FIRST YEAR RESULTS, Part I

I haven’t posted anything here for weeks. My creative urges have been focused elsewhere, i.e., painting the house, making wall hangings, doing a collage, etc. It has been one year now that Tim and I moved to Australia. ONE YEAR! I remember in November 2004, we made a chart to help us decide whether to move. We each ranked various items of consideration: Tim’s job, Socorro VS Sydney, dogs, finances, kids, housing, etc. I thought I might provide an update on how things have turned out to date and add a few items that we had not considered…

1. Tim’s job: He loves it. NRAO? What's that?
2. Socorro VS Sydney: Duhhhhhhh. Socorro doesn’t stand a chance.
3. Dogs: This turned out ok, although I still miss the big white dog I had to leave behind. I’m glad we went through the incredible expense and difficulty to bring Karma and Sammy, though. They have adjusted to Aussie living with no trouble at all.
4. Finances: Hmmmm. Well, it is more expensive to live here and we make less money… but we’re scraping by. ☺
5. Housing: Ouch. Houses are expensive here. We found a nice home in a nice area, but it took the sale of our two New Mexico houses to put down to buy this house.
6. Weather: OOOO la la, the weather is great here. Socorro isn’t bad, but Sydney has it beat.
7. Scenery: The water and beaches are beautiful here, but it is hard to beat the American Southwest for spectacular scenery.
8. Diversity: Sydney. It is truly a melting pot here. Our next-door neighbors are from Chile, the man across the street is from Singapore, our friends Jerry and Yvonne, down the street, are from India (he is half British), as well as the nice family across the street. In addition, one street over is a man from Iran. I have a Chinese friend at the dog park and have met several people from South Africa. I just met a woman down the street who is renting a home with her partner who is Indian. She is from Sri Lanka, and they both arrived from the US one year ago. Socorro has some diversity in that the demographics are made up of Anglo, Hispanic and American Indian, with some international additions that work at NMTech or NRAO. However, Sydney definitely wins in the diversity category.
9. A cool thing: In Australia, they have a system called BYO. As you are probably aware, this means “bring your own” bottle. BYO is an excellent levelling strategy for restaurants that can’t afford a liquor license. Even at the smallest pizza joint, you can enjoy a nice bottle of wine with your meal. Some licensed restaurants even offer BYO along with their own liquor menu. These restaurants charge a corkage fee per person, and this amount seems to depend on the “upscale-ness” of the venue. The corkage fee ranges from $1.00- $4.00 per person.
10. …TO BE CONTINUED…

Cheers! Judi