Happy New Year!

Greetings my family and friends!! We MADE it!!

It has been a surreal couple of days with many late late nights packing, cleaning and chucking! It makes me wonder just how much we need in life. Very little! The house has never been so sparse. Will try to remember to keep it that way when we return!
We also had some nice evenings with friends and family over the Christmas holidays which kept things in perspective.

Fiona arrived on Sunday morning the 30th of December. It was a day of data transfer between Fiona and Fergus in regards to their schools, their job, our houses, our neighbourhoods, etc. There was non-stop talking for at least 8 hours. Hope they both remember the information- or at least 50% of it!

We somehow managed to stuff our 8 pieces of luggage, 8 pieces of carry on bags, 2 drivers, 5 passengers into two vehicles. We got to the airport around 8pm for our 11:55pm flight; this is the earliest we've EVER been for a flight. We also managed to get all of our 8 pieces of luggage within the weight restriction of 50 lbs each! Unbelievable!

The flight was great! AC033, 15 hours direct from Vancouver to Sydney on the new swanky Boeing 777. The flight was about 1/3 full so we had loads of space. The girls watched a few programs on the built-in TV monitors in front of their seats and then slept for a good 6 - 7 hours. The remainder of the 6 hours was spent watching more programs and movies. I managed to watch most of Hairspray, The Darjeeling Limited, and Superbad. All in all it was very good considering the length of the flight. I am so glad we got the direct flight; I would definitely recommend it.

So we arrived in Sydney on New Years Day at about 10:30 in the morning. Again it was very surreal to have travelled on a time machine and missed out on New Years' Eve completely. John and Narelle (friends of Fiona) came to pick us up in their 8 seater mini-van! Very nice people and full of information! They took us 'home' across the Harbour Bridge and we got our first glimpse of the Opera House. We're in the big smoke of Syds; there are lots of skyscrapers and palm trees.

40 minutes later (after a wee unintended detour to Castle Hill), we arrived to our home away from home. We're in a three bedroom duplex in Northmead, about 5 km from Parramatta. It's a cute little house with a beautiful deck and we have two neighbours with swimming pools. Got to befriend them! ;-)
The main floor of the house is the living space, dining room, kitchen, laundry and toilet. There is a garage as well. The main floor has air conditioning. Upstairs are the three bedrooms, and bath without air conditioning. It felt SCORCHING hot yesterday afternoon. We went straight into our summer gear as we travelled with jeans on the plane. 2 degrees when we left Vancouver and 25 degrees in Sydney. It's an odd feeling being transported from our east vancouver home to thousands of miles across the world to a suburb of Sydney. The sounds and smells are very different. It smells fresh outside from our porch. As well, there are all sorts of unusual looking birds around here, we can hear them making all sorts of funny sounds from our porch.

After some unpacking, a short walk around the hood and a bit of a nap, we took the car out for a wee drive. Fergus had some troubles signalling (he kept on turning the windshield wipers!), driving in general (on the other side of the road and the car being manual), and taking the key out of the car (we discovered a button that unlocked the key). Did I mention that the car is manual and the australians drive on the other side of the road?! Hmmmm, I will need to figure out how to get around because I don't think I can walk anywhere. Good thing the bus stop isn't far but I will most definitely need some driving lessons!

We took a drive to northmead's shopping complex of 5 shops, Balkham Hills shopping centre (where we will go for our groceries), Our Lady of Lourdes Primary School (where Margot will go) and then to Parramatta. From Parramatta we can take a ferry (1 hr) or train (30 minutes) into the city. We had a play at the playground, a walk through the empty town, there are lots of italian restaurants and cafes, a stop at 7-11 for a slurpee and a delicious dinner at a malaysian restaurant before heading home in our wee white nissan.

We had a good first night sleep once the girls settled. It's still quite hot.
Up and at them 7:30am. We will try to get to a beach today!
Love to all!!
xxxx