We started a new blog !

So, the last entry was in 2009, it's 2011 now. So much has happened in two years. Nothing negative, only positive. Tizz and Scamp are both very well, they're extremely happy here in Australia ( especially since we moved to a rural property not long ago ! ).

Kim and me are still together and very happy together. We are meant to happily live together the rest of our lives, of this I am sure.

I just wanted to post on our blog one final time to let anyone and everyone know that we have started a new blog today for family, friends and anyone else interested enough to read about our lives.

We have recently moved to a rural property not far away from Brisbane.

Edit 13 Sept 2013 : The new blog has been removed as I now update friends and family via Facebook. I might post sometimes on this blog once and a while again, who knows ! :)

Our very last post

It's time to say goodbye to this blog : It is about Kim and Lex moving to Australia and we've been in Australia for a few months now. In the last month it has been getting busier on the Sunshine Coast ( due to summer holidays ) but it's nowhere as busy as in Holland. The beaches are now populated with 10-20 people instead of 1-2, there are a few more cars rolling around town, but no traffic jams or anything nasty. We are thoroughly enjoying beachlife and if we can make and maintain a living I think this might well be a spot where we will stay for quite a while. We're in the middle of starting up a company which should make us a reasonable living, but ofcourse we'll need a little luck to make it all happen. All we can do now is work hard and get things going, while at the same time not forget to keep living outdoors and doing sports like wake-boarding and kite-surfing to keep us fit.

Kim, Lex, Tizz and Scamp - Over and out

Next week it's Christmas

It doesn't feel like Christmas with all these sunny, warm days. It's like we're in the middle of the summer holidays ( which we are, just not the European one ! ). I think this is going to be a strange Christmas, however New Year is going to be a lot better, partying on the beach into the warm nightly hours : It's definately something that we can live with. We sent out all the Xmas cards, let's hope they arrive in time at all the peeps around the world ( South Africa / Europe / Australia ). We brewed 44 litres of beer and all our bottles are filled up and waiting to be drunk : It's going to be one hell of a new year ! ( we bought a bottle of champagne too , just in case )

We're going to have a quiet Christmas, like we have done for the past years : It's the way we like it. No people to take care of, no big meals to cook, no people being disappointed that this Christmas wasn't better than last years, no fights between family members and no expectations : Just Kim, Me, Puss and Puppy.

We bought some Christmas presents for ourselves too : Two Kite Surfing Kites including two boards and two harnesses ! Yep, we're pretty serious about getting back in shape. Since we left Europe we already lost a lot of pounds just walking on the beach and eating better quality food : We're getting closer to our ideal weight now, and the kites will hopefully get us there. We're really looking forward to getting them in : It will take about 3-6 weeks before the kites are in. The boards should be in next week. That means we can start doing some wake-boarding while we wait for our boards to practice our board-skills.

We wish everyone a merry Christmas and a happy new year 2010 !
Kim + Lex + Tizz + Scamp

Australian Pale Ale Part 2

Last week we started our own Australian Pale Ale brew, and this week it was bottling time ! Cleaning the bottles out took about 1 hour and was definately the most work. After we cleaned all the bottles and the bottle-caps, we opened the beer-tap. We knew straight away that our beer was good : It smelled fantastic, like fresh beer. It's hard to describe what "fresh beer" smells like, but you can compare it with having a bread from the supermarket, as opposed to just having created your first dough. The dough smells really good, you can smell the yeast and the freshness of your creation : The same applies to beer. We bottled the beer using Coopers "carbonization drops" which are like little sweets ( they are sugar-based ) and came out with 30 BIG ( 700ml ) bottles. So that's about 21 litres of fresh beer ! Not bad, the other two litres were "wasted" because we didn't want to bottle the bottom part of the tank where all the buildup and residue is : We want these first beers to succeed !

Now the big job is done, we can sit back and relax while we wait for our carbonization drops to perform the second part of the beer-magic : the bubbles.

We'll let you know in two weeks if our beer succeeded.

ps : Lex just cleaned the tank and tomorrow we're brewing Corona beer, yummmmmmy !

We went Wake Boarding !

Well, yesterday we had a planned electricity outage. Energex replaced a big transformator here in the neighborhood and electricity was planned to be down the whole morning + afternoon, so we took a day off and decided to go wake-boarding ! We thought that since we want to go kite-surfing, and part of kite-surfing is wake-boarding, we'd get some wake-board experience. We didn't know pro-wakeboarders from all around the world came to practice at the cable park just around the corner here in Bli Bli on the Sunshine Coast, but it was fun to see them do the jumps and get their advice and tips. In fact, I was positively impressed by the brotherhood-feeling and the nice people that didn't laugh at newcomers but enthousiastically helped them and gave advice and spurred them on to try again until they finally did it. The same was true for Kim and I. It can be a bit overwhelming to be standing in front of the queue with these pro-wakeboarders and then ask "Ok, so what do I do now?". Generally speaking , this was the advice :
- Try and keep your knees bent
- Put more weight on your back leg than on your front leg
- at "launch" ( this is where you start ), make sure you don't try and steer, just let the board do the work for you
- at "launch" make sure you keep your elbows in and pull the rope all the way towards your belly and don't let it be pulled away from there.

