouwakte en scheidingsakte niet bij ?".. "Nee..." , zeggen we. "Dan kan ik u niet helpen, sorry"
Dus wij terug naar huis, alle papieren meegenomen , terug bij DEZELFDE BITCH! "Ah... u heeft het bij.".... "hhmm ja. Wist u dat dit document helemaal niet geldig is ??". Wij waren niet verrast wij waren stomverbaasd. Ik zeg "Hoezo niet geldig ? Het is een ORIGINELE geboorteakte !'
"Jaaaa", zegt ze, "maar je hebt er geen Apostille op zitten ! En dat betekent dat ik u niet verder kan helpen". Ik vraag verbaast "Een watte ?"
"Apostille !". Aha.. dus we hadden een apostille nodig. "En waar kunnen we die krijgen ?". "Ja dat staat op het internet, moet u maar even thuis opzoeken en dan als u alles heeft komt u maar terug". Dus ik was al beetje pissig ik zeg "Nee we gaan dat zeker niet doen. Ik blijf hier tot JULLIE fout is opgelost en JULLIE de CORRECTE naam hebben ingevuld. We hebben hier toch het ORIGINELE paspoort en het ORIGINELE geboorteakte en ORIGINELE scheidingspapieren ". Zegt ze "Uw toon staat me niet aan , ga maar naar balie 16 ( jahoor... de 'wacht balie' ). Dus wij naar balie 16. Mijn bloed begon na 20 minuten al te borrelen omdat ze toch echt met haar echte naam moet ingeschreven zijn, en nu kon dit niet in verband met een fout van hun kant, en de oplossing moest WEER van onze kant komen. Wij kwamen met de oplossing ( de papieren ) en WEER was het te moeilijk voor ze. Dus na 20 minuten komt de koffiedrinkster naar beneden "Ja.. ik heb het verhaal gehoord, en ik zal eens kijken". Dus wij hopen dat het allemaal toch goed komt zegt ze "Nee, mijn collega heeft gelijk, ik heb echt een apostille nodig". Ik zeg "Dat zal best , het maakt me niets uit wat u denkt nodig te hebben , u gaat die naam veranderen in de computer, omdat ik hier namelijk niet wegga voordat dat gedaan is".
"Ik haal mijn collega er even bij", is het antwoord. Collega komt, neuzelt even in de papieren, en zegt "Tsja... geen apostille, ik kan u niet helpen"
Ik kon me gewoon niet meer inhouden. Dus ik sla hard op de tafel en schreeuw zo hard ik kan "JIJ GAAT DIT NU IN DE COMPUTER AANPASSEN !!!! HIER HEB JE HET PASPOORT , KIJK DAN NAAR DIE NAAM !!! STAAT DUIDELIJK HAAR NAAM, OF WIL JE ZEGGEN DAT DIT PASPOORT OOK VAN APOSTILLE MOET WORDEN VOORZIEN ??" De vrouwelijke medewerkster zegt vluchtig tegen die man "Doe nou maar wat ie zegt !..."
Die man probeert iets te zeggen "Ik m..." waarop ik hem interrompeer en zeg "NEE!".
Hij probeert weer "U moet..." ik interrompeer weer en zeg weer "NEE! U moet !". En zo gaat het zo'n 4 keer op en neer, elke keer dat hij een zin begint zeg ik "Nee!" en het pakt echt kinderachtig uit. ( Het hele gebeuren deed me denken aan Dr Evil en zijn zoon in die film van Austin Powers ).
Uiteindelijk eindigt het met van mijn kant uit "Nee Nee Nee Nee Nee Nee Nee Nee Nee" zodat hij er echt niets meer tussen kan krijgen. Zegt ie "Dan houden we ermee op en ga ik u niet verder helpen" ( het lijkt erop dat ze dit dus altijd als excuus gebruiken ) en ik zeg "Dat maakt me niets uit, ik blijf hier tot IEMAND die gegevens heeft aangepast". Afijn, om een lang verhaal ( iets ) korter te maken, uiteindelijk stemt ie toe mits ik de Apostilles alsnog 'binnenkort' kom laten zien.

Dus, vandaag was ik er weer, MET apostilles ! Ik wilde ze dus even afgeven , terwijl ik mijn VOG ook inleverde. Zegt die baliemedewerkster "Nee deze Apostille is ook niet goed, hij moet door het land gemaakt worden waar het document is afgegeven". Dus ik zeg "Ik ga er niet meer over beginnen, ik heb mijn plicht gedaan, ik ga ECHT niet een originele geboorte akte naar Swaziland sturen, dan zien we het nooit meer terug. En dat alleen omdat er hier een stelletje ZEIKERDS zitten die niets anders doen dan mensen lastig vallen over kleine regeltjes die niet eens kloppen in plaats van de mensen te HELPEN, wat uiteindelijk jullie BAAN is".

