One year in Aussie

It's one year ago now that we arrived in Australia. Can you believe how fast time has been flying? It honestly still feels as if we just started our life here Down Under.
Although well underway with our jobs, many other aspects of our integration are still in an early stage. We still live in the same rental place that we found last year, and we will do so for at least another year. Not until we are permanent residents can we possibly afford to buy our own house (March 2010 earliest).
As for the social integration: that’s also just started. We have a lot of contact with other Dutch immigrants. They seem to find each other easily. But building more frequent and deeper contact with the locals is a slow process. This seems to be something that even Aussies from interstate confirm: it just takes time to become part of the South Australian communities.
Also, there is so much for us to explore in Australia. We’ve hardly seen anything of this continent yet. Although very soon we are going to make a start with that…

This week we will welcome our first visitors from Holland: Denyse and Jeroen are doing their pre-honeymoon trip in Australia. We will show them around in SA, and go on a road trip together along the Great Ocean road to Melbourne. Later this year Susan and Annika will come from Sweden, and then around Christmas Jan’ brother and his wife will make appearance. Then the touring around Australia really takes off. That’s going to be great.

Small signs of integration seem to appear though: Jan is handing in his European drivers license for a local one, and he keeps talking about a 4wheel drive car. Now how Aussie is that?!? It will be interesting to see if our visitors think we have Australianised a little. Because after one year Down Under we still feel very European ourselves. As we said: for us this adventure has only just started.

(to be continued)

Comments

Anonymous said…
Hay there !

Het afscheid van jullie op de bruiloft van paulus en rico is alweer een jaar geleden, wat vliegt de tijd ! en zo gaaf dat de 1e bezoekers vanuit nederland komen, je kan wel zien wie het hardst kan sparen ;-) Toch ben ik jullie echt niet vergeten, fiets bijna elke dag langs jullie oude huis en met de yvo afgelopen maandag dacht ik ook weer sterk aan jullie. Dit logboek is erg leuk en elke week moet ik ff kijken. Hier ook alles oke, ik zit lekker in me vel geniet weer van alles. as weekend Jan smit en Wolter kroes op het podium, wordt weer gezellig. dikke kus Bianca
Anonymous said…
he schatjes .. ik ben jullie ook zeker niet vergeten wij een jaar getrouwd en dat is ook om gevlogen soms snap ik niet eens waar de tijd gebleven s... en dan net de ijvo klaar, wat heb ik weer genoten, maar ook jan weer een beetje gemist.... want dat blijft... en als we dan het haaien baaienlied zingen dan is het toch niet meer het zelfde... ik hoop in ieder geval dat jullie toch langzamerhand je draai weten te vinden tussen die ausssie, en anders komen jullie toch gewoon terug;-) (sorry wishfull thinking!!) XXXXX Liefs Paulus

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