So, first in line was now Lex, with Kim just behind. Wakeboard slightly angled, rope all the way down to his belly, knees bent. "Ok, you ready mate?". What are you going to say really ? "No, I'm not ready?" ... so "yes" and off the yellow line went. As you see the yellow line go you know that your near future has only two outcomes : Either you get out of the water or you will get face-down towed through the water. Guess what ? Lex got his sinuses cleared.

So after Lex crashed, Kim had a go. Kim cheated and went for the kneeboard first. She got the rope in her hands, and off she went, no nosedive, just off cruising. On my second attempt the guys told me that I had to hold the rope tighter "Don't let it pull your arms out", which is easier said than done, these things remind me of a ski-lift, and since they not only have to pull 10-20 full grown men but also at speed, the power of the rope is not to be underestimated. My arms got pulled, I went forwards, water got under the top of my wake-board ( a clear "crash imminent" warning ) and that was it , nosedive number two.

Kim by then had done a lap on her kneeboard and decided she'd join the big boys and got a wake-board also. Nosedive ! After two more tries I finally realized what I was doing wrong : I held the rope all the way down with stretched arms, and ofcourse you have no strength that way, so this time I decided to hold the rope higher up with my elbows and I had a big more success : I got out of the water and then fell on my back end : Next time I would get it !
Kim went just before me and I saw her get out of the water, and do at least 30 meters, cheering with 1 arm in the air and eventually falling off. But she did it ! Next try , I too got out of the water, and forgot to actually steer and landed about the same spot as Kim did. Kim called it for the day and I had one more go : I had all the knowledge now, and I knew that I would be able to get to the first bend if I just kept trying. So my last try I got not only to the first bend, I actually made half a lap ( 3 corners ) ! I was pretty tired and my muscles hurt all over, but I was very satisfied with our achievements. Next morning : Our muscles hurt even more !

Australian Pale Ale

We met a German couple a few weeks ago. Amongst other things, Germans like to talk about beer. The discussion we had with the Germans was getting particularly interesting when they mentioned the words "Home brewing". Apparently, the Australian climate is perfect for fermenting beer, and our German friends lost no time in buying their own beer brewing set to make their own beer. "Beer hier ist immer so expensive !". And they are right, a sixpack of normal beer in the shops will cost you anything from 15 dollars to 30 dollars ( Corona beer is especially expensive around here ). The price of beer leaves a nasty taste in your mouth, but we now had the answer : Brew beer yourself for 1 dollar per litre. Now we're talking !

The Germans were months away from leaving Australia ( due to visa restrictions ) and had their complete set including bottles and all the extra's for sale for a mere 40 dollars. So we bought it from them. Yesterday I decided it was time to start brewing our Christmas beers, so I read the instruction book carefully again ( second time ). The Germans gave us some good advice about brewing beer. "The only thing that can go wrong is if you don't clean your stuff before you brew". Sounds easy, so we made sure everything was disinfected ( using Coopers beer kit cleaner ) and left our kit to clean overnight. Today we rinsed it off and created our "wort" which is the base of beers. It looks like sirup and to be honest I love the smell of it, but then again I love the smell of kerosine and diesel too, so that might not be much help.

We finally found a use for our second bathroom :)

Our beer set is being cleaned for the night :


The beer set is filled up with beer Wort ( "wurt" ) and is fermenting ( hopefully ) :

Oh shit ! a snake !

Today we were working on our new company website when we heard a scuttle and saw a running puss come by the window. Normally our Tizz-Puss ain't all that fast and he likes to bake in the sun rather than walk around, so this strange behaviour prompted me to go and take a look at the front door where Tizz was running to. When I opened the front door I was standing face to face with a 1.5 meter olive green snake that our dear Tizz had cornered. Somehow it didn't come to mind, as later advised by Kim, to note all the details about his head-shape, eye color and general identification marks in case we got bitten and needed anti-venom, I just thought "Oh shit! a snake!". By that time the snake found a way out of his predicament, luckily not inside the house but outside onto the grass, with a Puss on it's tail. I tell you, that snake was fast ! I told Kim "Oh shit! a snake!" and she ran outside blindly rescueing her pussy cat by picking up a 10cm twig and running after the snake. Now this is commonly discouraged around these parts in Australia. I don't believe I ever saw a sign saying "Pick up the nearest and smallest twig you can find and wave it menacingly at the snake while you run after it". I came out with a bread knife which wasn't much bigger than Kim's twig, but Kim and her twig already chased the snake away. We made sure that Tizz wasn't bitten anywhere and luckily he wasn't.

