Christmas in Australia and a Trip Down South

 



Our adventkranz

 

Austrian inspired xmas decs

 


Summer was sweltering this year.  A lovely ‘welcome back’ – Not!  With air conditioning on full blast and a ‘fat lady’ dress on, I sat still as I could most days during the school holidays in the shape of a starfish and still sweated buckets!  Poor Maciek tiling away getting through three litres of water every day, the kids in undies taking turns under the hose and sitting in the paddling pool, and down to the beach in the evenings to cool off.



Santa looks familiar? 

Christmas as usual on the 24^th at Maciek’s oldies for ‘Wigilia’, traditional Polish Christmas dinner, and at my Dad’s place on the 25^th for a not so traditional English Christmas (some Mediterranean inspiration there I think?).  Had a go at a gingerbread house, took hours, then it collapsed seconds after I took a photo!  We were chuffed with our little Austrian inspired decorations although they didn’t seem to have the same feel in 40 degrees heat.



The 27^th saw us off on a trip down to Dunsborough, 3 hours drive south from Perth with our friends the Szijarto’s.  We hired a holiday house come beach shack 2 minutes walk from the beach which was lucky as the house had no air conditioning and it was like living in a sauna for a week!  It was a nice place, and towards the end of the week it had cooled off allowing us to actually sleep at night.  We spent LOADS of time swimming, visited one or two wineries and just chilled out (in a sweaty kind of way!)  New Years Eve (and little Paul’s 8^th birthday!) was spent on the beach watching the moon rise (I know! We’d never seen it before either! It’s quite spectacular – bright orange like a sunrise in a pitch black sky) and twirling glow sticks!



We tried a hike, Aussie style.  With open minds off we trudged.  There’s something slightly foreboding about the plants and trees, just not very welcoming.  They prick you and scratch you and fling back into your face and you’re always on the lookout for spiders hanging in the middle of webs waiting to grab onto your face like a giant hand as you walk into them!  So we made a decision there and then not to do that again.  At least not in Summer anyway!

Here’s a little Australian version of Jingle Bells:

Jingle Bells Jingle Bells Jingle all the way

Look out for the meat eating plants!

A hot new years eve!

Christmas in Australia on a scorching summers day, hey!

Jingle Bells Jingle Bells Christmas time is beaut

Oh what fun it is to ride in a rusty holden ute!

The crew at the lighthouse 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 







 


Canal Rocks



 



 

Hunting for Pine Cones

Kangaroo Paw??

Grass trees??

We spent the months leading up to Christmas venturing out, trying to discover new places in the great outdoors (apart from the beach), and attempting to re-create ‘Austria’ here in Perth.  From family bike rides around our local lake (or is it more of a swamp?) to picnics in Kings Park (a lovely great big place overlooking the city and the Swan River - a must visit if you visit!).  Within Kings Park are botanical gardens, endless grassed areas with fountains to gaze at, several playgrounds for the kids and picnic areas, and new since we left in 2011 – Naturescape – which is a ‘natural garden’ for kids to wander and paddle and climb and just get down and dirty really!  Bearing similarity to environments we spent most of our time in in Austria, we spent a morning there paddling in the ‘creek’ and climbing the rocks, building a ‘cubby’ (den), climbing trees and rope mazes, and mixing ‘magic potions’ in the bush, amongst some strange and wonderful Australian fauna (I’ll put the pics in but have no idea what they’re called!).

One little speckled frog...

Mixing a 'cheer up' potion for Daddy

Our local pine forest - in Summer

Charmed by all things wooden such as Christmas ornaments and dorky things to hang on your front door as can be found everywhere in Austria we went in search of ‘materials’, albeit Australian style.  The school is situated near the house in a lovely ‘leafy’ area and so on our little walks to and from school we collected sticks and gum nuts (which are locally known as ‘honkey nuts’ and are a health hazard if you’re running along and accidentally step on one = sprained ankle!).  We ventured out to our local ‘pine forest’ in search of pine cones, and although we did find a couple of promising Christmas tree decorations, we also found a Huntsman spider, hiding under a piece of bark I thought might make a nice candle holder (I didn’t stick around to take a photo of it!) and a gang of Kangaroo’s graced us with their presence! 

