A home away from home and Happy Thanksgiving

Our New Home

Well, Mikey and I are officially LIVING in Australia! We found our home along Sydney's northern beaches in a small town called Narrabeen. It is beautiful as most cities in Australia are. The beach is our backyard

View to the North

View to the South

and Narrabeen Lake is a short stroll down the Narrabeen Plateau. Our new home is on Ocean Street and we are unit 1 of a lovely 4 story condo. It is a 2 bedroom 1 bath unit with a nice balcony that faces Ocean Street.

Our Balcony with Camping Chairs

Though we wished it was a view of the ocean we get to do some fun people watching which is always entertaining. We have a pool that will come in very handy during the hot summer months that are coming soon!! We share this lovely place with Nathan our French roommate. He works at the FCS warehouse here in Australia which is the company that Mikey worked for in Florida. It was meant to be! He is really nice and has been teaching us some basic French. We know about 14 sayings which is a pretty good start! We will keep learning. His english is pretty good though he has trouble understanding me:) I guess I talk fast??!!

We have been here for 3 weeks today!!! It has already flown by. After settling in for a few days we got on the job search and had some luck!! Mikey landed a job at the Quiksilver Board store in Manly, Sydney's most southern of the northern beaches. Basically Manly looks at Sydney across the harbor. It is a happening little beach city so Mikey will keep busy. They also have him working at the retail store on the Manly Corso and at the Tom Carroll store in Mona Vale, which is the town right north of Narrabeen. They must like him:) I found a classical Pilates studio in Mona Vale so I fill my mornings with a few hours of teaching pilates to Australia's women. They are great and the studio is really nice. So it looks like we will be able to stay in Australia for the next 6 months as we had planned!

We recently had some American friends from Jacksonville, Steve and Julie, in town for about 10 days. After leaving St. Thomas where they lived for 2 years they headed to Australia for 3 months. They had been doing the traveling as we had in the beginning and had finally made it to Sydney and good timing because we had our place. It was fun seeing fellow Americans especially since Tommy and Jenny are gone:( So we exchanged adventures, made dinners together, and did some sightseeing! We went into the city where we ate at China Town and then went to the Sydney Fish Markets

which were awesome. Every type of fish, crabs, oysters, muscles, and so on.

We got some Sydney Rock Oysters that were beyond Amazing!! We then headed back to the Rocks for a sunset at Glenmore's Rooftop Beer Garden overlooking the Rocks, Harbor Bridge, and Opera House. Sydney is only a 30-40 minute bus ride so we will be spending lots of time there when we need some city life!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

From Left to Right

Drew, Mikey, Nathan, Steve

It is these holidays that we miss our friends and family even more but thankfully we had Steve and Julie to help us put together this American meal in a foreign country that definitely does not celebrate the first friendship between the Pilgrims and the Indians. Well I was determined to make some of my moms and Mikeys' moms homemade recipes. it was not easy as they did not have a lot of key ingredients that I needed. We went down every aisle about 4 times in 2 different grocery stores trying to find what we needed(Thanks for the patience MIkey!) There was no cranberry, no squash, no French Friend Onions for Green Bean Casserole, no pumpkin pie, and no whole Turkeys unless pre ordered at a butcher. So we had to do a little rethinking. We found 2 pre cooked half turkey breast that looked really good. We also got a 1/4 pound honey baked ham from the deli and figured this would work. We made stuffing, green beans, corn, and a salad. Steve jumped in and made home made mashed potatoes with garlic and jalapeno. They were really good!! We got some good fresh rolls from the bakery and a tiramisu for desert. It would have to do! So we had Mikey and I, Steve and Julie, Nathan(French Roommate), and Drew from across the street. Drew works at FCS in Australia, so MIkey knew him from home from international sales meetings. He also helped us get the place we are living in. He was excited to have his first Thanksgiving. And it was good!! We all felt that we had made the best Thanksgiving meal we could under the circumstances and we had our closest friends in the country with us and that was the most important thing. So Mikey and I survive our first Thanksgiving together married in another country!

We both have off tomorrow so we plan on doing a hike around here and then getting either a 5$ 3ft tree or a 15$ 6ft tree from Kmart. They are artificial as Australia has no real christmas trees. Interesting huh? Since Thanksgiving is over we are starting the Christmas season and thank goodness they do celebrate christmas here!

Love,

Kristen