Is life in Aus what you expected it to be?

[SurferMan]

me too!

[Donovan83]

Ja me too...

[VanTonderFamily]

me 3

[VanTonderFamily]

I must say, I am always Mrs Optimistic... but here and there are things that flips me over to badly, I will actually French kiss a Cobra.

The Aussies love to moan...... whine to win I call it..... me as a South African get things done and make things happen.... so this has been quite a challange

And they don't make friends like we make friends, where you come over to my house, put your feet on the couch and have a glass of wine and just do real girlfriend stuff - they have mates (someone they know) - or this is what I think.

But for the rest, love it.

I don't even mind cleaning my own house..... so I do have a little less time to myself, but that is also fine.

The washing powder and everything else lasts 5 x longer

[SurferMan]

In SA we used to buy a 10kg sugar and it would be gone in under a month. (We dont use or eat sugar at all anymore, we are Banting!) So I hear you loud n clear. The Sunlight (5 litres) would make the month, but only just. We bought 2x25kg pap, also would not make the month. I have never minded helping others, but subsidising half of the local population was too much. One day I came home early and found one of them in the shower, with one of my prize steaks going on the stove. They were unemployed the same day...

Have you guys noticed how long appliances last here? We have the same fridge, washing machine, tumble dryer, iron, IRONING BOARD, etc as when we got here 4 years ago. They used to chew through ironing boards man....unbelievable.

I don't mind the whining, Saffers can bitch just as much if they are in the mood. The ones to avoid though are the "Tant Stienie" club that talk loudly and bitching waiting for you to look at them, then they launch at you. Fortunately you can smell/see/sense them afar off, so avoidance is usually easy. LOL

Okay Heidim, its time....lol

[Eva]

How much ironing do you do SurferMan? Just curious, I do as little as I can get away with! Most of my clothes are stuff that doesn't need ironing...

And I too am curious about the deleted post!!

[Fish]

...And they don't make friends like we make friends, where you come over to my house, put your feet on the couch and have a glass of wine and just do real girlfriend stuff - they have mates (someone they know) - or this is what I think.

....

Hang in there, maybe you just haven't found the right people yet and they will come eventually ? Australians do have friend like that in my experience.

[Bronwyn&Co]

Explain more about the 'Tant Stienie' please, I'm interested.

I agree I cannot make female Australian friends, maybe it's me ?

Edited August 4, 2014 by Bronwyn&Co

[SurferMan]

How much ironing do you do SurferMan? Just curious, I do as little as I can get away with! Most of my clothes are stuff that doesn't need ironing...

And I too am curious about the deleted post!!

Not too much Bronwyn&Co,

I will either iron my shirt in the am, or do a batch over a weekend, or ask my neighbour to iron for me. She needs the extra cash and does a good job. Costs me a 150 a month for about 4-5 baskets, which I class as a good deal.

[SurferMan]

Explain more about the 'Tant Stienie' please, I'm interested.

I agree I cannot make female Australian friends, maybe it's me

The following is for humour!

The Tant Stienie types are the chickas who are loud, cigarette hangin out the corner of the mouth, have their lawless offspring running amok, jumping on couches, screaming etc. They often have own conversations with themselves, or berate their kids loudly, and bitch about the father or someone else. The moment you make eye contact its game on. These people to whom I refer are almost exclusively Aussie in my observations, hence my correlation to the Saffer Tant Stienie.

http://redactor-images-live.s3.amazonaws.com/51927c10dd305754000c76bf.jpg

Edited August 4, 2014 by SurferMan

[VanTonderFamily]

Bwhahahahahahahahaha

Very funny...........

Bronwyn&Co - maybe we should get together.... sounds like we could do with some girl time... and wine

[KalahariHarry]

@Surferman

First pics. Bottom pic...where is that? Looks awesome.

trev

[milo]

We just ticked 5 years in Australia, and only now feel that we are doing well. We are both 40+ and at this stage of life to emigrate isn't easy. You really do start over - building your retirement and financial security.

Our kids have settled well and are independent and go about the community on public transport without us really worrying about their safety. At times they catch a train into the city to go to big events like concerts or sport with their friends. We go by train to the city to go to the theatre, just to avoid the late night drive home. Never had a problem, besides the drunk young adults. But watching them is more humorous than being annoyed by it.

Don't expect to replicate your life in RSA here in Aus. You will be disappointed, as it is a totally different culture. Aussies believe in the 3x8 principle. 8 hours work, 8 hours play, 8 hours rest. Aussies are hard workers, especially the tradesman. Office workers tend to work longer hours. The middle class is the majority in Australia.

We also don't go out to dinner all that often anymore. Food courts, cafés are more frequented now. I have also learned to cook so many other cultures' food ie Malaysian, Thai etc.

Keep in mind that you can do more with $10 than R10. So overall, you can be better off financially. We definitely do braai, with pap en sous! but have found thatnour palate has changed and boerewors is a treat now, more than a given.

