Betty is here.

I wasn't at all prepared for the availability of American groceries, stores...all of it. To see Betty Crocker, Reese's, and a tons others has been a surprise. I'm sitting at a play are in a mall in Burwood (had to get a gov't child check and double check about my drivers license) and there is a Payless right next to me. Weird.

One of the best bonuses of the exchange is that all my paperwork, appointments, organizational efforts are all in English. It is a real breath of fresh air to have a government-related task to do and have it all be easy to understand (with very nice customer service too).

And now I have been at Target and Kmart. I can confirm that most certainly Kmart is the place to go and Target is a much smaller, not so exciting neighbor down the road. It's a bit of a tease actually to see Target and have it not match up with home. But--we're not in Australia seeking out American conveniences...I've just been able to see the difference.

Greer and Quinn are over jet lag and it's like they never had it all. I am glad as mine was horrible (I say that in the hopes that it is officially over) and if they were waking up when I was sleeping would have been more than exhausting.

Frederick and his family are preparing to depart on Friday for Berlin. William will meet them at the apartment and help them settle in. The girls I will have about six days until my mom and sister Kathi arrive.

I need to make my list of things to do as we've not yet gone into Sydney. I do want to go to the beach and do the Bondi cliff walk.

Greer and Quinn both say: "Hello."

A rugby education, St. Charbel's family and spiders bigger than my hand

Rugby League is something different than Rugby Union. I previously only knew of rugby itself and was not aware of League vs. Union.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_rugby_league_and_rugby_union

I started learning by watching NSW play Queensland in the State of Origin match. I asked a few questions and started to get a vague idea of what was happening. Q won the series for the 10th time in 11 years or something like that. Bummer for NSW.

It was good to have this intro as the next day the girls and I joined Frederick in supporting the U16 boys in their championship final in Rugby League. The girls had a ice cream with freckles (Aussie for sprinkles) and I was able to meet more people from school. The boys won in OT (a rollercoaster of a game, they were down 0-12 at the half) and we went back to school for a celebration barbie (barbie count 1--BC1). I was told that this was not the normal Thursday afternoon plan, but as it was a pretty major come-from-behind victory a form of celebration was most certainly in order. The boys are the CBSA Intermediate U16s Rugby League champions (undefeated this year as well).

Every single person I have met from St. Charbel's has been so very welcoming, offering any and all kind of assistance if I need it. I'm really looking forward to getting to know everyone better and I can already tell that it will be very hard to say goodbye next July.

We've celebrated Frederick's leaving with his core group of friends/colleagues at dinner last night and they are awesome. I laughed so hard my cheeks were hurting. It was loud, hilarious and such a fun night. As the night went on (and got louder) some of the colleagues asked me if I knew what I was getting myself into. I said I exactly where I was meant to be. :)

Frederick gave an impromptu chat about my fundraiser for The Shoe That Grows. I said how we were at 67 pairs of shoes and hoped to get to 80 and that 100 would be a dream. Within moments, their phones were out, they got on our fundraising page and we are now at 101 pairs of shoes. I was and still am overwhelmed by their generosity and heartfelt welcome.

We still have two more days to hopefully raise a bit more money. Just in case you want to join us: https://fundraise.theshoethatgrows.org/fundraise?fcid=694364

I'm learning Aussie slang...
daggy: old fashioned clothes/out of style
tomato (toe-mah-toe) sauce: ketchup (NO ONE says ketchup...if you do you are so outed as a tourist)
sizzle: sausages on the grill

My jet lag is the worst. For Quinn, it is non-existent. Greer has woken up a few times but I have been wide awake for a complete night, six hours and four hours...tonight I need to stay up till 10pm or so. Last night I went to bed at 8pm and that is when I woke up at midnight or 2am. Not sure. And of course I fell asleep around 5:30am and slept until 8am...waking up exhausted of course. But, it's all good and getting here asap was part of the plan to have time to adjust and get to know my St. Charbel's family before our winter holidays.

A funny thing with Quinn at the Paris CDG airport--we saw an A380 and took a couple pictures. The girls asked where it was going and I told them Mexico City. Quinn said (in all seriousness), "Oh I've been to Mexico City with my kita (preschool). We go there for the afternoon sometimes." She meant Mexikoplatz, the s-bahn station near us in Berlin that has an ice cream cafe. ;)

We also walked to the area of Strathfield with bars, restaurants and cafes. We found the Aldi (not that it was hiding, actually) and the gym. It's about a 10ish minute walk from our house which will be great for evenings out. There's an Outback Steakhouse there...it's weird...right?

My poisonous spider education continues. I've seen the "messy web" of a black dot spider so I know what to look for. A bushman spider is Donald-Trump-huge but not poisonous. But it is HUGE. And HAIRY. I do have the option of getting Frederick's mom (who lives around the corner) to help out if we get a bushman. I shiver and shake thinking about it.

Tomorrow is our first morning barbie (BC2). We will meet Frederick's family in Bicentennial Park and eat bacon, eggs and meat. I would like to make my spicy baked beans but I am not sure if I have time to get it done.

We've started the girls' school registration process and will hopefully be completed soon.