Tizz will stay inside the house the rest of the day.

We got our boxes !

We got our boxes delivered this week. I can't even remember what is in them, nothing that we can't do without, but still the cutlery was nice to get, we finally got rid of our green plastic camping gear. We also got our computers in, so we unpacked them and now we can sit behind a keyboard instead of a laptop. I won't update the blog as much anymore, since we arrived and everything is just fine over here. About once a week / two weeks is about it. It's sunny again, it's sunny everyday and it makes such a difference. It's getting warmer now, but still very bearable. We had 1-2 days where we really thought it was hot, but they are always followed by cooling showers in the afternoon, so the evenings are always nice and cool. When there's a breeze ( almost all the time ) the windows are open and it's really nice outside and inside.

Yesterday we did the Maroochy River walk, a very nice walk which reminded me of south of France actually. We swam in a little lagoon at the mouth of the river, Scamp really enjoyed himself he loves to swim and play : We're glad we could bring him along, both Tizz and Scamp are fine they love the nice weather. Tizz is usually sleeping on the veranda under the table and Scamp is usually barking at the birds passing by and playing with sticks in the garden.

Our first dive into the Pacific ocean.

We went to Coolum Beach today for our first Pacific Ocean swim ! Both Kim and me have never in our lives swam in the Pacific Ocean so today we had our Pacific cherry popped. The weather is just perfect right now : It's about 28 degrees and the humidity isn't nearly as bad as everyone keeps telling us. Perhaps it's due to the fact that we don't have airconditioning in our rental place that we got used to the heat. It feels warm but not clammy like it did in Thailand for instance. There's also a constant breeze that cools the air, so it feels cool. The ocean is a warm 24-25 degrees, like a home swimming pool. It's actually just about as clear as a swimming pool, you can see the bottom crystal clear. The waves today were about 2 meters high, and that means lots of fun !
We decided to go to Coolum Beach because of the flags that mean that the beach is patrolled. Helicopters and planes scourge the coast all the time for shark alerts and stingrays etc... so swimming in the sea really feels very very safe, safer than anywhere I have swam before. I always wear shoes when I go into the sea, something I learned when I was about 10 years old and stepped onto some sea-pricklies, a lesson that I still remember today. However, I wouldn't mind going into this sea bare feet. The bottom is pure sand, no stones and no nasties. We had a good time swimming around in the waves. We just took a shower and we're back at home enjoying the nature in our back garden, it's a lovely day.

We went kite-surfing

Today both Kim and I went kite-surfing for our first time ever : A little indulgence for Lex's birthday. It was great ! It was very tiring too, but we feel like this could be the sport for us. We had our lesson with Mike from Kitethrills. He's a qualified kite-surfing teacher and he won the first prize at the Coolum Beach Kite Festival this year, so we couldn't really go wrong. We went for the two-hour lesson. He started out by explaining beach safety and choosing the right location for kitesurfing. I won't go into the details but basically wind direction should be opposite from swell direction ( water flow ) and it should be as empty as possible. "And don't forget : Never kite between the yellow flags !". One thing that keeps amazing me over here is that Australians like to adhere to the rules. Even the kite-surfers ( who by nature are a bit anti-rules ) try and make life of other beach-participants like surfers and swimmers as easy as possible. In Europe there'd have to be rules for everything, here they just use their common sense and teach people how to behave correctly. I like it, less rules, more common sense : Makes sense to me ! Anyway, so we learned about the different beaches and starting points and wind direction and now comes the fun part : The powerzone ! I can't really explain it but generally the kite will try and fly away from you in the same direction as the wind, however, the more "central" it flies away from you, so not in the edges or high in the air but low in the air and straight in front of you, the more POWER your kite generates ( lift ). This is what you want ! You can feel this effect really well on the smaller kites ( 3 and 4 meters are relatively small but they will still pull you away from your spot in the powerzone ! ) So the trick is to get the kite in the powerwindow, but it will only stay there for a few seconds, then turn it by pulling on one side, back into the powerwindow, so generate traction. After that we learned how to use this powerwindow to let the kite pull us up from a sitting position ( which is the position you will be in when you put on your kiteboard ). After that the last 15 minutes were with a REAL KITE ! It was 7 meters but it packed a lot of power. I even got as far as doing jumps ( all on the beach ofcourse, we never got into the water : That's lesson two ) as high as 2 meters up and about 5 meters far. I didn't want to stretch my luck because the landings can be tough, so I only used about 20% of the kite's power to lift me up in the air. Mike gave me compliments on how fast I learned the skill-set : "You're a natural". Not sure if the compliments were included in the price of the lesson but still it felt good. Kim's still a little unsure about the control of the kite but she loved every moment of it. I think the next step will be the actual kite-surfing, I am sure I'll love the feeling of being in the sea and hanging in the harness, I think it's a bit like sailing but without having to buy a boat. A complete kite-surfing set will cost about 2500-2800 dollars per person, which I think is reasonable considering that after the initial purchase the wind is free. We loved spending the day on the beach being active, it was a real nice day again. Glad we put up loads of suncream because the sun can be burning. The wind keeps things cool but we'll definately be looking to buy some wetsuits for the bluebottles and more importantly the sun. A hat or cap is advised also, to protect against sunstroke. And ofcourse sunglasses, but you don't go anywhere without them here anyway. If you ever get the lucky chance to visit the Sunshine Coast, I definately recommend spending a few dollars on a lesson with Kitethrills.com, they're really good fun and you'll enjoy every moment of it.

