After failing to take the previous hint, our household goods have finally tracked us down all the way from Germany. In our initial plans they were to have joined us only a few weeks after we ourselves had arrived. However, famed German customer service, a missed boat and US Customs and importing procedures conspired to delay our reuniting. In total, 5 months and 11 days, beating their previous record by over a month.

It’s good to have many more familiar items around us — it’s really been a second Christmas full of box openings and forgotten surprises. Now we just have to find somewhere to put them all.

Having decided to rent a house a bit further away from my place of work than we’d ideally like, a second vehicle was on the cards. Given the high price of petrol (*snigger*) — actually I mostly just believe in having sufficient for my needs — I thought a scooter would be the ticket. Since the freeways I take have a tendency to clog quickly and often, having a smaller vehicle than can go slip through is a great boon. Though one must ride very defensively, lane sharing, as it’s known here, is considered acceptable behaviour. In addition to lane sharing, motorcycles are also permitted to use the car pool lane and this helps reduce the danger to me and the time to ride.

I picked up the new bike for what I think was a very good price. The guy threw in a jacket, two helmets (one of them a child’s), a bag for the seat, a pair of gloves and a service manual, confirming to me that he was in fact going ‘cold turkey’ on bike riding. The bike is a 1988 model and had only 9300 miles on it. Basically, it was owned consecutively by two older guys who rode it a couple of times a month and then brought it home to polish it. I’ve already let the bike know that she won’t be getting that sort of treatment from me.

As one bike-course instructor told me, “A commute doesn’t get much sweeter than a southern Californian highway on a motorcycle.” I think I’m tending to agree.

Oh, and if you don’t think this is a scooter, you should see the ones that ride past me!

Thanks to all those who have called or emailed in the past few days to check on our family’s welfare amid the recent southern Californian fires.

For those who didn’t know (or care), we are all fine. There is no real imminent
threat to our home but we stay informed, just in case. However, my work was closed on Monday and Tuesday (22nd and 23rd Oct). It took me two hours on Monday to get there and then 45 minutes later they said we should go home! Only an hour to get home, riding into the fierce Santa Ana wind. By Tuesday afternoon the fire closest to work had made it to the car park of the building across the street. Fortunately, it was contained there with our car park now somewhat ash covered.

It is extremely dry around here so bush(brush/wild)fires are always a constant concern — well, except immediately after the fire I guess. Being Australian, fires are nothing new to us. You learn to respect them and how to take precautions. On the other, we have little experience with earthquakes …

We now have a car we bought it a couple of days ago it’s not an American car no not even from Europe no it’s from Japan we got a Honda. Yes you heard me right a honda. Why we didn’t get a German car I don’t know. I would have liked one. Well we got a Honda “Odisey” Well i think that’s how you spell it. It was fairly well priced and it was big enough although it isn’t that big but it will do!!! =) It’s a nice car and in great condition. So the weather is great here. And there is a house in “Mission Viejo” that would suite us great. CYA
I’ll write again soon at lest someone will
Elijah

After all the preparations for the shift, matters have progressed relatively smoothly. Our visas came with plenty of time to spare, all our friends were as helpful as ever — we spent some lovely times over the last few days with those whom we have grown close to — and we even made the flight on time. The luggage allowance on flights to the US is very generous and we took full opportunity of it to bring our tent, blankets, sheets, extra clothing and a few special things we always inevitably forget to send with the shipped belongings. However unloading, carting all the luggage through the airports and reloading was a bit of a challenge.

The flight itself went quite well and my brother Donovan was there to meet us at the car rental agency. We had a whole airport-agency shuttle bus to ourselves due to the amount of luggage we were toting. Eventually we made it to the furnished apartment being provided by my company for a few weeks and clocked off for the (very long) day. Donovan was also great the next day, looking after the children, including a movie, while Gaynor and I did a bit of running around.

The next days included house hunting, a bit of shopping and some orientation. The weather has been wonderful and warm (actually, quite hot but still great!) and the apartment complex includes a pool. For the Labor Day holiday last Monday we enjoyed a few hours at the beach and playing in the sand and surf. The children are now coming to the end of their extended summer holidays and as soon as we can find a house we will enrol them in the relevant schools.

As for work, the new job is shaping to be very interesting and the company seems to be a great place to work. I’m looking forward to getting into it further.

So for now, we are looking hard for a house to rent and a car to buy. The rest will come in time. Many new things to learn and experiences to enjoy.

Well our time in Germany is quickly coming to a close. Here us a brief update on our recent activities and a couple of those coming up.

Recent
We finished up in our house, and I at work, at the end of July. The idea then was to go, as the Germans say, ‘on tour’ visiting friends, relatives and having a relaxing camping holiday until the time came to depart this country. That was the plan anyway and we managed it — mostly. It was altered in large part due to an extremely unreasonable landlady and, in smaller part, the camping being less than relaxing for the whole family. I shan’t go into details regarding the landlady but, concerning the camping, our imminent departure meant that we were reluctant to invest in much more reasonably essential camping equipment so soon before shifting continents. In the end we decided to cut the camping short and take up one of the many, very generous offers to stay at a friend’s house. We have had a lovely time visiting with a number of the good friends we have made since we’ve been here and will miss them all terribly.

