First step in Aus

"We're not in Kansas anymore....." errr more like the reverse for this Dorothy---Welcome to Kansas, more like it ha! From living in a city of 12M to a city of 60,000 with the same land area is QUITE a shift. Imagine moving from a place with a population density of 18,800 per sqkm to one with ONLY 2.4 per sqkm is nothing short of mind-boggling. First question I asked Stan when he toured me through the streets of Mildura was "Where are all the people?" Can you blame me? Apparently, the same question many Asians ask the first time they land in country Au. No one to ask directions from. What if you get lost?!! Took me many months to get used to the idea. 

From this

to this

Maps are of great use in this part of the world, I discovered. That's who you ask if/when you get lost. Very comprehensive and surprisingly reliable. I also discovered I can read maps! But don't tell Stan. He reckons I can't. Just because he interprets it differently from me doesn't mean I can't. TG for GPS. That has saved our marriage. Got one for xmas last year so now we don't argue about directions anymore. But I get ahead of my travelogue.
With only 60,000 you think I'd know all of them by now, four and a half years on. Kidding. Not! Trying to have a private coffee or after hours drink along the main strips (you can count them with the fingers of one hand) without being recognised or recognising anyone is near improbable with the husband I happen to have and the job I currently do. I'm exaggerating again. Not! It's actually nice to be so recognisable and I take secret pride in being married to such a footy personality who's also regarded as an all around genuinely good aussie bloke (aww). Still.....

Someone asked me what I  miss the most about Manila. The anonymity. Go figure.

Are we there yet?

swag

Space, lots of it. I do love it but I need my big city fix from time to time. If only to make me come running back home to the country.  My first taste of living in the bush was my first night at Sextons, the camp that Stan and Bernie his brother own, my first visit to Mildura in 2006. Stan painted me this romantic picture of sleeping in a "swag" under the stars. It was the most uncomfortable bed I've ever slept in aaarrrgh! Not to mention the freezing temp (so cold the dam froze over!). And that annoying alarm clock of a kookaburra. It seemed to know who was the newbie and screamed its reveille right in my ear aaarrrghh!! Romantic, my foot. I swore then to NEVAH sleep in a swag again evah! The aussification of moi---has begun, sigh.

wheeeeee! what a ride