Lex's Birthday, and our first kite-surfing lessons !

Today is a first : It's Lex's birthday and the weather is nice ! No falling leaves, no autumn storms, no rain, no overcast and no winter looming. The weather is nice, it's warm today ( it feels like 27 degrees ) and there's a blue sky as far as we can see. Kim bought me some thongs for my birthday, nice leather ones that feel really comfy, I'll be wearing those a lot around here. Now before you think I turned gay and like wearing leather underwear in public : Thongs = slippers = flip flops = shoe wear, not female underwear.

Today is also the day that we will have our first kite-surfing lesson ! Well, hopefully anyway because the wind needs to pickup a little bit. If there's no wind, we'll have to postpone it to another day : It's in the hands of the wind-gods at the moment. Kim and I are both going to try it out, see if it's something that we'd like doing as a sport around here. We need to do something in the water we're pretty sure about that, and fishing isn't exactly our cup of tea. When you mention kite-surfing around here they all say "sure is an extreme sport, that". Not quite sure what they mean with that but what better way to find out than to try it for ourselves I say. People in Europe say that snowboarding and motor riding are "extreme" too, and we like doing both, I presume this will be the same. I might be positively surprised though and it might really be an extreme sport, something that I personally look forward to. It will be nice to be doing some outdoor sport activities again after years of sitting on the couch watching the gray skies from inside the house in Europe.

A beautiful saturday night

We just came back from Maroochydore. We had an Angus Burger. Kim had the Mighty Angus and I had the Grand Angus. Some fine burgers they are ! We went to the drive-through McDonalds in Maroochydore and had our very tasty burgers sitting on the beach. The scenery around here is so perfect, it's like being in paradise itself : We are astonished every time that we remember that we actually live here and our house is just a few minutes up the hill. There's plenty of activities on the beach, Rotary clubs organizing sizzles ( BBQ's ) and people coming home from work jumping in for an evening swim. It's not the typical touristy-busy though, there's mainly locals on the beaches here. Some are fiddling with their cars on the beach parkings, some are just enjoying a sundowner on the beach, others are walking or exercising : It's a bit like Miami Vice 1980 style : Still unspoilt and "clean" somehow. Sometimes I wonder how long it will take before this is as messed up as it is in Europe, but then I quickly go back to enjoying the moment and knowing that for now at least, things are really good.

We're back online !

Well it's been a while since we posted on the blog. The main reason being that we didn't have internet in our new rental and that took a week to connect, plus we've been to Sydney for a small week. As usual we scrutinized all the internet providers and came up with the winner : Internode.com.au. Their Easy Broadband plan is not the cheapest ( although it's one of the cheaper plans available in our region ) but it's very stable and many people regard internode as the "best" ISP in Australia. So , we got 50 gigabytes for 50 bucks every month, that's reasonable I guess. We'll be putting on our downloaders a few days before the end of each month instead of "all the time" :) Never really had time to watch or listen to everything I downloaded anyway, and we wanted to get outside more anyway, which we're done so far : We go to the beach almost every day , and guess how many people ( on average ) are on the beach ? 0 ! The beaches are completely empty, it's so nice to not have to compete for your square meter of beach on a nice day, or pay 50 Euro's in parking fees for a few hours of beach, and then sit in traffic jams on the way back. So in the last 2 weeks we've left our Bed and Breakfast in Mango Hill and moved in to our new rental place in Buderim. We've also visited Kim's brother Tom and his wife Jane in Sydney while we picked up our cat and dog. It's been a very busy period and both Kim and me caught a bug on our way back from Sydney and this has confined us to bed for the last couple of days ( sleeping on the floor doesn't help ). In the last few days our bed has arrived and we got internet running, we have a fridge and washing machine + dishwasher, so we're getting used to the luxuries of western life again.