Building a 'cubby'

A creeky paddle

Not quite the woodsy explorations we had fallen in love with, but at least we were trying!  And we did manage to glue and stick together some quite nice looking bits and pieces ready for Christmas!

Collection of cones

Spot the spider(ssss)!

Bouncy visitors

Biking round the lake

A summer tree in full bloom

Home Smelly Home

A full load

For the first week we lived at Maciek’s parent’s house.  Luckily they were away in Bali.  I say luckily due to the fact that we had suitcases and stuff strewn all over the place, and we couldn’t pack anything away.  When they returned after a week expecting us to be moved back in to our own place, it only took a couple of days for Babcia to start tearing her hair out.  There had been problems with the tenants, and a delay for our house to be returned to us.  Finally we got the keys and were shocked and disappointed to walk into a smelly grimy mess.  Our move in date was further delayed by another week as we hired a professional cleaner, replaced carpets and painted walls.  Eventually if felt fresh enough and we moved back in on the weekend just before Amelia was due to start school.

We thought she’d jump at the chance to attend an English speaking school and lap up all the conversation with new friends that she could after the troubles in Austria, but her poor teacher was met with a crazy child screaming out for me (as I walked away with tears in my eyes), and octopus arms and legs gripping the door frame to the classroom!  Definitely unexpected.  But after a few days she was much more settled.  I decided to keep Noah at home with me as I’d not spent much one on one time with him during his short little life!  It proved to be a very long 10 weeks.  He was bored to high heaven!

After fourteen days back in Australia, seven of those taken up conquering the effects of jet lag, and the next seven re-decorating and sorting out paper work, Maciek got stuck straight back in at work, buying a van and organizing all his tools the day before he started.  Talk about exhausting.  But at least the house smelt nice!

Haven't we seen something like this before?

A Bit about New Holland...

The Swan River with Perth City in background

In the early part of the 19^th century a short little man with black wavy hair and a moustache accidentally stumbled into the western part of Australia on his boat via the Swan River due to an unexpected gust of wind in the wrong direction.  Actually, that’s not true.  I made that bit up.  I’ve no idea what Captain James Stirling looked like or if he suffered from wind, but nevertheless, there he found himself.  The silly little man chuffed off back to England and told the Queen what he’d found – a great land full of beautiful natural attractions.  What?  Was he blind aswell? 

Before him the French and Dutch had passed by, named the place New Holland just to stamp their authority, snubbed their noses, and called out Au Revoir with a click of their clogs to a land they declared ‘sterile, forbidding and inhospitable’!  It should have been left at that.  The aboriginal tribes would have continued to live peacefully and in harmony with their land (well, not everybody loves green grass and rolling hills and non-murderous insects and reptiles, do they?). 

But no.  The Brits went and brought out shiploads of criminals that they didn’t have room for and set up camp and colony along the Swan River.  And that’s where it all began.  I’m inclined to agree with the Dutch and the French.  But let’s just imagine us as New Holland for a bit.  Riding around on bikes with bells and baskets, wearing clogs and berets, eating croissants for breakfast and painting pictures of it all while sipping on espresso alfresco style, in one of the many hundreds of cafes selling ‘pain au chocolat’ and chocolate brownies which aren’t really chocolate brownies, saying  ‘Bonjour Ca Va?  instead of  ‘G’day mate’ and not a barby’ to be seen!

Anyway, I digress from the topic which was meant to be ‘jet lag’.  Have you ever experienced jet lag with two young children after crossing an 8 hour time difference?  I highly recommend it not!  As I said, we arrived home in the early evening and in an attempt to align ourselves to local time, went to bed as usual.  Two in the morning we were up, bright as buttons, hungry for dinner.  A very eerie feeling: being up and about as if it’s the middle of the day, when the rest of the neighbourhood is fast asleep.  By 6am we were back in bed, sleeping, till 2 in the afternoon.  This went on for about three days, about the amount of time it took for mine and Maciek’s body clocks to adjust while the kids’ did not.  And we were exhausted and desperate for normalcy.  So we gave the kids some drugs.  Don’t judge us.  It’s travel sickness medication, and the problem was related to travel, was it not?  With the added bonus of ‘may cause drowsiness’.  Sshhh!  But it didn’t work.  In fact it had the opposite effect and caused hyperactivity.  The only solution was to ride it out.  Which took a full week.  Just around the time we were about to check ourselves into a mental asylum!

