Living in the country you were born in, makes you think that it is the only place you can ever call home. This is how I felt anyway. Growing up, getting married to the man of my dreams, becoming parents at a young age so that the kids can grow up knowing their grandparents. That was my dream. My reality.
So, this is what we did, but my husband always wanted to travel and experience other countries, not just for a holiday, but living elsewhere, that sounded great!
With work and career building and every normal growing stage, we never got around to travel much. Life was all about kids and family and schools and church. So, when the call came to move to Australia, we were so surprised and excited, that we thought we might just as well go.
The South African life was never a problem to me, I like the diversity of the cultures and I enjoyed getting closer to my fellow countrymen and women as the cultures started to merge.
My children never had the dreaded apartheid bug and could not even understand the terrible jokes that were always part of society.
So it was on the 27 December 2005 that we landed in Sydney. The flight was better than most, being that we had business class tickets. How spoilt can you get!
When we arrived at hour new home, two hours north from Sydney, we were really excited and the house was beautiful. Just like the pictures we saw.
We drove down to Sydney again on the 31st to see the fireworks, I am so thankful now that I did that, because I realise that it might have been the first and last time I see it live. What a spectacular scene! The best way to start a new chapter in your life!
On the 1st of January we realised that it is not all as it seems... we experienced the hottest day of our lives. 46 degrees Celsius! humid! the wind was hot!, the clothes in the cupboards were hot, the water in the cold tap was hot!
Around lunch time, when we realised we cannot even lie on the floor to keep cool as that was hot too, we decided to go to Port Stephens to see weather it was cooler there. Wow, were we glad to feel 38 degrees!. We had lunch there and in the afternoon drove home. When we reached Newcastle we decided to go for a swim at Nobbies beach... the water was freezing, the wind was Hot! So you would be frozen to the waist and from there you would burn from the wind blowing so hot.
Later on, the locals explained to us that the desert wind blew and that is normally combined by a very cold sea.
At this point, just a day later than my first wow, I wanted to go back to what I was used to.
This was my first experience of my new home.
