Home alone

Qeren, I miss you. A lot.

Tuesday the family I’m staying with went away. Some back to work a four hour flight away, and others to New Zealand, for a week. So I’ve been home alone. Well, not entirely alone, the dog and cat are here. When I went to feed the pets one of these days (the pets live on the ground floor), there was this big (zonnewende-type) beetle looking thing on the cats food bowl. Now I was supposed to take whatever was left in the bowl and throw it out, but my heart was too faint. So instead i poured the cat food that I had on top of it and then I ran away. See if Q had been there she would’ve taken care of that beetle creature in a heart beat. “Fear” is not in her vocabulary.

It definitely is in mine. I’ve been afraid of driving in this country. They drive on the wrong side of the road here. Now I’ve driven on the left side before. I drove to England this summer and I did ok driving there (Nathan there’s no need for you to comment, you and I are both still alive right?;) ). That was in my own car though. Which means just the world outside of my car was foreign, inside my car I had my own little comfort zone, where my gear stick and indicators were where they’ve always been, and where I believe they should be. The same is not true for Australian cars. Last week before Mervyn left I drove a bit on the parking lot of this industrial area which helped me understand that my indicators were on the right hand side of the steering wheel. It also taught me they have a funny way of crossing roundabouts here. Anyway. So I was going to drive solo for the first time right. So I leave the house, walk to the car, sit down, start adjusting my rear view mirror when I realize something is terribly wrong. I was missing my.. STEERING WHEEL! Right, so I get out, walk to the driver’s side this time and I’m ready to go. TomTom’s cousin is called Garmin and she lead me to church on Sabbath. My friend Matt from the US told me about some friends of his that go to a church about an hour from where I was staying. So I had had some email contact with them and they invited me to their church. An interesting detail is that I left the house at 8am, it took me an hour and fifteen minutes to get to the church, and I arrived at the church at 10:15am. No.. this is not my inability to do calculations of any sort playing up. The church is in a different state, one that in (Australian) summer time, is one hour ahead.

So I get to the church right. And this friendly gentleman asks me if I’m looking for the youth class. Well, yeh.. I thought, because last week when I went to the youth class these were young people in the ages of about 18-30 so I guess the youth class is what I’m looking for. He explains to me where it is, but I can never remember directions so I get lost and end up at the main entrance. The friendly gentleman walks me to my class this time and as I walk in my class I look at the people there and I’m thinking to myself.. ‘these kids are no older than 13.. I know I look young, but I’m much taller than these kids, did the friendly gentleman really think I was 12 or does this church just not have a lot of people my age?’
I never asked the friendly gentleman what he was thinking, but it turned out I was definitely in the wrong class. It didn’t matter though. I just listened in on the teens class, and pitched in some thoughts towards the end. The guy who was taking the class was a recent Mdiv (theology) graduate from Andrews University (Michigan), and as I found out after church, he’s a friend of my (British) friend Andreas. They met at Andrews, where Andreas is still studying. So we talked about how we were both so upset that we missed Andreas’ wedding last August and about how small the Adventist world is. #3degreesofseperationinsteadof6. I also met Erin and David. Another really friendly couple. I might meet up with them towards the end of my stay in Aussieland. David is from South-Africa and speaks Afrikaans, which I can understand as long as he speaks slowly and he could understand my Dutch as well :)


I met up with Matt’s friends and they were lovely. A really friendly, loving and vibrant family. And they gave me some avocados too, in case you’re wondering what’s in my hands.
On the way home from church I stopped at Currumbin beach, it was pretty there. I ran into some random Russian dude who in broken English explained to me that he wanted to take a picture with me, his lady friend took it. And then he asked me if I wanted to take one with my camera as well.. At least that's what I thought he asked me. He walked away from me, stood next to his friend and told me to take a picture. I took it, thinking maybe they wanted me to email it to them. But they walked away without asking for any details. So now I have a random picture of the random Russian people on my hard drive..
The weather here has been quite nice. Tomorrow it will apparently be 28 degrees.. I might find a beach then too :) Or actually, maybe I'll just find someone with a pool.

The day that I decided that I was over trying to get over my jet lag was the day I actually slept through the night. Usually all I have to do is stay awake till the evening, and sleep when the people of the land sleep, and then you wake up when they wake up. That didn’t work for me this time though. The first couple nights I would be up till about 11 or even 12 at night and then I’d still manage to wake up at 4am. 4am is when the sun wakes up, and then it wakes up all the birds too. And they’re not pigeons or owls, who make somewhat civilized noises, these are serious birds. ‘Het is een nieuwe dag!’ (It’s a new day) - Jayda Vlijter, and EVERYONE has to know it. So even now that I'm over the jet lag I wake up at 4am, register that the birds are not an alarm clock and then I sleep for another hour or three.

The silver platter tents I told you about are called mozzie domes. Google that :) . We’ve not bought any yet, am not sure if we will either. I’ll have to update you on that later.

As a response to my earlier entry Qeren says its ok for me to stay in Australia, but only if I marry a guy who will then pay for her ticket to Australia. Did you see how that says “ticket” (singular)?!! My sister just sold me to an unknown Australian man for just € 1300. Sisterly love...