Same again, complete with black swans

 

That first week was a culture shock.  We enjoyed novelties like being able to get any manner of take-away food, from KFC, to fish n chips, to Chinese, which we did, nearly every day for that first week.   Disgusting to think of it now!  It was brilliant to be in the shops and understand everyone, and have conversation with strangers without having to explain that you can’t understand them.  The amount of choice in the supermarket and just the amount of ‘stuff’ in general in the shopping centres was overwhelming, as well as the number of cars, and bizarre people wearing bare feet and pyjamas out in public!  We were surrounded by concrete.  And shops.  And people.  And to be honest it was all a bit frightening!  It was like George of the Jungle.  It felt like we’d been living in a bubble in the forest for so long we’d forgotten what civilization felt like.  We ached for the mountains, and the country-side, and space, and as much as we enjoyed seeing our family and friends again and being surrounded by familiarity, we wanted to run away back to Austria.

But we had a giggle one evening while watching a comedy festival on T.V (yes!  T.V!  We could watch T.V!).  An American comedian called Arj Barker, very popular here, was discussing the not so popular tourism campaign Australia came up with a few years ago, which featured a bikini clad Lara Bingle frolicking around on a paradise beach, before pouting into the camera and saying in a perfect Aussie accent “Where the bloody hell are ya?”  It didn’t go down so well.   So Arj Barker had come up with some of his own possible jingles.  Obviously aimed at an American audience, the best one he said he could think of was this: 

‘Come to Australia!  Twice as far as Europe - without all that pesky culture!’

And so it was, that clogs were replaced with flip flops, and croissants with the humble sausage sizzle outside Bunnings on Sundays. 

(But, you don't go to Europe for the beaches!)

Cousins re-unite, Jakson, Ollie and Noah

Posing at the beach

Going for a mini surf!

Milly posing at the beach

 

It's a long way to Tipperary....

The person who wrote that song a hundred years ago had obviously never travelled to Perth from the middle of Europe.

From St Johann via Worgl in a car (30 mintues), to Verona on a train (4 hours), then on to Milan in a hire car which was too small (2 hours), an overnight stay in a hotel, a flight to Dohar (6 hours), a seven hour wait in the airport, another flight to Perth (12 hours), and then two hours to get through customs due to our wooden souvineers.

Now that’s a bloody long way!

Our last view of the mountains

 Why did we fly out from Milan, I hear you ask?  It was the cheapest flight we could find.  But a schedule change on our Munich to Milan flight meant that we could no longer make it to Milan by plane.  And so goes the journey!

Lucky for us, Sam gave us a lift

In the mad rush that was leading up to our departure, we didn’t have time to pack our suitcases suitably for the flight, and just did an ‘it’ll do for the train journey’ pack, which meant two of the suitcases were 30kg, the other two were 20kg, and we each had a rucksack weighing about 8kg each, a small pull along suitcase and the kids car seats.

Our dear friend Samantha (also known as ‘unlucky Sam – bugger!’) was lovely enough to drive us and our huge amount of cargo to the train station in Worgl.  I was choking back tears taking in the beautiful scenery for the last time during the drive, and felt saddened that our journey with all its emotion and ups and downs was now over.  

Waiting for the train

Sam got us into Worgl without going the wrong way down any one way streets, which is what she is renowned for!  And too soon we were on the platform exchanging hugs and saying goodbyes with tears flowing.

Our attention then had to turn to how we would manage to get our 11 pieces of luggage plus two children onto the carriage on our own before the train pulled away!  Just then a family of Indians came and sat beside us, and as friendly as they were, offering around a packet of chocolate eclairs, the fact that they also had 4 big suitcases with them was not good news for us.  The last thing we wanted was a fight for luggage space on the same carriage!  So Maciek inconspicuously moved one bit of luggage at a time a few metres along the platform and we decided that when the train arrived we would get onto an empty ‘cabin’ carriage.  However it didn’t really occur to us that we wouldn’t  get a choice of carriage to board, and when the train arrived the empty ‘cabin’ carriage was at the front of the train, miles from us, and the doors to the FULL one arrived just at our feet.   With no time to ponder Maciek began loading our luggage aboard while I took care of the small pieces and the kids.  A number of people offered lots of help and soon there was a production line of people passing our luggage along the carriage where it all finally came to rest lined up along the outer wall of the train.  Me and the kids were stuck up one end near the exit doors, where a lovely old German couple took over the role of ‘Oma and Opa’ and chatted to the kids and gave them sweets and made sure they were safely seated on the littlest suitcase. 

