Hello there!

I know I know, finally a blog in English! I keep saying every month again that I'll post an English blog soon and haven't done it. Well, that was probably because after writing the Dutch one first I didn't felt like writing it all over again in another language. Just took too much time and it was even a bit hard to switch between two languages the whole time. So, now after 4 months, I finally started to write in English. It’s easier to stay in one language in stead of writing in dutch and talking in English. And maybe, if I’m really motivated I’ll write it over in dutch for all you Dutchies back home who will have a bit trouble with reading this (mum). Let’s get started!

Spring instead of autumn

My fourth month in Aussie has just pasted which means month number 5 has stated and it's my last full month in Hamilton! It hasn't seemed like I have actually been here for four months until I realised it's already November now. I’m still a bit confused of the months because of the season difference between Europe and down under. It feels so weird that November is so hot. Normally back home, November is a cold and dark month. Rain everyday and cold temperatures as usual for the Netherlands. I think everyone back home knows exactly what I'm talking about right now. Once you're in November you know it doesn't take long before the holidays starts, which always makes me feel excited. But this year is different as November means Spring time for Australia and the closer we're getting to December the hotter the days will be. I walked down the streets one day and I saw a whole shop full of Christmas stuff. A Christmas shop itself shouldn't be that weird, until you know I was wearing shorts and a singlet because it was 31 degrees. It just didn't felt right and I just don’t feel like Christmas is coming soon. Lucky I still have more than a month to go to get used to it. As for the kids it can’t be soon enough and they already started to sing some Christmas songs.

I even had my first Halloween party (Australia doesn't really celebrate Halloween but Faith does hahaha). If I think of Halloween I’d think of pumpkins, orange and brown leafs and other typical autumn stuff. But this year the trees where full of flowers and the grass was nice and green. So the Halloween party was (of course) a typical aussie barbie with a lot of meat. Totally different then back home but so much fun. My host dad was by the way totally against Halloween. He quoted: “ If kids come here for candy I’ll just slam the door in front of them. We don’t have Candies here we only have lollies and we are not bloody Americans.” Fair enough and thanks for the explanation. He added later that he doesn't really hate America because he said we need America on our side in the world politics. But that’s pretty much all they are good for ha. It’s funny though. Especially because the point of view in the Netherlands is so different, we adore the States more than we hate them I reckon…

The healthy lifestyle for a day

Sometimes I just feel like doing nothing. Especially after a whole day of working I’m so tired and want to lay down and do nothing. This is obviously not making me feel any better. I realised that time is flying so fast and I sometimes forget to enjoy it that much because of the busy days. So, the last couple weeks I started to go for a run or walk everyday around the lake. Even though I'm usually not really a big fan of running it makes me feel so much better I do it. It's a reason to go out of the house and enjoy the beauty and peace around the lake. And I even love to just go there alone, sit down somewhere, listen to music or just enjoying the birds and sometimes even koalas! I realised that these moments are doing me so well and I need to take a moment for myself more often. You will all think I’m living so healthy now. Well, I tell you what, I’m not! The walking changed into movie nights at Faith’s place with Ice cream and other sugar stuff which is obviously so healthy. But I do love it. I really enjoy my time with the kids and love to snuggle and play with them when I’m not working, but It’s also really nice to just hang around with a friend, Talk about your day and other random stuff you’ll come up to. Last week Faith was home alone for the week and believe it or not, she thought she would like to have a cat to keep her company and actually bought one the same day she came up with this idea. She said she had a surprise and I, of course, had no idea. Walked into the house and saw that little cutie. It was the perfect timing as I started too miss my cat at home! So from now on I’ll be there everyday to have a snuggle with the cutest cat in Australia ha!

Culture difference

The weekends back in Hamilton are mostly quite relaxing. All that traveling up to Melbourne and in Melbourne does makes me exhausted at the end so it’s also good to have some relaxing days back home. A couple weeks ago one of my dutch friends who lives in Melbourne, Valeri, came to visit me. Pretty weird to speak Dutch in a place where I've only been speaking English for the past months! Funny tho but I switched in language the whole time! Of course my Dutch is still way better than my English but I really do want to improve my English. And the only way that’s working is to keep talking in English, keep on trying even if I completely fail. My kids do correct me if I say something wrong which is a good thing I reckon.

As i’m not allowed to drive a car the only option for us (besides walking) is riding my bike. Just exactly like we would’ve done back home. The only thing I didn’t realised, -well actually I did realised it but just pretended like I didn't,- was it might be illegal in Australia. I found out a week before when I was trying to teach my twins how the sit on the back of a bike, that you're not allowed to ride a bike with someone on the back, not even if you both wearing helmets... I just don't get it.

