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We landed here in Australia at 10.00am on Wednesday 9th February. I remember as we flew in over Brissie thinking - "oh my god, we actually did it".
We were met at the airport by Lin, a cousin of mine who drove us back to her house where we were staying. The first order of the day was a decent cuppa! Why does a decent cuppa make the world right!
We were determined not to go to sleep until that night so Lin took us out. We started looking immediatly for a car and to open our bank account. I already had a job to go to and needed somewhere for the wages to go into!
We went with Commonwealth Bank - recommended by Lin and then headed out towards Wooloongabba to look at cars. We started at Toyota and I was more than happy. I was sat in a toyota echo, I could reach the pedals and it had a CD player! All the criteria I need for a car! Oh it has to go too!
After looking round a few showrooms we headed back to Lins where I chatted for a while with Peter (Lins brother) who welcomed us "officially" to Australia! Lin got on the phone with us and we secured a great deal for a brand new car for me!
On the Thursday (day after we landed)...I was out and about in the CBD heading to the agency that I was going to work for. They sorted me out with all the paperwork that I needed and then the rest of the day was mine!
On the Friday (11th Feb) I was at Sinnamon Retirement Village being shown around by Stella Picton, my manager. It is a huge home with over 400 clients and I remember thinking "oh god, I`ll never remember this!" Stella was great to me and introduced me to everyone I would be working with.
That saturday we collected our new car and headed out for a few hours. Unsure of what to do and where to go, Lin directed us to Surfers Paradise. I can report that there is home video evidence of me running up Surfers beach screaming "we live here!"
In June of 2005 we decided that we wanted to celebrate Marks birthday. We jumped in the car, started driving and ended up at Byron Bay. We had a fantastic day and night there. The hippy capital of New South Wales. Who am I kidding? We were excited that we had got over the border into another state!
Mark & Joanne at Mount Coot-tha
February 2005
The next few months seemed to pass in a blur, a kind of whirlwind that culminated in us renting our first Aussie house and me getting a full time job. Initially I was from an agency but 4 months in Stella "bought me out" and gave me a job.
Our first Aussie house was in Jindalee at a complex called Centenary Quays. It was perfect for us, three bedrooms, a study area and a pool. We were the crazy POMs that were in the pool in Winter! Yeah I know we hadnt acclimatized yet! You could feel and see the blinds twitching as the owners thought "yeah, they must be British!"
Later that year we had a friend of mine (Mala Huree and her husband Gerald) came to visit us. They were over visiting other friends and came to spend the day with Mark and I to see how we were doing. We had a great day together , catching up on our old workplace.
We had Christmas Lunch at Margarets which was weird for us. It took a while to get to know all the family - that we had never seen or met before!!
Plus Christmas in the heat! Whats that all about! The year ended on a high as we celebrated our first months here in Oz.
