Settled in

As promised, here are some pictures of our house as we get more settled in. It is definitely starting to feel like home.

Our kichen, including the little white bar stools we bought here.

 Our home office. We bought this book shelf at a neat little store in Newtown called Newtown Furniture Haven, very good wood stuff. We got our desk there too.

 Our living room and the art we purchased in Croatia.

 This is our eating area. We decided to buy this little small table and chairs since we typically use our living room more and we have dining outside.

The view from our bedroom. I don't think we've shared that before.

Our bedroom

Please come visit us! We have a nice room for you.

Our third bedroom, also known as my shoe closet : )

This is probably incredibly boring for anyone except our family, so apologies for that, but they have all been asking to see this. I'm really missing all of you right now and am especially jealous that Angie, Aunt Jill, and Grammy are all in Virginia. Have fun tonight!

Almost home!

We are very excited that our goods will finally arrive from customs this week. It will be great to get rid of our rent a centre funiture and to have a better bed to sleep on, as well as to get all of our dishes and cookware. And, the doggies will be here next Sunday, so we should be able to get the house all set up prior to them coming home. So, hopefully it will feel like home to them.

Here is the link to the dog walker who has provided them visits while in quarantine. They have been amazing and you'll see the dogs seem to be having a lot of fun!

Dan is calling home to his folks right now and we begin our ritual of morning phone calls home. We miss home, but have been getting a dose of it on the cable we now have installed. I'm watching the View right now and watched the US today show yesterday. It's a fun reminder of home. However, we are enjoying a few Australian shows and some of the British shows, as well. In general, there is not as much choice in cable as we have back home.

We'll post some pics after we get our house in order next week!

New Stuff

This is sort of a short, random list of stuff...Good news - dogs are finally on their way! Then, they'll have 30 days of quarantine, so they should be home with us by about October 9. I had my first domestic business trip in Australia, traveled to Melbourne. Can you imagine leaving your house at 6:15 am for a 7:30 flight and being able to catch an earlier flight?? This is my new travel life and I am loving it. Domestic air travel is a delight here. And, I have no status on Qantas, yet could fit my bag on...And, they gave me breakfast for a 1.5 hour flight...It is quite lavish this Australian travel, so I'm a big fan already.

We are in the new house, have a real phone, no internet or TV yet...long story, but we should have it soon. Even though we are on a Rent a Centre bed and sofa, it is still better than our hotel room. I was invited by several co-workers for lunch, coffee, drinks, etc. I must have passed the secret 4 week test...not sure. So, on all fronts all things going fairly well. Will post some pics of the house when it looks a little nicer. We have 2 guest rooms for you friends and family!  Will post when dogs get here safely. We have someone we've paid to look in on them every day, so that is really nice.

Friends and Family

Along the lines of this favorite things topic, of course, family and friends are at the top. This week we have been missing our family and friends, wanting to call in the evenings, and then realizing that it is the middle of the night! In addition, we've made some new friends. We had a wonderful time on Sunday with our new friends, J., and P. (not sure whether people want their names shared here) and their kids. They came by the apartment, brought us some WONDERFUL goodies, stocked our fridge, and then took us out to yum cha (Australian for dim sum). We learned tons about culture from our new younger friends. We learned how to play some games with their daughter on the iTouch - including Truth or Dare and Fit or Fugly. Apparently, I am fit and am an '8,' not sure what is keeping me from a '10,' but nevertheless. In addition, their son taught us a bit of Mandarin. Anyway, it was a great first day. We really appreciated it and felt very welcome.

Then, on Wednesday, we met with some of the "Yanks Down Under," http://www.yanksdownunder.net/ who arrived on the same flight we did, E and T. Anyway, we went to meet for coffee and then they came over and Dan cooked dinner. It looks like we may meet up with them and another friend we met online on Sunday evening. And, finally, we are even invited to a party on the 27th to learn how to make pierogis! My book club starts on the 2nd of September.

Now, for a few of the random bits that I know our friends and family are all after...on the news the other day, they kept talking about "hoons." We had no idea what this was so finally googled it. Turns out they are hooligans who drive wildly and swerve on the road! Also, I'm attaching some pics of our little temporary apartment for you to see. Very spacious actually, and we had enough closets! The dryer is tiny and steams the room. We just ordered pizza and it has arrived. The food here is great. We have capsicum on the pizza (or peppers for you Americans).

I'll post again soon. We are looking for rentals tomorrow. Wish us luck. We miss you all!

Hello

So, this is my first post on our blog. Dan and I decided to do this to document our journey to Sydney from Atlanta, Georgia for our friends and family and for those who are also looking to make a significant move like this. So, why the title? The best suggestion I had for a title was, "things that can kill you in australia." I initially liked the idea, but then thought that it seemed a bit negative and wasn't quite sure where the theme would go from there. There sure are a lot of things we have learned that can kill you here, but not sure that's what we wanted to write about...

We just landed yesterday, and this is our first full day in Sydney. I've already started work and we have started to settle into a temporary sort of existence until we find permanent housing. In preparing for this move, one thing we had to do was to prioritize what we would bring to use immediately, use in 2 - 3 months, sell, give away, etc. This process led us to really prioritize what our favorite things were, and suprisingingly they did not include doorbells or brown paper packages tied up with strings. Based on what was most important to us, we had to decide what to do with our things. That's why we have called this blog A Few of My Favorite Things. We will talk about things that we loved at home and hopefully, as we come to know Sydney, things we love here.

For now, I am incredibly jetlagged, and will just say that our favorite things include our friends, family, and of course, our furry friends too. We look forward to going on this journey with you.

Mollie and Dan