We had our interviews with the US Consulate in Frankfurt last week and they indicated all seemed OK and we should have the visas this week. 🙂

Upcoming
So this week we are staying at a friend’s house while they are on their own holiday. We’ll be doing a lot of organising for matters in the US and hopefully trying to get a bit of relaxation in (always hopeful!). We have plane tickets booked for a flight on the 27th of August and so having the visas arrive before then is a good thing. We have friends who’ll help us to get to the airport and I’ll also be trying to sell our car during the week. Couple of things left to do and then all we need to do is set up again in the US. 😀

I’ve been job hunting for a number of months now and am pleased to say I have just received a formal offer from a private fusion research company based in Orange County, California. It seems pretty reasonable so we think we’ll give it a go. I mean, it can’t be any harder than shifting to Germany right? Don’t worry though, we’ve put a bit more thought into it than the preceding sentences might allude to.

We still have to clear our entry/work visas and will have an interview middle of next month. Hopefully only a few days to process. We expect to be arriving around the 25-28th August, though that may delayed if something in the plan needs changing. The company has asked me to start early September.

We should have about a week between arriving and starting work and school and in that time hope to find a house, a car, schools, change drivers licences — yes, another test 🙁 — take out insurances, cure cancer and solve global warming. Or as many as we can manage anyway.

Gaynor and I are both excited and the children also seem pretty happy about it. There are a number of advantages in moving to southern California not the least of which is the promise of continued income. There is a lot of work to do before then but I think we’ll make it. We are planning to be relaxing on a camping holiday for most of August and so probably won’t be making much internet contact during that time.

More to come from the other side of the pond!

Well I guess you all herd about Elijahs sad attempt to write about the visit we had from our grandparents, so I shall fill you in on what really happened.
They arrived on the 24th of April 2007 at ca. 15:00 hours and I was sick from school when they arrived and was trying to cope with the noise pollution from Ari and Bryna.
The next few days were quite ordanairy with me home sick, Bryna late for kindergarten and Mama and Granddad getting used to our house and repairing some stuff Dad had not got round to yet.This went on till Friday when I went to school and Bryna was early for kindergarten. Then one weekend dad decided to take them to Aachen and show them around. A few weeks later they went to Trier and looked at all that stuff there is to see you know the porta nigra and the baths and the amphitheater. a few weeks later they went to Paris with mum for three days and saw the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame. In between seeing Europe and all that jazz they helped us in the garden and getting our garden “correct” as our landlady says.
I’m sorry that I can’t give more information but i didn’t really pay attention.

Joshua Glass

On the 24Th of April our grandparents arrived they were picked up at the Dusseldorf airport by Dad , Bryna and Ariana. By the time they got back Mum had afternoon tea finished. After we had finished all the cake we gave them a chance to have a sleep after their long trip over. But that’s abit boring so lets have some action on Friday the 27Th I the Almighty Elijah broke my arm playing soccer at a friends. So off to the hospital OH and the doctor said no more monkeys jumping on the and that i had broken not just 1 bone but an amazing number of 2 bones. So i couldn’t go to stake conference on Sunday because once I heard i had broken 2 bones it suddenly began to hurt. Well that doesn’t have much to do with mama and grandad but I’m going to go on because it very interesting. So on Monday no school for me to much pain Tuesday pain easing off but no school it’s a public holiday oho!!! Wednesday appointment at the hospital in Juelich they had no clue what they were doing so they sent me to the hospital in Eschweiler. They knew a bit more and said …. that ….. I ….. should ……. get operated tubule weed cricket cricket. So on Thursday I got operated but then the bad news came
I had to stay over night in the hospital :(. But as strange as it may sound it actually wasn’t that bad. So on Friday I could go home we got home at about 1 pm. You might be wondering what they did when I got operated on well if you really want to know have fun finding out …………. OK I will tell you I got a pin right through my arm ow!!!!!!! 🙂 So well to tell the truth I don’t really know much about what my grandparents did so you will just have to wait till someone else writes a post about them. OK I can tell you one thing they worked a lot in the garden.:) But I think I will leave the topic at grandma and grandpa

So, where to start? I’ll start with books, the last book I read was a German book my class had to read, its called “Damals war es Friedrich” (pronounced Freedrish) by Hans Peter Richter (what a German name). It’s about a German boy and his Jewish neighbor Friedrich who were born during WWII. Just before I read “Damals war es Friedrich” I read the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy
which took me about 4 months to finish but it was worth it. I did it mainly to watch the movies by Peter Jackson, it was worth it. I am also writing a book called the Lord of the Rubbers. (three guesses for what it is a parody of) I have also seed some great comic flicks lately: Spidermantm1 and 2, X-men 1,2,3 and Superman & Superman returns. The latest on my list of movies is another Peter Jackson film King Kong. On my list is still Fantastic 4, DareDevil and Indy Jones. Oh and i’ve also read Jurassic Park.
Thats all for now
Josh