Week One Is In the Books!

So, we survived our 55 hours of traveling and finally made it! As inconvenient as that was, it was more than worth it.

Brighton Beach

The weather here is great - it's pretty normal for summer weather here to vary from 20-30 (70F - 100F) - sometimes even higher, but it's not humid so it feels great. Definitely a nice change compared to the Ohio winter we got to 'enjoy' for a few weeks!

There are obviously some differences here compared to the US, some of them great, some of them not so great, most of them pretty insignificant, so I thought I'd list them out since we have had some questions from family and friends. This list isn't all-inclusive and it's not really in a logical order, but here are some of my thoughts:

The Awesome: 

• The weather (already covered)
• Most of the food doesn't contain a zillion preservatives - the bread here is AMAZING
• My new personal favorite - the iced coffee! I don't know why, but they use ice cream instead of just ice. It's not healthy, but DAMN it is fantastic!

Iced coffee!

• Some of the phrases people use are amazing - i.e. 'chillybin' for beer cooler and 'lollies' for candy
• The TV/radio/news are not censored at all - and the music on the radio is actually good!
• Similarly, the government is not controlled by religion like it is in the States
• There is an actual blend of cultures here, and everyone is fine with it. Regis and I both have said this is probably the melting pot scenario America was aiming for but didn't quite do 
• The beaches!

Jumping Rock Beach - Mornington Peninsula

Regis enjoying his beach beer

• Lots of our favorite musicians tour here pretty often - we are actually headed to a festival this weekend!

Laneway Music Festival - picture from last year

• Using Celsius and the Metric System isn't that bad - they actually make way more sense once you are used to it
• The public transit system here is great - between trains, trams and buses, you can get basically anywhere in the cities or suburbs you want pretty easily. It takes around 30 minutes to get to one of the beaches!
• People make a way bigger deal of recycling here
• Wine is SUPER cheap since so much of it is made in the region
• People here aren't in a hurry to grow up - it is not common at all here for 22-23 year olds to get married and people are really weirded out by why people in the US do it
• In addition to my last point, when you meet someone new here, their first question isn't "What do you do?" - this really annoyed me in Charlotte
• My cell phone plan is $40 a month. WAY cheaper than back home!
• The minimum wage here is around $17 an hour, so tipping anywhere is not expected

The Not-So-Awesome

• It's really hard to sleep past 8am because of loud-ass prehistoric sounding birds. Some of them are so loud, they actually sound like people screaming. WTF?!
• Getting a phone number here was quite a process and it required a lot of legal documentation
• The hot weather is great, but the sun is insane.. I have never been a person to wear sunscreen (don't lecture me!), but if I don't put on at least SPF 30-50 here, my skin will scorch.
• Tacos are all but non existent. Tacos are also one of my three main food groups. :(
• 75% of restaurants here only serve pizza or burgers (I actually saw a restaurant called Pizza vs Burgers, very competitive thinking!)
• Certain items are SO expensive:

• 2 liter of Coca Cola: $5
• 6 pack of beer: $16
• Eggs: $5-$8 - Also, they are not refrigerated at the store
• Above-mentioned iced coffee: $6 (at least the price will keep me from getting fat from all the ice cream?)
• Housing - ~$1500-$3000 a month, depending on where in the city the apt is
• It's pretty evident we aren't from here as soon as one of us speaks - it's not necessarily bad, but people will immediately ask us if we are the Trump-voting type of Americans 
• Housing is extremely competitive here - places will sometimes only list for a few days. In Charlotte, there was a huge overabundance of housing so this was never an issue for us
• The ocean water is absolutely freezing, and there are jellyfish! 

Altogether, though, we love it here. My Not-So-Awesome list doesn't contain any deal breakers. Charlotte was pretty expensive too, and the way of life here is definitely what we were looking for. So far we have each had a job interview, I have another next week and we should have our own place sometime within the week or so. 

We get to celebrate our first Australia Day here tomorrow, too! Regis will provide the next update soon. 