Cramped in the carriage

Stuck this way for an hour until the train arrived at Innsbruck, right in the way of other passengers moving about the train, gave us time to ponder how we would negotiate ourselves and all of our luggage into a cabin once one became available, before new embarking passengers stole it from us.  Cut a long story short a lovely Italian man who spoke some German and ‘a little’ English bagsied a cabin for us and then helped us rescue all our luggage from the corridor trapped between groups of passengers.  He was a little shocked to see the luggage keep coming, and even more surprised when he attempted lifting one of the suitcases up onto the overhead storage racks!  The poor guy spent most of his journey in the restaurant carriage, but for us, the remaining 3 hours were relaxing.

Relaxing for a bit

After crossing the Italian border we noticed once again the contrast between Austrian train stations and Italian ones in the general appearance and lack of amenities, including luggage trolleys.  How would we manage all of our luggage and the kids from the train station, to the car hire venue, without a trolley?  We told ourselves that Verona is a big place and surely its train station would have luggage trolleys, especially with an airport transfer departing from it. 

How wrong we were.  The friendly Italian man had told us that we would be able to get one for about Eur5.00, and so after he once again helped us with our cargo off the train and bid us farewell, Maciek went off in search of one.  He came back with nothing.  And so with each of us towing two massive suitcases plus our back packs, and Maciek also with the car seats, and Milly pulling along the littlest suitcase as well as her own back pack, we trudged along down the elevator and into the station, dodging hundreds of people, out the front and around the corner, where I waited with Amelia while Maciek went to sort out the car. 

The car was too small.  They’d given us an ‘or similar model’ which looked the same from the outside but the available boot space was not helpful at all!  With lots of jigsaw puzzling, quite a lot of swearing, an hour and a half later and with Noah ending up having to travel with his legs pushed to one side to allow room for a suitcase across the back seat, and my legs not much better off, we began the two hour drive to Milan.  Our task now was to re-arrange all of our luggage to comply with airline weight restrictions, and after dinner we spent all evening doing it, having to throw out more stuff that we had wanted to keep.  Quite a few freebies left behind for hotel staff anyway!

The final leg home

We’d packed our cabin luggage to the maximum, thinking that no-one ever weighs your hand luggage anyway.  But what do you know, Qatar Airways does!  Much to our relief it was all allowed through, and with that massive stress off our minds, we were able to relax knowing that in hundreds  of hours’ time we would be home!  All we had to do was survive the horrible torturous plane journey!

Lots of movies later, with not very much sleep, bloated stomachs and swollen feet, after surviving a 7 hour wait at Dohar airport with no money, we arrived in Perth.  Another two hours later through customs, where the officer kindly chopped off my lovely pine cone from my Christmas ornament, finally we walked through the arrival gates and were greeted by our welcome home party, and 12 degrees, which was a bummer considering we’d left all our warm clothes behind thinking ‘we won’t need those at home’! 

Home to bed.  Only to be up again at 2am!

And the horror story of jet lag begins……

(A journey of this magnitude requires a very long post!  I even cut loads out!  So, apologies.  The ones to follow will be short and sweet.  Promise.)

CHAPTER TWO - BACK 'OME!

Months have passed since the last post because I’ve been debating back and forth whether or not to continue with it.  My intentions were always to keep it going, but then time got the better of me, getting bogged down in settling back in, and it seemed too late.  But what the heck, I’ll do it anyway.   The main reason is to stay in touch with all our overseas friends, enlightening them on life in Oz, and hopefully in the process coax them over for a holiday (or frighten them off it for good!).   It will provide a platform to air out our own thoughts about coming back here to live and give us a chance to see life in Australia from a new perspective, learning about bits and pieces that we never gave any thought to before.  I heard a quote the other day, not sure where it was from now, but it said something along the lines of “You must immerse yourself in another world/culture/life to fully understand your own”.  Don’t quote me on it!  But that’s the gist.  And we definitely feel that living in Austria, even only for a year, has changed the way we see and deal with things, altered our perception of what is truly important to us, and given us a new understanding of ourselves.

