Social Butterflies

The thing we miss the most already is the friends and family we had back in London.  And even though we didn't see all of them all of the time, it was nice to know they were always there.  So now we find ourselves in a position where we know very few people.  

But we've been lucky so far and we have had a few social engagements already this week...

We started with a dinner out with Brad's new boss, Warren, and his lovely wife, Karlya, and a couple of their friends.    Karlya is also pregnant and just a couple of weeks ahead of me.  It'll be great to have someone with a baby the same age and seeing as this is their second child I'm sure they'll be fountains of knowledge for us.  Karyla has also offered to take me around the hospitals to see what's on offer.   I've read rave reviews on all of the Melbourne hospitals so I don't feel particularly choosy or fussy about which one we end up in.  The hospitals are like school districts where you have to go to the one in your borough.   A chicken/egg situation to find the house in the area of the hospital you want or the house in the area of the hospital you want!  

Friday I met up with Holley, a South African girl I used to live with in London about five years ago.  She lives in north Melbourne but came down to my neck of the woods for the afternoon.  Holley has been living in Melbourne since January and is so happy.  naturally, she's missing her London friends but her boyfriend has an enormous family in Melbourne so they've settled in rather quickly.  Holley came over on the highly skilled visa as she's a teacher.   

Sunday we found ourselves at a BBQ with a group of Saffa's that we'd never met before!   Through good old Facebook and our mothers having a mutual friend, they invited us to their place in west Melbourne.  What a lovely group of people, so welcoming and full of useful information for us.  One couple has been here for six years so have all the locals only knowledge.  The other couple has only moved over in January so have fresh experience of what we're going through right now.

Our Sunday visit had us travelling to west Melbourne which took just unider an hour with one changeover in town - not bad at all and easily done when you're used to London transport.   I'm sure it would be a much shorter journey by car.

So meeting all these great people has made us feel less worried about being friendless.  We have a way to go of course and if we do find ourselves on our ace then we always have Meetup.com or the St Kilda 'crazies'...

Day One: Admin

Brad has just one day off before he starts working and we had big plans for it.  We were to be up early for a walk on the beach before doing our 'chores' but only managed to drag our jet-lagged selves from our bed after midday!   So it was straight to the admin; bank accounts, phone sim cards, groceries...

Here's some useful info for anyone moving to Melbourne (the rest of you scroll down to the pretty pics)...

We opened our account with Commonwealth Bank.  For a regular current account there is a monthly fee of $6, this is wavered if a certain amount of money (like a salary) is deposited each month.   It also means that there are  no charges for things like counter withdrawals  replacing new cards etc, which I believe most banks will charge for.  All we needed to open the account was our passports and a billing address.

We both went with Vodafone for sim cards.  We're starting with Pay As You Go until we're settled.  The sim costs $2 and we topped up $30 each.  With the $30 we get $450 worth of credit and unlimited text messages within Australia.  We also get 500MB of data.  This all expires after 28 days.

We also signed up with Medicare, the equivalent of the UK's NHS.  This was really quick and easy.  We needed to fill in a short form and have our passports and drivers licence or NHS card.  We received temporary Medicare numbers and our cards are in the post.  Unlike the UK, you do not have to visit a doctor within your local area and if you're unhappy with the service you can chop and change until you find your own Doctor McDreamy.  I will post more information about the healthcare system and bulk billing once I've found and visited a doctors.

Last on the list was groceries - oh my word the prices!!!   Even arriving with Pounds did not prepare us for the price of anything in Australia, including groceries!  We shopped at the IGA Store as it was the closest.  We spent over $85 on just a few bits to get us through the next few days, including cereal, salad, bread milk etc.  Nothing extravagant at all!  We assumed they were a pricey store but when I did comparisons with Coles and Woolworths there wasn't much of a difference.  Locals say that its definitely cheaper to get your fresh produce from markets and your meats from the local butchers.  I hope it's cheaper because one red pepper in IGA cost nearly $3!

After an admin filled day we ended with a walk along the pier.  At sunset every evening the penguins all come back across the bay to their nests built among the rocks of the breakwater.  A really sweet sight until you notice the huge water rats that inhabit the same area!!

Image Source 

Image Source

Hello Melbourne!

After finally landing in our new home city we were nervous about coming through customs.  Anyone who has seen Border Patrol will know how scary the Australian immigration process can be.  Luckily we sailed through, maybe the belly helped again and maybe it was that we had nothing for the sniffer dogs to find... I'd even made Brad leave his 5-pack of gum on the plane!

Brad's new boss kindly collected us from the airport and dropped us at our temporary home in St Kilda.  We've got a cute little studio apartment on Beaconsfield Parade.  A fab little balcony overlooks the bay and the sun sets in just the right place!

  

As I suspected, neither of us was able to stay awake on our second flight and so on arrival we were bright eyed (maybe not so bushy tailed)!  So we hit the well know Fitzroy Street in search of something to eat.  The road is just pumping with restaurants, live music and the odd bit of harmless 'crazy' that St Kilda is known for.  We found a great little place called 29th Apartment.  A bar/restaurant done out like a loft apartment, complete with claw foot bath tub.  They had a Monday night special of $10 which those of you that have visited the country will know is cheap as chips!  Brad had hot wings and the most delish coleslaw I've ever tasted.   I had the ribs with corn on the cob... yum!

Half Way There

Sitting in the Burger King (hey, baby wants what baby wants) at Singapore Changi airport, I’m feeling absolutely exhausted, like I’m being tortured!  It’s 1am in London right now and we haven’t slept since we woke at 6am this morning.  My usual bed time at the moment is 9pm (being twenty weeks preggers) so you can imagine how my poor Brad is feeling.  He never thought that travelling with a pregnant woman would be easy, but this is a new strain of wife-moaning, even for him!  Apart from having to visit the powder room (yes it really is that grand at Changi Airport) on the half hour every half hour, he has to deal with our ever increasing set of hand luggage – a woman still shops regardless of how pregnant/tired/bursting for a wee she may be!

Being pregnant has had its perks though.  Thankfully my idea of wearing the tightest, brightest pink t-shirt I could find worked in our favour.  Attention was automatically drawn to my belly and we were suddenly treated with smiles and wave throughs rather than the usual long queues.  I also perfected my tired/heavily pregnant/sore back face which wasn’t hard as I was already half way there!  No upgrades unfortunately but I did manage a loo break during heavy turbulence that had even the air stewards buckled in.  I did have to insist that I would wee in my chair if they didn’t let me go so they didn’t really have a choice.

Anyway, enough about fat bellies and toilet breaks...

As we sit here, about to embark on the adventure of a lifetime, I’m feeling a rather varied mix of emotions from scared out of my mind to truly ecstatic!  As excited as we are to move to Melbourne, London was home for over ten years.  In that time we built up a really special circle of friends, not to mention the above average number of family members we each had in the country.  To say it was difficult saying our goodbyes would be a huge understatement.  We learnt quickly to ‘rip the band aid’ and found the quicker the goodbyes hurt less at the time, although no less easy.  Brad’s folks dropped us at the airport this morning which was very emotional.  The only thing that helps is that we know both our families will be visiting in the next year.  I’m sure they’re all more interested in seeing our baby than us but we’ll take what we can get!  

Okay, so it’s time to deal with the next leg of our journey; our eight hour flight into Melbourne.  We should be trying to stay awake on this one so we can sleep through the night in Melbs but the way I’m feeling I know that won’t happen. 

See you on the other side…

Loryn x