Nou.. dat was het, mijn mening over Helmondse stadswinkel, een stelletje onbekwame, incapabele ZEIKERDS. Oh wat ben ik blij dat ik hier uit nederland weg ga zeg.

U bent gewaarschuwd

ACS : Status changed to "With Assessor"

2008-07-07T07:47:00.000+10:00

Today I logged in on the ACS Status website and to my great surprise I saw that our status has changed from "In Process" to "With Assessor". This means that they have now finished assessing us and the results letter will be in our snailmailbox any day now ! Great news , provided that we have been positively assessed. If we have MODL, I will take Kim out for dinner at our favorite Greek restaurant ! *fingers crossed*

IELTS test today !

2008-07-06T08:38:00.000+10:00

It's there : My first 'real' exam since my motorbike license ! And to make things worse, we have to go all the way to Amsterdam to sit the test. That's 2 hours drive from here ! The test is scheduled to begin at 09:15, and examinees are expected to arrive at 08:45 to sign for their presence. So Kim and me agreed we should leave at 06:30, which means we would have to stand up at 06:00. After our last night's problems with the public waste deposit place on top of our physical exercise that day, we were absolutely knackered. At 22:00 we decided to go to bed early so we would have a chance to pass the exam the next day.

At 06:30 we set course for Amsterdam. Although we have a GPS device, 'we' ( the royal 'we' , and in this case really meaning 'Kim' ) decided not to use the GPS device but use a smallish map of Amsterdam which quite accurately pointed out the location of the IELTS exam centre. Unfortunately, it didn't show on the map where we were, and once in Amsterdam we were quickly lost. It ended with the usual "give me that map" ( at which moment Kim promptly produced a second map ) which ofcourse I couldn't read because I was driving. So 'we' ( the Royal 'we' , in this case that would be myself ) decided to park the car in the first parking garage we saw, which was only about 20 minutes walking distance from the IELTS place : Lucky us ! We arrived at 08:45 exactly, so all things considered we did pretty well.

The test starts with a listening test. It was easy enough and we both expect to have good results. After this test we did the reading test which was actually quite challenging on the Academic level we did the test at. The test doesn't focus simply on the meaning of the individual words, rather it focuses on your ability to understand complex grammatics and relations and reasoning. Although you get a whole hour to finish the reading test, we both finished with only minutes to spare, if that much. After the reading test follows the writing test, which again focuses on your ability to understand and interpret a thesis or graph, and from that interpretation write a summary or a thesis yourself. This is the academic level we did, because we thought we might need it to study someday : Apparently the 'normal' level is a lot easier. The last and final test was the speaking test, which came down to speaking with an english linguist for about 15 minutes. I had the bad luck to get a 'picky' woman, who would ask the the most difficult questions, like "What do you do when friends come over to your house ?". If I were to be completely honest, we don't get that many friends over to our house, and the last people who have been 'visiting' us were viewers who were potentially interested in buying our house !

All in all, it was a full days worth of exams, we were done around 14:00 , after which we took the liberty to visit the red light district in Amsterdam. It was a bit disappointing : You get the sex shops where you can see the newest SM fashions ofcourse, which is entertaining to say the least. ( things like "The Swing" or "Tarzan" there have a whole different meaning than what you remember from your childhood ! ).

Conclusion : We both think we passed the Academic level IELTS exam.
But the results which will be snailmailed in 10 days will give us a definitive result. I wonder who wins the bet !

Trash day with a twist

2008-07-05T10:14:00.000+10:00

Today, it's trash day. That means we get rid of all the crap that we won't take with us and all the trash we have been saving up. We have hired a Toyota van at a local rental company , which costs us only 49 euro's for a whole day. At 10:00 we drove to the rental company to pick up the van, and at 11:00 we started stuffing the van with branches and bags of cut grass / weeds and other flora. Now usually this would be like a living hell for me since I have hayfever, but today we're "lucky" and it rains. So , in between showers we pick up the wet plants full of spiders and other nasties and slowly fill up the van. At 12:30 the van is full and that means we're right on time since the public dump place opens at 13:00 ( I guess they sleep in every morning ). The drive isn't very long, at most 15 minutes, but the spiders falling from the ceiling of the van make it an interesting ride. Once at the dump, we pay our 5 euro entrance fee and dump our stuff.
Then it's back to pickup the next batch of plants and rubbish. At 14:30 we've got ourselves another full van, and off we go , another 5 euro's entrance fee and some heavy bags of plaster and rubbish later, we set off for our last trip. At 16:45 we're done, and the dump place closes at 17:00 already. Since we have to deliver the rental van cleaned up and all fueled up at 17:45, we must hurry to make the 17:00 deadline.
So we race in the van as quickly as we can to the dump , and luckily we manage to arrive exactly at 17:00. But the gates are already closed ! The 4 bodybuilders are drinking tea inside their little house on the public dump site, waving at us , or should I say, waving us away. So I send in Kim to sweetly and kindly ask them to open the gates because we have a rental van and really can't do anything else than to get rid of the trash at the dump site. After a few seconds, Kim comes back, shaking her head. So , I unbuckle and go in myself. I ask them why the gate is already closed because it's only 17:00 and they should have been open till 17:00. They reply with "sorry we're closed, perhaps you can ask the other dump place if you can dump it there ?". This comment ofcourse was complete rubbish, because they would be closed at 17:00 also, it was a trick to get rid of us so they could enjoy their early friday afternoon. I said "Well, I don't have a choice do I ? What do you want me to do ? Dump it in front of your gate ?". Their reply was little more than "sure... ". I then told them that I would dump it right there if they wouldn't open the door, and I got a more serious reply back "No you won't". I then realized that this discussion would get nowhere and that the longer they stalled, the more I would be pushed into the losing corner.
I walked back to the van, opened the doors and started to unload the rubbish on their front step. I don't think these 4 bulky guys expected this , 1 of them came walking out ( but stayed at a safe distance from me ) and said "You can't do that !". I answered "Yes I can !"

