debbieann

Met a couple that make olive oil at a farmers market and asked for a very green olive oil - so they took my name and info and then picked from a very green olive tree, pressed it, and delivered it to our apartment! picked on the 23rd of March and in my hands on the 27th. I think because Australia has fewer people than the US, there are ways it can be more personal. Not that it would be impossible in the US, but it seems easier here.

In other news one of our suitcases has made it from Singapore to Brisbane, thanks to some very nice people willing to deal with 23 kgs of extra luggage. We have gotten very used to living out of a carry on size of luggage.

We now have permanent residency status in Australia - we are SO excited - and now we want citizenship - so for the next year we will be in Australia. Next up: Brisbane. We move tomorrow. Had to buy a couple of suitcases to move the stuff we had left in Perth. We arrived w about 22 kg of stuff and we are leaving w about 40 kg of stuff, so it is clear we need to get rid of at least 20 kgs and that is before we even get out 46 kgs of luggage from Singapore. We are taking things w us to Brisbane that we would not take if we were leaving the country (the coffee grinder is the top of that list, also a big camera and lenses, and a small color printer).

So we are thinking of a year of not much intl travel unlike 2012 and 2013, which each had about 10 different countries, but we have a long list of Australian travel, including the train that goes from Adelaide to Perth. Some time.And I want to go back to Hobart for the music festival. and Melbourne for the film festival. And maybe trips to take visitors around Australia.

At first we thought we would spend xmas/NY on Reunion Island and then come back to South Africa and hopefully our visa for China would be ready and we would fly to China - BUT - surprise, surprise our Australia visa is due to expire and we need to hopefully get a decision on perm residency and so it turns out from Reunion we need to go to Australia and not come back to SA. We don't know really how long we will be in Australia or if we will get to go to China or not - all of it is entirely unclear!

We are both travelling w carry on luggage having left our big suitcases in Singapore. I'm not sure when we will get back to Singapore. Luckily, there is not much you really need. We had left some stuff in Perth that we are mostly done with, but hadn't actually sold/donated - so now we will have a chance to do that. I'm hoping Perth will not be brutally hot. We both agree that if it looks like now is the time to live in Australia for a few years we will live near Melbourne (maybe I will even get to visit Hobart again!) - we both like Footscray, so we'd probably look for a place there (if we aren't in China). I'm happy to get a chance to be in Australia again - I'll be going to thrift stores, maybe get to a dr and a dentist, enjoy some fast internet.

once more into nomadic uncertainty! We both love it, as long as we can be together.

I'm going to take a break from our Ghana-Ethiopia travel stories, because now we are about to move-travel from Joburg to Perth w a four day hawker food stop in Singapore. We're all packed, and I am very hopeful that we aren't too far over the 20 kg checked/7 kg carry on limit. We have worked hard to get rid of even more stuff. Given that when we started we shipped 20 boxes to India, and 13 boxes to Australia a year later - well, I think we have made a lot of progress and it does make relocating a lot easier.

Some people from C's work say - are you excited to be going home - but Perth isn't home anymore than Joburg is home - they are all home temporarily - and none of it is more-home than the other. I'm excited about moving, although I really look forward to the new and different places and we lived in Perth for awhile. Still I'm looking forward to the public transit and the libraries. And to having a kitchen again - we haven't had a kitchen since Dec 15 -and we miss it! I'm hoping the heat wave of Perth won't be too too bad. I'm looking forward to seeing more movies. And S will be visiting, which is very exciting.

For the travelling I'll be reading books on the nexus 7 - currently I am reading The Dog Stars by Peter Heller. It sure is an easy way to carry a lot of books. And I have one Sun magazine (thank you M&D!) for take-off and landing. I think I'll still want to read books by African writers while in Perth, but I might switch to Australian - I can be easily influenced by place. I sure hope my library cards still work and that they won't want to prove my address all over again.