We love Australia, it has been good to us.

[Fish]

Explain more about the 'Tant Stienie' please, I'm interested.

I agree I cannot make female Australian friends, maybe it's me ?

Fishfucius say: 'Let go and it will come Bronwyn'

[magman]

Oz is better than what we expected. Here is a few things of what I can think of

Sleeping at night, is so peaceful, no dogs barking, no alarms, you don't worry about someone breaking in and causing havoc.

Goverment depts, changing our drivers licence's, we filled in one page and 5 mins later they said it would be in the post in 3days, but all the depts work over here. Just one gripe, is some places you pay to park, and it can be expensive. Opening our bank accounts took 15minutes, too open two accounts each for us each and the 3 kids.

Public transport, it is awesome, our 3 kids are from 13yrs to 16 years, and if they want to go anywhere, they just jump on buses, as long as it is two of them at least, and they back before dark.

Our son goes on his bike and visits his mates when he wants.

Ebay, anything you want at your fingertips.

Outdoor facilities, the picnic sites, bbq areas, parks and family facilities.

Work, our one daughter is 16, needed money in the holidays, and easily got a job, she now works weekends.

I enjoy golf, and it is very reasonable over here, as well as lots of courses.

[Bronwyn&Co]

Fishfucius say: 'Let go and it will come Bronwyn'

Nah Fish, I don't mind. It's highly unlikely that I will make friends since I don't work at the moment. Study full time but by distance. We have a hate campaign with one set of neighbours. Another few I know but they are probably 15 years older. Sometimes I've been for drinks with my ex-colleagues but they screeched the roof off the place and had to be asked several times to tone it down...my book club was abandoned (by themselves) due to extreme boredom...lol. My son's friends mums just use us as a boarding house when they are away on business five times a year ? luckily I'm really too busy anyway & my husband & I like spending time together ?

When you work you tend to get the single clan or the moms of little kids clan, or the gay guys or the married men, haha. I don't really count 'let's catch up' as real friends. Meh!

Edited August 5, 2014 by Bronwyn&Co

[Donovan83]

Sleeping at night, is so peaceful, no dogs barking, no alarms, you don't worry about someone breaking in and causing havoc.

Totally agree with this. It's one of the things I could not handle in SA, people just left their dogs to bark all day and all night. I am sure you get that here too, but in SA it seemed to be so completely pervasive, every single street in every single neighborhood had at least one yard of dogs barking at a time. Drove me absolutely crazy, everywhere I lived there was someone's stupid dog yapping.

[Esthee]

For me life in Australia has been better than I thought it would be, but in different ways than I expected.

First off we found that the bonus of feeling safe gets normal very soon. It's like crime gave you a -5 in the 'good life' meter in SA, and you expect that being safe will give you a +5 once you're in Aus. But then it turns out to be a 0. You don't have the -5, but feeling safe becomes normal so quickly that you tend to forget that it's a benefit. This makes a real impact once the honeymoon phase is over and you start feeling homesick. So for us, we had to realise that safety is a severe push factor, but safety alone isn't going to make us happy in Australia.

I have never been as happy in my life as I have been here. I often tell family that I'm sure I was created to live here. This great Southland is more beautiful than I ever imagined, the birds, the open skies, the beaches, and my favourite; dog off-leash areas. Australia is filled with people who are trying to give their children a better life than what they had. They come from everywhere, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, China etc. We might all look different, but if you take the time, we are all very similar. I love that about Australia. Here it really isn't about what race you are, it's about what kind of person you are.

And that is the biggest difference between what I expected Australia to be for me and what it has become. As a person I have completely changed here. I'm a better version of myself here. Financially we might not be close to where we were in SA, but that doesn't matter to me anymore. I went from living in the 'right' neighbourhood in SA to probably the wrong side of town here. And I love every minute of it. I love the community I've found here, I love the fact that I live in a part of the city where I can make a positive change in someone's life. I have made the best friends here, and I've even made a new family. If the old South African version of me had to look at my life now, she would probably be very scared and not sure if she would be able to handle this type of change. But there's no way that I would ever exchange my life now for the one I had.

So yes, work here is harder. The corporate culture here is much more demanding and impersonal. I work long hours and after work I still have to get home and clean up after myself. I'm fortunate to be able to go out for a good meal at least once a week. But I've also learnt that I can save heaps by visiting Aldi. I'm part of a community that makes dinners for the family who just had a baby, or who visits you when you're in the hospital. Or who takes you out for coffee when they know you've had a bad week. For me the things that used to be important in SA isn't important here. So my experience of Australia is nothing like I envisioned, but turned out to be so much better.

[SurferMan]

I have not felt the pull back to SA if Im honest. A twinge here and there of nostalgia, but by the time I left that place, I was so over the hate, violence, anger, crime etc I dont think I will want to set foot back onto it again. Im probably weird I know.