-L

Our Flight Landed in Melbourne... Without Us!

We are currently on day two of our trip to our new home, in the San Francisco airport during a nine hour layover.

To be clear, there wasn't supposed to be a day two or a ridiculous layover; last night our trip took an unexpected turn from a 26  hour journey involving three flights to a 53 hour journey involving six flights and a surprise night in a hotel close to LAX.

This is definitely a pretty disheartening beginning to our move. We started out yesterday with crying parents and a HUGE hassle checking our bikes. After we finally got through okay, we were so excited.. We got a few celebratory beers and decided we would get lunch/dinner at our next connection - definitely a bad move in hindsight. We ended up going about 15 hours without food because of delayed flights and waiting in endless customer service lines to switch out our flights that were missed due to delays, then sprinting to barely catch our new connections. Because of the delay from Dallas to LAX, we missed the chance to board our Melbourne flight by about 15 minutes.

Check out the huge stack of tickets we have from all the changes:

That doesn't even include our new San Francisco > Sydney flight or the Sydney > Melbourne. We will probably avoid American Airlines in the future, to be honest. I have rarely used this airline without a long, unexpected delay. We spent a ton of time booking these flights and even paid extra to avoid excessive layovers for this very reason.

We are trying not to dwell on this longer than today, though. We have beautiful, sunny weather to look forward to pretty soon and it will be Saturday by the time we arrive. See you on the other side of the world!

-L

Six Days to Go - The Countdown Continues..

Only about a week till we are in transit to the world's most liveable city! :)  So, of course, being the usually not serious person I am, I'll start my first post off with a sappy one..

Leaving here (again) won't be easy, but it's always been inevitable.

From the time I was super young, all I really knew I wanted to do with my life was to get far away from Ohio. The location I've wanted to relocate to has changed many times over the years (it's actually quite a list), but settling where I was raised has never been an option. Even my parents told me early on in school, "Do well in school so you can go to college, get a good job and get the hell out of here." Despite many people telling me that leaving here is 'impossible', I did exactly that almost three years ago. I moved to Charlotte, got a great job, and felt truly successful. So here we are.

We have six days till we board our one way flight to Melbourne and I have so many thoughts and feelings swirling in my head. Excited, nervous anxious, ecstatic, exhausted, accomplished... and sad.

Despite our excitement to leave for Melbourne, leaving Charlotte was the hardest decision we (speaking for Regis too because I know it's true) have ever made in our lives, and it was really the first large decision we have made in our three year relationship. The visa process we had to go through was no joke. Factor in listing our condo (it's listed now if you're in the market!) and quitting our (actually REALLY good) jobs; it's not been an easy past few months. We have had tons of support from friends, which has been great, but we have also been faced with constant questioning from some as to why we are doing this. It's been extremely trying. Regis and I have different life goals than a lot of people, and it's hard to explain to people that don't know us very well.

I know I am also going to go crazy missing my brother and sister - they are both such awesome people I'm going to miss so much. None of us have lived in the same place since they were in high school, so we rarely get to see each other. I've had a blast hanging out with them since I've been home temporarily and I know it's going to be an extremely emotional goodbye.

Leaving Ohio was a no-brainer, I hated it there when I left for NC and still have no problem leaving it now. But I am going to miss life in Charlotte and my friends and family both there and here... a lot.

Nothing truly great comes easily, though. This opportunity is once in a lifetime. It's beyond stupid not to take it and run with it. Melbourne is by far the most beautiful and vibrant place I have ever been, and it's also the first city I've visited where I felt like I truly belonged and wanted to settle. Regis fell in love with it too, and we spent our entire flight back figuring out a plan to get back there as soon as humanly possible. We are so excited to start this adventure together!

We had been aiming to get out of Charlotte by summer 2017 - both of us moved there with the intention of leaving somewhere we wanted to go together. This location is just a little further away than originally planned. Let's go :)

-L