So, to our friends and family here in ‘Straya’ (as the die hard true blue aussies call it), you’d be forgiven for not being too interested in reading on, since we are just here around the corner and can talk to you everyday.  But to all our chums far and wide, here is a lovely picture to start it all off…..

One of our lovable native creatures - The Red Back Spider !

From one season to another

Balloons from the balcony in Spring

 

The time has come to say so long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye!  The two weeks since we returned from Italy have been crazy, sorting things out, trying to sell our furniture, our car, moving out, cleaning the apartment, tying up all the loose ends.

Amelia and Noah had their last day at Kindergarten on Friday.  They had a little leaving party and I became quite emotional saying goodbye to all of her teachers and the other staff.  We are also madly trying to have last minute catch ups with friends.  We have met such lovely people here, all of whom have been so helpful and supportive along the way and some special lifelong friendships have been made.

The decision to return to Perth was not an easy one, and we mulled over it, on again off again, for months.  There are many little reasons that contributed to the decision we made in the end, but the biggest one is family, and the fact that Amelia has struggled so much with communication and making friends which was heartbreaking at times.  Now we are looking forward to going, we still have moments where we look around and think how can we leave a place as beautiful as this, but life is life wherever you live.  A friend of mine who writes fantastic emails like short stories recently told me that she and her family have also been very busy, only in a more mundane kind of way.  What I can say is that it doesn’t matter where you live in the world, the mundane follows!  Noah is still toilet training and weeing on the carpet and pooing in his pants!  Food shopping and meal planning still needs to be done, as does cleaning the toilet and bathroom (ugh..worst job in the world!).  You still worry about money, and stress when your kids are sick.  All of these things still go on, even if you live in Barbados, or on a Greek Island, or in the Austrian Alps!  You just have a different view from your kitchen window while you’re washing the dishes.  And the only important thing is that you wake each day and be grateful for it, be grateful for your health, and for your family and friends.  So no matter how mundane you think your life is, everybody elses, deep down, is just the same.  I’d like to include a famous (??) quote from a great man called Maciek – “The grass might be greener over here, but the amount of shit that needs to be piled onto it really stinks!”  True in every sense!

 

River paddling in Summer

We will miss the lush green meadows, the mountain air and delicious perfect temperature tap water; the clear rivers and babbling brooks and waterfalls; hiking through the woods and all the cool outdoor sports on the doorstep; all the things in the sky we can see from our balcony like the light planes and rescue helicopters, hot air balloons, and paragliders, the clouds whispering past the forest in the distance; the green ‘bubble’ at Steinplatte and one euro icecreams in town.   We will also miss the lack of traffic and graffiti; the cleanliness; the quietness; the wildlife and the changing seasons; the simplicity of just being, watching the cows chew away at the grass below or the eagles hovering above; not having to lock the door or worry about the kids wandering around the supermarket alone; the limited choice in the shops which started out as a negative but now feels like it’s just enough. 

 

 

Kicking up leaves in Autumn

We will definitely NOT miss the overwhelming stench of cow poo at certain times of the year!  Neither will we miss having to translate every document, and every bit of correspondence.  We are looking forward to familiarity, being able to understand everything and everyone, watching telly and watching the kids play happily with their cousins and friends.  And we are looking forward to babysitters, going out to dinner and having some time off! (brace yourselves, there’s almost a year and a half worth to make up for!)

 

This has been a fantastic experience, and even with all the difficult and stressful times, we have no regrets, only gratefulness at having had the opportunity to do it.

 

Christmas in the snow

These mornings are misty and cold, snow has fallen at the tip of Noah’s ‘Hot Chocolate Mountain’, and the trees are already beginning to turn to shades of Autumn, but as the leaves gently fall on the final days of this journey, we return home to the Spring and the beginning of a new one.  A fresh start, new perspectives, and new dreams to be dreamt up….