I still need to sign up for surf lessons.

28 Hours Later

So, we've arrived in Sydney and are now in bed for our second night. The recap so far...

Berlin-Paris was quick and easy, has a bit of time in the Paris airport. The girls were "so hungry". We bought a few snack and then I wanted to find a restaurant. Turns out they only wanted the snacks...crisps and some gummy string and gummy fizzy pink/blue looking soda bottle things.  They were French, still not sure what they were.

Flying China Southern was very good. Online people laced tale after tale with woe about the food onboard. I prepared for this with protein bars and such but it was all fine (except for the final meal which had a side dish of tofu/beans and "dessert" of something forest green in color, gelatinous with some kind of nut--the girls were not fans. I had Greer try tiny bites to she what she liked. Poor her--the mystery green "dessert" made her retch). There were no child activity packets of any sort, but they were the cheapest tickets by far and that was a-ok me. What there was, however, was an incredibly long preflight announcement about what what will happen to you if you do not have acceptable behavior on the flight. It went on and on, raising curious questions as what in the world has happened on previous China Southern flights to lead to the creation of such an elaborate policy announcement.

**pause--I Googled "behavior on China Southern Airlines" and got this: http://www.traveller.com.au/the-unfriendly-skies-chinese-passengers-outrageous-behaviour-2fkej

Ok, I understand a bit more. I saw no ruckus...except when the man sitting in front of me decided to put his seat back he wanted to do in a world record setting time, nearly destroying my kneecaps. And the woman sitting behind me would swing and drape her less-than-conditioned hair across my sleeping face every time she got up (unusually only when I was sleeping). It was like a sandpaper jellyfish stinging me awake.

The flight Paris to Guangzhou was long--11 1/2 hours but there were a lot of movies. So many movies and such a long time to watch them made me feel like a regular person (as opposed to traveling with the girls at a young age and having to feed, clean and entertain non stop through the entire journey). We had a quick Chinese layover and we shortly on a 9 1/2 hour flight to Sydney. The best part was that the flight was only about 1/4 full. We had a whole middle row of four seats. The girls were able to sleep a lot and were really outstanding throughout the whole journey. The second flight the screens were touch sensitive so they could choose their own entertainment all the time. As Greer would say, "it was easy peasy lemon squeezy".

We did bring in the rest of the squeezed fruit packets and cereal bars. I did declare them on our form...curious if the filming crews for "Nothing To Declare" would be around. Alas, they were not and we were quickly through customs trying to steer the most uncooperative, hard to manage luggage carts I have ever tried to push.

After entering the non-secure section of the airport, I was very happy to spot Frederick, my teaching partner, right away. He had a sign for us which was nice. As I stepped outside the airport into my first moments experiencing a "Sydney winter's night" of 61F, I can tell you that my sweatshirt, capri jeans and flip flops were spot-on the right choice of wardrobe.

I don't wish bad weather on anyone, but there would be a tiny bit of satisfaction if Berlin was to be hit with a massive winter this year and we are able to avoid it. We'll be on the beach, playing in the sand and learning to surf while dear friends may be (and again--hopefully not) digging themselves out of heaps of snow.

There was no traffic at night and shortly arrived at Frederick's/our home for the year. We do have a cat--"Kleines" and she is an outdoor cat. We feed her and hope she gets used to us so the girls can pet her. She is really skittish so who knows. She did lick Quinn's outstretched hand, so maybe the girls will better friends with her than Frederick's boys.

Frederick and his family are super great, his wife Laura grew up in Hannover and now both her parents are in Berlin. The boys, Leon and Noah are total adorbs (phrase I picked up from my sister Kathleen I think) and really funny. The kids have played so well together.

Now the concern is getting over jet lag. This is the most time zones I have ever covered and hopefully it will not be too painful. We got up this morning with everyone, but went back to bed just to rest as I was really feeling "off"...and finally rolled over at 1pm. Oh nooooooo, I most certainly did not want us all to sleep so long at that time. But, I justify it by thinking about the journey and how we did need some rest. But now, no more mid-day naps. We just have to soldier through it adjust.

This afternoon Frederick walked us over to the outlet mall right near their home. Why would we need to go shopping when I packed so many bags? Apparently the pile of the girls' socks and panties (underwear to you, the "I can't stand the sound of the word "panties" people) did not make it into any of our bags. So they wore swimsuits today and as of tomorrow they will be strutting their stuff with little Aussie undies.

Laura was telling me about the stores here and such. There is Target and Kmart but not in the way I that I know them. Target isn't so popular, as opposed to Kmart which is the place to go (basically reverse them for us in St. Louis, at least).

We're slowing getting an introduction to life in Sydney and getting to know our neighborhood. Laura did tell us about one of the poisonous spiders around (black body/red dot on back), they're sometimes in the garden. They have a chart to show us how to identify them. I asked how poisonous the bb/rd spider is. "You'll die." Then we both laughed. There is a crazy ridiculous number of poisonous creatures here...you just have to be careful.