Driving a car while drinking alcohol or using drugs is also illegal but I do see heaps of people doing it. And besides I’m pretty sure I can ride good enough to have someone on the back, as I’ve been doing that pretty much my whole life. But this is just something like a cultural difference. I just don't understand why I can't have someone on the back of my bike. Wearing helmets is already a big deal to me and I certainly don't like it but I do understand (a little) why It's so important. It can be quite dangerous when the bike lanes stops out of nowhere on the middle of a busy road or roundabout. Especially because most of the drivers aren't really happy when they see bike riders on "their" roads. So, that means if you don't like someone you're not gonna stop for them to pass. Simple as that. But I don't really see a difference between one or two people on a bike and it's not dangerous if you can bike good enough. Well I’ll leave it up to this. We did have a good weekend and didn't get in any trouble. The happiest thing of the weekend was when we saw a kangaroo around the lake! Usually the kangaroos are not in Hamilton but a couple km outside of town up to the grampians. But this was a real life (wet) kangaroo who has probably been for a swim in the lake and now jumped over the roads and some backyards!

The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step..

The last couple times Ive headed off to Melbourne I had always someone with me. It’s always nice to have a friend with you and I love spending weekends with friends. The only thing is, sometimes you just need to choose between going alone or not going at all. The thought of going alone freaked me out already but that was exactly the reason why I needed do it. If I ever wanted to go travelling, I should’t be scared of being or going alone somewhere. I knew for sure if I didn’t do it now I would never have done it all. Because yea, get to know me, I always wait till there is nothing to choose anymore. So this time I knew I needed to stop limiting myself and just go for it!

The reason why I was able to go that weekend was because a really nice Canadian lady, Elisha, offered me a free ride to the city. This saved me heaps of money so I would’ve been crazy to not take that offer of course! - This is also one of those things I would’t have done back home.- I didn’t even know Elisha the only thing I knew was she lived close to Hamilton and could give me a ride. I took the offer without even thinking about the consequences. This whole part, funny enough, didn’t scared me at all. But it would’ve scared my parents back home to hell so, of course, I didn’t tell them. Elisha, had Dutch grandparents who moved to Canada in the immigration period in Europe. She told stories about how she could still see the dutch culture in the way her grandparents lived. She wanted to know everything about my life back home. Normally if I tell people here about The Netherlands they just don’t get it. But Elisha has been to the Netherlands so it was really nice to talk to someone who could understand what I was talking about, instead of looking at me like I’m crazy. -A funny fact; her favourite food is hutspot (typical Dutch meal with mixed carrot, patatos union and sausage), couldn't be more Dutch!- Her grandma made it for her and she still makes it for her kids! Funny how long your original culture will stay with you. She moved with her husband to Australia around 8 years ago and told me how tough her life was in the first years in Australia. We talked about the positive and negative aspects we’ve experienced of the aussie culture and the difference between our cultures. Always nice to have some good company while traveling 3 hours to the city. It didn't even feel like the it was 3 hours!

Elisha dropped me off in st Kilda near the tram stop. To be honest I hoped the tram ride would've taken me hours but (unfortunately) it only took around 3 min to get to the hostel. I hopped out of the tram and I started to shake a bit. Arriving at the corner of the street I thought for a moment "Can I just turn around and go back?" But I had to get over this fear and had to do it. And besides, there was not really a way back either as the public transport is not that good outside of the city. I knew once it's all over I'll be fine and it would be much easier the next time. I walked slowly to the hostel to check in. I've stayed there two times before so I knew exactly how things worked but that's didn't make me any less stressful. I was so damn lucky when I walked into the hostel and saw Valeri at the reception. I had met her once before and I didn't really know her but at least I had someone to hold on to. She even calmed me down a bit and helped me to get in touch with some other girls there. Of course it was not that scary eventually but I think what scared me the most was just the feeling of being alone alone. I was getting better as soon as I met other people to talk to and hang around with. I met a dutch and german girl who were both traveling alone. They met each other on the flight from Asia to Melbourne and decided to make some travel plans together. It was really inspiring to hear their stories and to see how fast they made a plan and did it. They decided to hire a campervan together and left the next day. “Wow! Can it seriously go that fast?”. It also made me realise I don’t have to plan my whole next month day by day. Spontaneous ideas are not bad at all!

After spending the evening with some friends and thought I was over all the fear for the day, something else happened. My plan was just to go to straight to bed so the night wouldn't take that long. So I took a shower, came back and saw that a random Asian guy was laying in my bed.. Seriously?! My first night ever alone alone in a hostel and my bed got stolen by a random dude? (Of course) I stared panicking from that moment. And of course only this can happen to me, but what now? It was around 2:30am and I really needed some sleep. I reckon panicking wasn't really helping so I needed to do something. Waiting didn't work either as everyone in the room was pretty drunk and didn't really see me standing there. So, I told I the Asian guy nicely that this was actually my bed and asked him if he could please move. Nice try, but like I said before everyone was so drunk so he didn’t really responded, could’ve seen that coming. Next try; I thought it might help to talk a bit louder so he would actually hear what I had to say and I was serious. But even this time no response. It took me around half an hour to get him out of my bed but he did eventually move away, thanks to some other room mates. I could finally go to sleep to wake up the next morning at exactly 7am.. Oh and don’t worry I did survived everything!