We are already confident that this was the right move for us, and Queensland ( especially the Sunshine Coast ) definitely feels right for us : We feel alive again and are very happy overall. When we drove back from Sydney to Queensland we felt like driving home, it feels like we have lived in Queensland for years already.

Furniture and BBQ day

Today we went out again for a full day of shopping. We measured up the rental place and figured out what we needed. After having bought all our white goods yesterday ( a mix of Bosch / LG and Westinghouse ) at Harvey Norman's ( for a 15% discount ) we decided today was the day to buy the furniture and BBQ. We went into the furniture shops and selected the style we wanted and asked what the whole lot would cost us, which came back at 10.000 AUD, after which we decided we'd just do it in smaller chunks. So, we decided on the absolute minimum we'd need, and got the prices too :
- 1 Queen size mattress + wooden support slats = 1500 AUD
- Bedding + Cushions = 800 AUD
- a good BBQ + utensils and gas bottle and all the accessories = 1300 AUD
- Outside table + 6 chairs ( we calculated we'd need 6 chairs maximum ) = 700 AUD

That puts us back 4300 but then we can live in the rental for quite a while without missing out on the basic needs like sleeping / cooking and sitting. We decided to not buy a TV for a while because to be honest we haven't really missed it. We might go and buy a flat-screen later but we're so busy that there's no direct need for one.

We haven't bought any of the furniture yet, we'll give them a call on Monday and order the mattress and the other stuff, but we did buy a BBQ today. It's a very nice one indeed ! It's in the back of the car at the moment and will stay there until we get the keys of the rental on Monday. This is the BBQ we got : Weber Spirit E-320. In Europe people might think that a 1300 AUD BBQ ( about 700 Euro ) is expensive but we will be cooking on it almost every day , so it needed to be a good one. The weather is so nice here that there's no need to cook a lot on the inside kitchen. Perhaps we'll use the inside kitchen in the winter, but so far we've been using the barbie every day. On the side of the barbie there is a side-burner so you can fry an egg in a pan or steam your vegetables or make a sauce there. It comes with 7 year warranty on almost anything and lifetime on most other stuff, so we're set for at least 7 years. Kim's delighted with it, we'll try it out when we come back from Sydney in a week.

We picked up our RAV4 today !

Today we picked up our RAV4 ! It drives like the Audi A3 we had before, even more stable actually, it's a real pleasure to drive. The size of the tires means that we don't feel many of the bumps in the road or the cat-eyes on the highway. We're very happy with it. We're happy we chose the paint-protection and the tinting and I'm sure we'll be happy in a few years with the electronic rust-protection and the interior protection. When you touch the car it feels like satin, apparently that's the paint protection on the car. We compared it with other cars without it and they certainly don't feel as smooth as the ones with paint protection on it. The tint is remarkably effective too , we had the car in the sun for a good 3-4 hours, normally it would be heated up like an oven, however when we sat in the car it didn't feel nearly as hot as the rental car would have been, so we're glad we chose the tinting. Also when you drive and the sun hits you from the side ( which happens quite a lot on the east coast when you drive north - south or south - north ) then the scorching sun won't feel like it's burning your skin ( it did in the rental ) , it actually doesn't even feel warm. So we're pleased we got our options fitted. The car got all the goodies we wanted and the navigation works a treat, so much better than the old Garmin we had : We use it all the time.

Here's a picture of our RAV4 :



There's more than enough space in the back for our kite-surfing gear :

Furniture shopping

Today we went shopping for furniture. We didn't bring our old furniture with us because it would have been too expensive to transport over here and it wasn't that nice in the first place : It was old, second hand stuff that we still had from our student times, or gotten for free from parents and neighbors. In short, we were ready for some new furniture and would have bought new stuff anyway if we stayed longer in The Netherlands. We made a list of things that we would need the most and would only shop for those ( ye right... ) :
- Fridge and freezer, one of those big 2-door american ones
- Bed and bedding + some sidetables etc
- BBQ for cooking our meals on

That was the plan. Now if anyone comes to Brisbane / Sunshine Coast area there is only 1 place that you have to go to : Morayfield Road in Morayfield. The sheer amount of furniture shops is dazzling : They have all the different furniture shops there, all packed nicely together on 1 big industrial road called Morayfield Road. We left the Bed&Breakfast around 11:00 and it was about 20-25 minutes drive to the shopping area. There were a LOT of furniture shops and we're rather picky so we had to go into each of them just to make sure we made the right decision; we never even got to look at BBQ's or Fridges. We went in to look for beds, but then we also decided to take a look at desks which we'd need for our job ( we both work in IT ) and we also hopped by the dining space and the outdoor furniture. Eventually we just decided to refocus :

- Beds with matching sidetables and "tallboy"
- Dining table with comfy couch and tv table ( matching )
- Desk

We realized that it was possible to get all of this in the same style but we'd always dislike 1 piece and love the others, or the other way around, so eventually we decided that we'd not place the bed in the dining room anyway so that could be a different style. The desk however could possibly be put in the living room / dining room area, so we're still not sure about that.

