Blending in with the Kangaroos

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It has been well over 6 months since I landed in Australia.

The first month was spent relaxing and traveling, having done a trip to the "Snowies". Then it was off to Orange, where I spent a month job hunting and getting used to my new surroundings. I found a job in Bathurst, with a fancy title, making more money in 3 months than I did in 2 years at my last job. Still, I can't help but feel the itch to drop it all and travel somewhere.

I don't have super exciting stories to tell...my life lately has been adjusting to the "metro, boulot, dodo" (commute, work, sleep). We traded in the gas-guzzling and starting-to-be-unreliable Landcruiser for a brand new zippy Mazda. And we moved recently, into our own little mini-house.

With this entry, I am posting some photos from the last few months, while sharing some unrelated stories and musings. Enjoy.

Thoughts on moving out of our shared house: The decision to move into our own place, which meant a tripling of rental payments, came after a run-in with our crazy landlord. Technically we were boarding in her house, but she was almost never there and was consequently renting out all the rooms in the house except for a spare room full of her daughter's toys. Occasionally she would come visit and check out the house. The problem was, she would stay at the house for weeks at a time in an already crowded house. The concept didn't bother me so much, until I actually met her. My next door neighbour called her "The Crazy", but I had decided to reserve judgment.
I tried as much as possible to keep an open mind about her, but as the week went on, I decided she actually is NUTS!!! At first it was the little annoyances: the notification of less than 12 hours of her arrival, the constant mumbling to herself, her disgusting smoker's cough at odd hours of the night, the smell of cigarette or pot smoke at 3am, the cupboard doors and drawers slamming at 5am, her car parked in such a way so that I could not park in our 2-car driveway...but it quickly grew to bigger things. Having her enter our rooms uninvited (even if we were in the rooms with the door shut), borrowing items from our rooms without permission, cleaning our roommates' rooms and doing their laundry...
But the icing on the cake was the yelling at 6am over a broken toilet.

Looking back at it, it was quite a comical scene. There I was, in the little annex off the living room, ironing my clothes, with her screaming at the top of her lungs at me. For supposedly accusing her of breaking the toilet, and supposedly critiquing her parenting skills (those conversations never happened...). She was pacing back and forth in the living room, feet stomping, eyes bulging from her large head, alternating between mumbling to herself and yelling at me. Our poor roommate wakes up to this, and enters the living room to see this scene (but doesn't see me at first - so all she sees is the Crazy). Funny after the fact, but it was enough to make us move out. And so we did...

Bureaucracy woes: Oh the drama when I wanted to change my license over! I quickly ran into bureaucracy. You see, the name on my license does not exactly match the name on my passport. My driver's license says "Mel, J", while the passport says J Mél. Nevermind that both documents are photo ID, with almost identical photos because as they were taken in the same year, and the RTA lady can plainly see that both photos are photos of me. Nevermind that the signatures match on both documents and any paperwork I sign for her would have the same signature.
This is a recurring theme it seems. Usually it's not that big of a problem. .The name on my Aussie Medicare card is misspelled too (and is not the name I go by at all), which means a laugh every time I go to the doctor's and the poor nurses get confused because I told them my name is Mél but the Medicare card says otherwise. When I got my learner's permit over a decade ago, my parents had to sign sworn affidavits in order for me to get the permit because the names on the various forms of ID didn't match. It didn't matter that I had filled out name change forms for that social security card...the name remained misspelled. Somewhere in the processing of American immigration paperwork over 20 years ago, my name was written "Mel, J", not J Mél, and hence the local Australian RTA now deciding that I am not eligible to transfer my license.
Which, according to the bureaucratic RTA lady, means I will have to go and sit a learner's permit test, and undergo the 3-4 year process of getting a license alongside the 16 year olds. It doesn't matter that I've been driving over a decade, and I've driven my mandatory 6 months here before changing my license. Couldn't they have told me this 6 months ago??

Musings on settled life: The last few weeks have involved many trips to the shops to accumulate all sorts of kitchen utensils and other household items. Focus has switched from planning our next international rendez-vous to planning what to have for dinner for the week.

And such is the life when you are "settled". The dramas and stories, while they still occur, are of a different nature. I find that when I travel, I am in the moment. It's a life of 'in-the-moment', not dwelling too much on the future or the past. It's something that I do enjoy.
But living a more "settled" lifestyle, complete with budget worries, the daily grind, the meal planning for the week, etc, allows me to ponder other things I wouldn't normally ponder while traveling. I find myself caught up in the news, whether it be the ash cloud that circled the southern hemisphere several times disrupting flights in and around Oz, the budget and debt issues of the United States, le Tour de France, the end of the Space Age, or the tragedies in various parts of the world (my heart goes out to those in Norway). Often when one travels, especially in remote areas, one misses out on such world events.

Musings on the end of the Space Age: One of my biggest chunks of time spent pondering has been on the subject of the end of the shuttle program. It comes at a time in my life where I am settling down and (temporarily) giving up the pursuit of being a world-traveling gnome. Outer space and NASA captured my imagination growing up - I recall vividly the visit to the Kennedy Space Center and watching the shuttle launch from a beach in Florida. I wanted to be an astronaut. My favourite book was called "Exploring our Solar System", published by National Geographic. I recall the astronaut coming to our high school to give a talk. I signed up to work for Mad Science in Montreal because they needed someone to teach a NASA-themed summer camp. I was excited to meet Julie Payette's nephew, and even more excited to visit the Canadian Space Agency to launch a model rocket for the on-site daycare.
The end of the shuttle program comes at a time in my life in which I am generally disillusioned with the area I grew up in. Family turmoil, a poor economy and lack of jobs, the lack of access to increasingly expensive medical care, etc. A country increasingly looked down upon on the world stage. Trillions of dollars in debt. But at least technology and universities were still sought after...but with the end of the shuttle program, I fear the end of that as well. NASA's programs represented what I thought was still great about the place I grew up in - a sense of adventure, exploring the unknown, the frontier spirit, focus on science and technology and discovering for the sake of research. The end of the shuttle program makes me immensely sad and disillusioned. Is inner space our final frontier?

Musings on lifestyle changes: As much as we both wanted a place to call our own and some stability in our lives, the sense of "permanency" makes both of us want to run away!! There are days I feel "trapped" at work, already stuck in the rut of work, sleep, work...
That said, there are the little joys, such as having an address, being able to stock up on delicious teas and coffees to enjoy at home, sleeping in the same comfortable bed night after night, being able to buy cookbooks to try delicious new recipes. Now we aim to find a balance. A balance between the comforts of having a "home" with the challenges and joys of traveling.
Re-training as a teacher in the aim to have more holiday time without a cut in pay seems more and more like a good idea...

For now, we'll make do with weekend trips and short travels. Because our feet are too itchy to stay still for long...

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Photos

Snow in Orange!
There have been tiny amounts of snow this winter in Orange...

Autumn in Orange
An autumn view from the Botanic Gardens

Mt Canobolas
A view of Mt Canobolas from the Botanic Gardens

Nangar Walls
A view of Nangar National Park, which was not 2WD accessible so we couldn't hike there...

Winter Scene
Fogs and frosts are common in winter in the Central West.

Botanic Garden Paths
The late winter sun in the Botanic Gardens in Orange.