Hello from the other hemisphere

Hi all,
well we have begun to settle in to our new life. The church family has made us very welcome here. They provided us with meals for this first week and have taken me shopping since I can't drive right now.

We are going to start looking for a car tomorrow morning. We have three that are in the price range, whether or not they are reliable is yet to be seen.

You would think that an English speaking country would not be all that different from our own but that is not the case. Below are some of the major difference that I have noticed so far aside from the obvious ones like driving on the "wrong" side of the road.

1. No one has a dryer, everyone hangs their laundry outside. I did this the first time on Monday and the clothes were dry in a few hours, not bad.

2. All their outlets have switches on them so you can turn them on and off. By outlets I mean the ones that are close to the floor where you would plug in a light or something.

3. Cars are small and most people only have one. At home Brandon and I had three, we were spoiled.

4. Every house has a fence in the front yard and the back. This I can see is going to make it very hard to get to know the neighbors. I have only seen one of the neighbors so far and that was for 5 minutes. The fences in the back are usually 7-8 feet high and are solid. No talking through the fence!

5. Shops close early. Most of the shops in Belmont open around 9am and close by 5:30pm! This is really hard to get used to. There is no such thing as a 24hr store.

6. Gas is really, really expensive. It cost us almost $75 to fill up the Harts little station wagon.

7. Door knobs. Their door knobs are probably about 1 1/2 feet higher on the door than our at home. It makes me feel like a little kid every time I open a door.

8. When driving only the side streets have names. At an intersection you won't see the street name your on and then the one that is intersecting, just the one you are intersecting with. It makes it hard to find your way sometimes.

It is very nice here right now. Around 65 and sunny. We are only 10 minutes from the bay which is very beautiful. You can walk up a hill and look out across the bay to see some "mountains", boats, palm tress and if it is clear, Melbourne. We will try to post some pics when we have some more time.

Well I guess this is all for now. I want to go check some magazines and books out. Write more soon!

Meg