After about 3 hours and 5 furniture shops we came to our first conclusion :
Fantastic Furniture and Aussie Life are not our cup of tea : We didn't like the presentation of the materials ( which really says a lot about the shop and the way they think about their own products ) and the prices were horrendous. Most of the designs were boring. Both Kim and me have very similar taste : We like refined materials but not too kitsch, we like rustic style but it shouldn't come with tree bark still on it if you know what I mean. And yes : We're quite picky, we take hours to decide on a pair of shoes, just imagine us buying a car or buying furniture which should last us for decades.

We decided that the two shops that we liked most were Super A-mart for a mix of good looking and reasonably priced furniture and Sleep City for well priced but decent quality beds. We must have seen at least 200 different bedroom suites : We tested the quality of the drawers first, if they didn't have rails we'd write them off right away, then , the quality of the rails was important too, some were really flimsy, some of the drawers didn't open correctly , some didn't open at all and some opened and fell out. About 90% of the bed suites can be filtered out just by testing the drawers. I'm one of those people who gets irritated by drawers that don't work correctly, so for me this was an absolute must. Then we'd look at the quality and strength of the bed ( we both hate creaking beds ), the wood quality ( hardwood / epoxy etc, and eventually the finish. By then we'd have only a few beds left and we chose the ones we liked best. We ended up with the final three. I think it was about 15:00 when we decided on which beds were in the final top three :

Sleep City : Fjord Queen Bed
Super A-Mart : Serengeti Queen Bed
Super A-Mart : Byron Style Queen Bed which I can't find on the web anywhere but which was very nice quality and looked great too

The Serengeti bed has a real "indonesian" feel to it, which we both liked. However the drawers wouldn't correctly open when trying to open standing at an angle ( usually you will open them at an angle, but these drawers will only open when you stand in front of them and pull them straight out ). So it did have the looks and feel, but not the quality we wanted. The Byron style definately had the quality, and most definately the best drawers of the whole 200 suites we saw, but the bed was not as well-built as the Fjord. The Fjord is the one that we currently deem the winner but we'll sleep on it tonight and tomorrow we'll decide.

Now , while we were looking for beds we also had a good look at all the different couches and chairs. Again, we're very picky on these. Kim's short and slender, I am taller and weigh a bit more, so finding the right couch wasn't going to be easy. We both do agree though, the absolute most comfortable chair we have ever sat in is the Super A-mart : Celebration Recliner. She's not the prettiest of chairs. In fact, even on display she looks like she's an old rug, a second hand student couch, a leftover from your grandpa's basement. But ooooh man does she sit comfortably ! You'll start yawning just looking at it after you tried it. The chair is so comfy that I think they made it this ugly on purpose, as a warning sign for any tired and unsuspecting hard worker who would never be able to get out of it again once he settles in it. It's the only chair that seconds as a one-armed bandit, the long stick on the side is meant to make getting out of it easier and yes it does help but no you don't want to get out of it. It's not the kind of chair that has the flair, the elegance, the picture-perfect looks. It's made to be comfy, at all costs. The color is terrible too : Chocolate. It just doesn't match with anything else you can get. But boy, does it sit comfortable. The couch too sits like a glove.

I'd never forgive myself to buy such uglyness though, I mean, if they made it creamy color, or "latte" as they call it now... Ah who knows, perhaps I'll just buy one anyway and hide it in the garage when visitors come around.

So , no Celebration then, but we saw a few very nice different diners. What amazes me is that Australian stuff isn't actually bad quality. We thought that most of the stuff would be held together by pieces of string and sticky tape but most of this stuff is imported stuff, it's actually a lot better quality than Ikea stuff which most Europeans buy nowadays. We decided not to go and have a look at Ikea because we already know what Ikea makes : Cheap stuff that lasts 2 years. We wanted something that would last us a little longer, and also wanted something decent quality. We figured that spending a little more would pay off in the long run, and we'd also support the local economy a little bit. We're not quite sure if we want a light diner yet, or a darker one. The light ( silverpine ) is very nice, but requires light chairs also. Silverpine doesn't match chocolate colors ( see where I'm going ? ).

We didn't bother looking at the fridge yet since we want to have a second look at the kitchen in the rental before we do. Our next big challenge will be to find a BBQ. We found a nice shop in Maroochydore that specializes in BBQ's, so I'm sure we'll find what we want over there.

We got ourselves a rental for a year !