Then another guy shouted "You'll get in trouble for this..!", to which my reply was "Sure , call the police if you want, I'm unloading now". This same guy then proceeded to show us that he was on the telephone ( probably with the police or his boss ). 5 minutes later, our van was empty and we drove off in a hurry, making sure we'd be gone anyone arrived. Whoever would arrive would mean trouble for us, and we had our IELTS exams the next day to worry about !

We cleaned the van at home but didn't have time to fill the van up. At exactly 18:45 we delivered the van at the rental place, and at 18:50 we were gone. In my rear-view mirror I saw the policecar drive onto the rental place, just as we drove around the corner, so I told Kim "Well we're probably going to hear something from that... amazing that they don't have anything better to do on a friday night, like catching robbers or real criminals !".Once home, my mobile phone rang : "This is the police. Is this Mr Lex ?" I answered "Yes". The officer at the other side of the line proceeded "We will need to speak to you at the police station". I knew exactly why , so I replied "ah yes, about the dump site problem"
I was requested to come to the police station asap and explain why I had "littered the streets of a public dump site". I explained the story and the police officer understood my reasons.
Overall result : We got a fine of 150 euro's for 'littering'. Sigh...

Scamp & Tizz : Rabies Serology results in !

2008-07-03T08:05:00.000+10:00

Scamp & Tizz rabies serology test results are back today ! And we have good news for them :
They can COME WITH US ! The results were outstanding for both Tizz as well as Scamp.

Here's the e-mail from our veterinarian :
========================
Hello,

We have received the results of the rabies screening of Scamp and Tizz. Both results are good: titre >=9.7 IU/ml. Do you want to pick up the results at our practice or do you want us to send them by post?

Kind regards,

========================

I picked them up already. On to the next pets step !

ACS : Status changed to "In Process"

2008-06-23T08:35:00.000+10:00

Our ACS status changed today, which can only mean 1 thing : We have a CO ! Her name is Sally Zarka, and is one of the 6 CO's working at the ACS. This is good news since it can take up to 12 weeks before the application is processed. Let's hope it doesn't take 12 weeks ! At least we have done whatever we could for now in regard of the ACS application : Now it's a waiting game.

ACS : Application forms received !

2008-06-14T08:33:00.000+10:00

The ACS has received my application letter ! I was getting worried they, or the dutch posting system, lost my precious cargo, but this news confirms that the ACS has the letter and will ( hopefully soon ) assign a CO ( slang for Case Officer ) to my assessment. *fingers crossed*

Scamp & Tizz : Bloodsamples

2008-06-13T08:11:00.000+10:00

When we close the cat-flap, that's it : Tizz ( the Puss , with capital P ) knows. He knows that this seemingly small step for Pusskind, will be a huge leap for Puss : All the way to the veterinarian ! So we try and disguise the actions. Today, we used Scamps water drinking bowl : We placed it in front of the catflap, but the Puss is not easily fooled. Although he was never going to get his paws wet, he certainly wouldn't make it easy for us either ! So the hunt started. Since we know all of his 'boudoirs', it wasn't really hard to find him. But that's where the struggle starts. The Puss, in all his cleverness, has found a new way to trick us today. The tactics are simple : Struggle for as long as you can , use all 4 paws and push hard with the legs against the sides of the box door. This way the Puss pushes the box forwards and this requires one hand to hold back the box from scuttling off. And this is where Puss uses plan B. He will now seemingly enter the box, "giving up", and when you try and close the lid with 1 hand, he races out of the box, usually all the way upstairs ofcourse !

So, with a little help from Kim, we wormed him in the box and closed the lid before he could do his houdini.

Scamp likes the vet. He gets cookies from the vet !