Dutchies down under

The free ride to Melbourne also gave me the opportunity to go see Geanne, one of my dutch friends here. We live almost 7 hours (by public transport) apart and that’s way to long to travel for just one weekend, even for Australian distances. As I was already in Melbourne on Thursday this weekend, it was the perfect opportunity to go up to Rosebud. Geanne was somewhere else at the moment on the other side of Victoria so we decided to meet in Melbourne for a perfect shopping day. After a really nice day shopping and missing 3 (!) trains towards Mornington because we couldn’t make a choice which All Stars we wanted to buy… no, it’s not a joke it was a serious problem, and we headed off towards Rosebud. With blisters all over our feet, way too much shopping bags and our weekend backpack on our backs, we finally had time to get some rest for the next 2.5 hours. It wouldn’t be us if we didn't almost miss the bus as well but lucky us we did arrived safely. Geanne’s house was almost exactly like the typical Australian house I’d imagined before I came to Australia. It looked more like a big beach house with surfboards on the wall. Funny how different everything looked from Hamilton and how different the houses where.

How to fix a bike..?

The next day we were planning to go bike riding along the beach. -Oh wait, I forgot to tell you how good our brekky was. Guess what we made? Yep that's right, pancakes! -Geanne’s host mum said she had another bike for us somewhere in the garage. But, she wasn't sure if it was still working. As you may know, aussies don't really have a good knowledge of bikes. So, Geanne and I needed to fix the (most pretty) bike by ourselves if we wanted to use it. It was the perfect idea of course because I’m so technical, auhm. We had no other choice than try to remember every single word our dad’s told us about fixing bikes. The first problem seemed easy, we needed to pump up the tires. Well, it seemed easy, but you can’t pump up a tire without having a pump. So we went off to the neighbours to ask for their help as they seemed way more technical than both of us together. Problem number 1 was fixed. The next problem was the steering wheel. It was facing way down which made it really hard to hold it. We needed tools to fix it but again, we had no idea what or what it would be called in English, if it was even the tool we needed. Asking for help from the neighbours didn’t really work out this time as they didn’t seem to see what was wrong with the steering wheel and kept saying it’s fine like this. Well, we were sure this wasn’t good so we had to do it with our own technical mind. We looked everywhere in the garage for tools and just tried everything until we found something that seemed to fit and work. Wasn’t that hard, only lifting the seat up and done! To be honest, we were a little bit proud that we actually did it. I know dad, after all I did listen to all your instructions over the past years. Now that our bikes where fixed we finally headed up towards the beach.

A little bit closer to home

Geanne always said the beach in Rosebud was really nice but its even more than that! It was just so so so beautiful! The water was so clear and blue. It was so quite and peaceful. The perfect time for a photoshoot with our new loves, the bike and our new same skirts we bought the day before in Melbourne. We spent the whole day at the beach until we got hungry. Well actually, we really felt like having dutch Apple Pie. I think talking dutch the whole time made us feel like we needed some dutch food. Its funny how I sometimes forget I’m in Australia. Everything feels so normal which is a good thing of course. Once I start speaking dutch it just feels like the Netherlands is so close. The only difference is the amazing views, weather, oh and actually everything else. I don’t really miss anything in the Netherlands at the moment besides some food. But it's also really nice to make it here and enjoy it way more just because you know you don't have it everyday.

The next day we headed up to top of the mountain to see the amazing view over Port Phillip Bay. Unfortunately the camera battery died on our way because we forgot to charge it.. Yep, that’s also something that only happens to us. We couldn’t take that nice of pictures in high quality because of that, but it is a good reason to go back ha! We headed off back to the beach later that day because the wind was still. The perfect timing for standup paddle boarding. Geanne’s host mum has her own paddle board and we were allowed to have a go.'How awesome is that! I’d never done any kind of surfing but it was all on my list. And what is a better place than at the most beautiful beach I’ve seen so far with no one around only water and amazing views. Never thought it was actually that hard to keep your balance on the surfboard though. But after finding my balance and almost get stuck in the sandbanks I could enjoy the awesome surfing! It was the perfect end for such a good weekend.

Goosebumps

After all I was a little proud of myself. I actually did get over this fear even while it was freaking me out and I really had no idea why I put myself in such situations, I’m glad I did it. The next time I went off to Melbourne all alone without even realising I was really alone again. Maybe that was because I now knew for sure I had people over there and I knew I did survived the first time. It made me feel so free. And yes, it still does scare me a little when I'm walking into a room full of people I have never met. But I think everyone does feel that sometimes. Once you get in touch with others you'll be fine and it can be so good as you get in touch with heaps of new people. The last time in Melbourne I had such amazing nights and did met heaps of new people but also a lot of friends from other weekends. It feels so good once you get back and people recognise you and are so happy that you're back. Last weekend we had a huge spontaneous sing-a-long while others where playing guitar. It started with 3 of us as an Irish guy asked us to sing so he could play, and ended up with the whole hostel joining us. You just get a little bit of goosebumps if you're singing a song and everyone starts to join you out of nowhere on the same time. And even more if people recognise you the next day and ask to do it again because it was so much fun!

Well, I can go on for ages but this is plenty enough for now! Hope you all enjoyed reading it. This next month is gonna be full of new adventures and I can't wait to tell you all about it.

See y'all next month!