Another big change is sunrise/sunset...in Berlin we were just upon midsommer, with a sunrise at 04:43 and sunset at 21:33. Much closer to the equator brings us more consistent times...sunrise here is 07:00 and sunset is 16:54. Having light late in the evenings is something I will miss.

We all watched NSW play Queensland in the Rugby Union State of Creation matchup. It's a three game series (sort of like an all-star game mixed up of players from various teams in that state) that Q has won now 10 of the last 11 years (or something close). The differences between Rugby Union and Rugby League are (in my limited knowledge of rugby) that RU is more violent and rough. Read on if you want to know more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_rugby_league_and_rugby_union

Tomorrow I will got to school with Frederick and start to get to know my new school and colleagues at St. Charbel's College.

Friday the girls and I will walk over to their new school and get them registered.

Right now it is 23:15 and the girls went to bed at 23:00ish. I had them stay up due to our long morning nap so fingers crossed it will be a good night.

Tomorrow morning I will also work on my to-do list for William. :) All the things he needs to do before he joins us here in Sydney. I just hope he has time to squeeze it in between the Euro 2016, going to the biergartens and all the golf he needs to watch. ;)

28 hours after our arrival in Sydney and it is all very, very good.

Less than 8 hours to go...

In about 36 hours we are going to experience a winter where you keep your thongs (practicing my Aussie lingo) on and maybe a hoody. Hip hip hurrah. The two things I don't like about Berlin are the dark winters and the cold, cold, cold. Bring on the glorious Aussie winter sunshine.

Cocoa is off to Hamburg today :(

Cocoa can't go with us to Oz. The process to import a dog is unbelievably complicated, expensive and a real ordeal for the dog in question (aka "Doggate").

We are so lucky that we will be able to have Cocoa's breeders take care of her for the year. Cocoa will be able to run in a huge garden and play with her "furry family" all year long. We will miss her so much, but knowing she is well taken care of and able to be with her mom is a comforting thought.

http://www.miniteckel.de/page/index.html

I pulled her pedigree and looked again at some of the sames. Here is Cocoa's family:

Mom and Dad: Gerda (nickname Flitzi) and Sean Connery

Grandparents: Lisego Nosa Don Juan, Yamayka, Herbie and Paula

Great grandparents: D'Arisca Jacques, Uelsi, Emelyan, Peri, Jojo, Bonsai, Ythos and Norma

Cocoa's full pedigree name: Brunhilda von den Neuland Moorteufeln. Yes. It's a mouthful. ;)

I'm already choked up thinking of saying bye to my little Cocoa. Here is Cocoa at 6 weeks old.

12 MPUs (Mary Poppins Units) to Sydney

Our family unit of time measurement is the Mary Poppins movie. It is one of our favorites and the girls have a rough idea of the concept of time in comparison to the movie. Greer has learned more about time so measuring by MP is not as relevant as it used to be.

But, when we are going somewhere and the girls want to know how long our journey will be, I figure it out in MPUs (Mary Poppins Units).

From Berlin to Sydney is 12.10 MPUs. Door to door might be closer to 14 MPUs.

The Shoe That Grows

The reason for our year in Australia is that I am participating in a teaching exchange with Frederick, a PE teacher from Sydney, Australia. One of my first trips in Australia will be to Uluru (Ayers Rock), Northern Territory.

In preparing to visit Uluru, I have learned a bit about the needs of the local indigenous Aboriginal community of Mutitjulu. I have organized a fundraiser through Because International to provide the Aboriginal children a special shoe, "The Shoe That Grows", a shoe that will grow five sizes and lasts five years. None of the children own a single pair of shoes.
https://fundraise.theshoethatgrows.org/fundraise?fcid=694364

Each pair of shoes (including shipping to Australia) costs $18 USD. That is approximately $3.60 per year for the five years that the child will have a pair of shoes. We aim to send a total of 200 pairs, which will reach beyond Mutitjulu and into the Aboriginal communities of Docker River, Imanpa and more if we are fortunate enough to raise more money.

Would you please consider making a donation for the Aboriginal children to have "The Shoe That Grows"? 1 pair=$18, 2 pairs=$36, 3 pairs=$54...and so on.

Every single dollar raised will go towards our shipment of shoes. So far we have raised enough money for 32 pairs of shoes. We are on our way! Our fundraising deadline is 24 June 2016. THANK YOU for donating, spreading the word, all of it!

The Last Weekend

As we prepare for our journey to Sydney, Australia we have this one last weekend to "get it all done". We have last minute goodbyes with friends, haircuts, teeball and taking Cocoa to Hamburg all going on...and packing up the house. All I can do to stay sane is just think to July when I am able to start my surfing lessons. Bondi Beach is calling my name. I don't really care that we have to fly a bazillion hours to get there...I will soon surf and the sound of the waves will be my mantra.

And welcome to our family blog, btw. I've been trying to think of a good name, blah blah blah...and then thought about the stack of passports in our drawer; William (UK), me (USA), Greer (Germany, UK and USA) and Quinn (Germany, UK and USA). So, between the four members of our family we have 8 passports combined. We're an international, ex-pat family raising bilingual daughters in our adopted, beloved home of Berlin and always looking for our next adventure.