Before we found a nice rental we went all over the Sunshine Coast, we have seen about 10-20 rentals and man... do you get some rundown places around here! The absolute worst place we saw was actually in one of the nicest settings : On the beachfront. The house was absolutely disgusting, the previous tenants or owners must have been pigs ( literally ). If the dead bird in front of the entrance wasn't enough warning, the 100's of dead cockroaches ( 4-5 cm big ) certainly were. The property manager even had the audacity to ask us how we liked the place, to which I was all too happy to respond : "I think it's a dump. This place should be bulldozered". The place was up for rent for 480 per week, imagine that ! The paint was ugly, the wallpaper was falling off, even the ceiling-ventilators were rusty and broken, I won't even tell you about the kitchen and the toilet. The place was dark too, there were only 2-3 windows. If Hannibal Lecter ever visited Australia I knew where he stayed : On Ocean Drive in Warana.

However, we managed to find a really nice place and we signed the lease yesterday. In Europe it would be called a rental agreement but here's it's called a lease. We signed up for a 12 month lease for a few good reasons. First of all, there aren't that many renters looking for houses around at the moment, but signs are strong that within a few months that will change : After all the Sunshine Coast attracts a lot of people during summer : The Australian rental markets are usually very overcrowded, so we decided we wanted to be sure of at least one year of housing, after which we will probably build anyway. Usually you will meet about 12-15 people per rental house viewing. Houses for rent at 350 or less per week will, even during these times, attract dozens of couples per viewing, and you'll have to compete with them and of course everyone has better references than we do, since we're migrants and have no references. Some couples will go to great lengths to "secure themselves" a rental place : They will offer anywhere from 20 to 50 dollars per month extra on top of the asking price just to be considered. The phrase "secure yourself" is used a lot when trying to rush the sheeple into buying something : "secure yourself a future now, buy this house now prices are still low" etc, while prices are just about to collapse.

So , in our infinite wisdom, we thought we'd do the opposite : We'd go and have a look at houses above the usual price bracket that most people would look at on the internet and offer LESS than the asking price : How's that for a genius plan. Anyway, we went to see this house which was up for 380 per week, it's a real nice house in the middle of a rain forest clearing, lots of palm trees all around and well maintained houses, something that is not an obvious thing here in Australia. We offered 350 per week for it and eventually settled on 365, which we eagerly accepted. For 365 per week we got a clean , well maintained property in one of the nicest neighborhoods in the Sunshine Coast : Buderim. Buderim is a hilly place with some nice pockets of rain forest and doesn't have the busy feel that most of the newer estates like Mango Hill have. The houses still have plenty of privacy and room around them instead of being packet 50cm from each other. The house doesn't have air conditioning but it has a forest right at the back of the garden ( which no doubt is home to some scary native spiders ! ) which provides shade over the house almost the whole day, while the garden gets sun all day. Perfect for sitting outside in the sun when you want to , yet cool enough to be able to sleep at night. We'll be sure to post some pictures when the lease goes in, which is next week Monday.

Quicksilver and ripcurls

Last week we went to a surfing shop. They sell surfer outfits which enable you to blend in with the Australians. We felt it was time we stopped looking like tourists and buy something trendy instead. If I had known in 1980 that I would be living in Australia when I grew up, I would definitely have kept my clothes back then. Stepping through the surf shop's door felt like being warped back in time. The baseball caps, the clothes, everything could have come straight out of the "Back to the future" trilogy, which by the way was a great movie ( at the time ).

We were greeted by a tanned and cool looking surfer dude. His light curly hair trapped under a green baseball cap which seemed to be missing a propeller on top of it. He was the typical surfer : Loose sitting T-shirt, tanned and this air of carelessness about him which read "I'm cool and you're not and you know it". I must admit, he was pretty cool. He must have spotted us from a mile away by our lost looks and lured us further into the shop to make sure we wouldn't run out and buy something in another shop. "How's it goin' guys, What can I do you for ?". It was only then that I realized that the shop was only busy because of all the staff working in it, there weren't actually that many customers. After we came in though, some other people ventured in and eventually it was quite a buzz in the shop. I told him that I was looking for some nice swimming gear and that I didn't want to look like Mr Bean on the beach. I'm not a swimsuit model and I quite well know it, my body proportions aren't perfect ( and that's giving myself a compliment ) and I have pale skin which luckily after a week of recent sun is getting a bit of a tan. He smiled and said that that was a good idea, and showed me some of the latest model "baggies" ( swim gear which reaches the over the knee and sits loosely ). The choice was rather simple : If you wanted to be cool, you would have to get Ripcurl, Quicksilver or Billabong. It's allowed to mix the different brands, although people will usually buy something that their favorite surfer is wearing. I learned that Kelly "Quicksilver" Slater had been 9 year surfer champion so you couldn't really go wrong with some Quicksilvers. He was quick to add a reassuring "But don't worry, the other brands are just as good". He advised "The thing to avoid buying are the external elastic bands, only Mr Bean wears those, so make sure your pants have straight edges". I tried on a few pants that didn't seem to fit me but then spotted a very nice Black / Grey / White Ripcurl that was made for me. Tried it on, fitted like a glove : This would be the one. We thanked the cool guy and proceeded to the counter, when I remembered that I still needed some head wear for the sun. I always fancied a Crocodile Dundee hat, one of those leathery cowboy hats, so I tried some of them on. Cool guy quickly intervened, almost running to my rescue "Nooo, no. You don't wanna do that, mate" and quickly put the hat back, as if it was cursed. "Only grandpa wears a hat like that". His advice was to buy a baseball cap like he was wearing, they're the thing at the moment. I realized that this was not a sales pitch but he was honestly trying to help me when I noticed the prices of the caps were a lot lower than the Crocodile Dundee hat. I tried on 10 different hats and eventually bought myself a blue Quicksilver cap. I was now cool again and ready for the beach.

