Left hand driving

Something had to happen. Everything was just going way too well....

 

In just one week and four visits to IKEA we managed to turn our empty house into a nice place. Although our container with the rest of our stuff is not expected until half October, we already feel at home here. We now have a couch, a table, some chairs, some lamps, kitchen gear and a sofa-bed to sleep on. It looks like a showroom of IKEA, but we're proud of it !

The first days at work for Jan were also good. The Eclipse office in Adelaide has opened just over a year ago, and currently hosts six local employees. But there are constantly people flying in from other parts of the country. With about 230 colleagues across the continent, the company is a lot bigger than his previous employer, and that will take some getting used to. Jan will take over the project management for the South Australian customers. Mostly Microsoft Navision implementations in the food processing industry. Next week he will go to head office in Sydney for his official induction. Exciting !

And then there is our social life. By pure coincidence Mikaela met a Swedish girl, Jessica, who has lived in Adelaide for four years without meeting a single other Swedish person. Her boyfriend David (Aussie with Italian blood) saw us checking the Swedish website of Aftonbladet, and made the connection. We've been out twice now, and they are just great. This weekend they will take us for a daytrip out of town, which we haven't done yet so far.

 

So what went wrong? Well, driving on the left hand side has many different aspects. And most of them went really fine (steering, gearing, indicators, backwards driving). But did you realize that most of the car is also on your left hand side, when you are driving? Well, Jan found that out the hard way. When he gave a colleague a lift home, he pulled over to the left and misjudged the distance to a parked car on the side. Bang! Off went his mirror, and off went the car alarm. The disturbance attracted quite some attention. Fortunately the damage is reparable, and the insurance took it really well. But what about the damage to his reputation as a driver ?!?

 

For a photo impression of the house, and of our first month in Australia, click here 

Comments

Anonymous said…
Hallo lieve luitjes..

Wat een leuk huisje..!
Ben blij te lezen dat het 'normale' leven jullie weer in de grip krijgt. ;-P

Laat de weblog maar volstromen met jullie verhalen.. Ik lees ze met veel plezier!

Dikke zoen,
As
October 2, 2007 at 3:11 AM
Anonymous said…
he hier een krabbel van paulus ook wij volgen jullie op de voet, wat leuk dat jullie al wat leuke mensen hebben ontmoet over het huisje maar te zwijgen;-)....

veer plezier met jullie normaale leven ;-)

Dikke kus van paulus
October 2, 2007 at 9:00 PM
Anonymous said…
Hoi Jan, Mikaela,

ik vertelde net een andere Adelaide ganger over jullie site, en las dus meteen het incident met de auto... nou ja, zonder gewonden valt het uiteindelijk toch allemaal mee.

Heel leuk om alles te lezen, bedankt voor alle tips,

good luck,
Jolanda
Buysse Immigration
October 5, 2007 at 12:37 AM
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