Kim&Lex 2 - Arachnids 0

Arachnophobia is a movie about scary spiders. We, however, have seen 0 spiders. If they are around then they're not in Mango Hill. I've looked everywhere, I saw an uninhabited spiderweb under a bench but that's it. Dale told me that the rain "draws them out" , it almost sounded as if they were the Vietcong army, sitting silently in their underground tunnels and preparing their ambush; at first signs of rain they would massively crawl out of the bush and start scaring us : Most probably using the cover of darkness. All that I know so far is that Australia's scariest predator is commonly found strolling the coastline, wears a bikini, has gray hair and doesn't shave.

Sunday

It's 08:20 now on our second Sunday here in Queensland and once again the skies are a perfect blue, a cooling breeze keeps temperatures very comfortable and we cannot keep from smiling when we look outside. The sound of the birds over here is something that we enjoy every day. Harley Davidson motorbikes that have been eagerly awaiting the weekend are riding out their LUGs ( Lock-up Garages ), most certainly heading for some coastal road around here.
Today we are going to the Coolum Beach Kite Festival, which is a two day event where kites of all sorts and shapes are being showed around. We don't really know what to expect from it so we're going open-minded. We saw a few more rental places on the internet which we'd like to drive past to see if we like the neighborhood they are in. We have applied for a rental in the Sunshine Coast and we expect to know more about it upcoming Monday or Tuesday, in the meantime we'll keep looking for other rental places until we sign a lease contract ( rental agreement ).
We are just about to have some brekkie now ( breakfast ) and then we're heading off to the Sunshine Coast. ( for the people who missed where we settled , we're currently in a Bed&Breakfast in Mango Hill which is located between north Brisbane and Redcliffe ). We have seen "Big Kart Track" on one of Bruce Highway's exits, so we might just take a peek around there to see how big this kart track really is.

Arvo :
It's almost 15:00 here and we've just come back from the Sunshine Coast. We grow more and more attached to the Sunshine Coast and we feel we've been here all our lives. Everything just makes sense now, we aren't stressed anymore, the people around the Sunshine Coast area are very relaxed and friendly and never in a hurry. We haven't seen Brisbane yet, something that is still on the agenda but we're not in a hurry to go there, we know that the Sunshine Coast offers us anything we came to Australia for. The wages in Brisbane are a lot higher than the ones on the sunshine coast, but the cost of living in Brisbane is much higher. So whether we get a job in Sunshine Coast or Brisbane won't matter since the commute times will be offset by higher earnings. That said, there are job in Maroochydore and they fit with our ambitions and lifestyle ( remember, this is major recession times ) so when the economy picks up in a while, we'll get jobs in Sunshine Coast. We have decided we initially want to settle in the Sunshine Coast because much work is offered by word of mouth around here, and we'd miss out on that if we lived in Brissie. Also our dog and cat would love it in the Coast, it will after all be their retirement village.

The Coolum Kite Festival was great, not too busy but busy enough for it to be interesting. A lot of kitesurfers, chinese kiters, some very strange ( or very big ) kites all around, BBQ's around the place and icecreams all over. Events like these are well patrolled, with beach patrols and police all over the place. The police seemed to enjoy themselves on the beach, as did everyone else. We didn't go for a swim because the sun was really hot and we didn't want to get sunburnt the first week, we decided to take it easy and be a bit risk-free until we have a rental and picked up the dog + cat, after which we can really start enjoying being here. I'm not sure whether we had a small depression in The Netherlands or if it was just stress but we feel so much better around here, it feels like we are finally where we were meant to be. I certainly hope the feeling will stay , but if it doesn't , well there are plenty of other places around the world we can live. One thing is very sure : We are enjoying the change of lifestyle for now. On a sunday like everyone will get their boats ( usually small fishing boats but also some speedboats ) and scramblers ( motorcross ) out of the shed and drive em around to wherever the action is. It seems we made the right choice by buying a RAV4 with towbar instead of a Corolla but only time will tell.