Hello all,

After nearly a-month-and-a-half living on the other side of the world, I thought it was time to give you all a rundown of what has been happening in that time.

The first couple of weeks was mainly getting established. A lot of red tape to getting registered for all kind of benefits (Medi-cal-Care, etc.) and not-so-beneficial/official stuff (like taxes).

I've got to tell you how I transferred my drivers licence to an Australian one. For this I had to do a written test, consisting of 30 multiple-choice questions. Not only was there no supervision while during the test (I could have taken books of anything), the questions where also dead simple and even redundant. So now I can legally drive on the wrong/left side of the road (aren't you glad you don't live anywhere near me ?!).

I do this driving in my most major acquisition was a 4WD. It's an 1989 Suzuki Vitara JLX hardtop. I couldn't forgo of the 'mod-cons' all together as it has power steering, power windows, electric mirrors, cruise control, airco. It's a bit older than I had intended but it is in mint condition and has only done 125.000 k's. It's small and comfortable enough for city traffic, but still quite capable of some real off-road stuff. The other weekend we took it on the beach which was great fun ! And in the near future we will take it 'bush-bashing'.

My own stuff from Holland arrived mid-October. I got some hassle from customs of 3(!) tablets of a tranquilliser I had packed. They were actually confiscated but the custom-guy was pretty disappointed when he saw the volume of his catch. Other than that all my stuff came through OK. I think this is where I send out a first broadcast, after setting up my PC and connecting to the Internet. The only thing I had to replace from that was my modem as the Dutch one did not recognise Australian dialtones. In the mean time the adapter for my loudspeakers has blown but I don't know whether that is because of the higher voltage (240V) or old age (3 years). In any case I feel connected.

The rest of the first month was spent get myself acquainted with the country, the weather and the environment. The weather here is beautiful: very little rain and lots of sun. The temperature is high-twenties still, but everybody is warning me about the hot summer I'm heading for with temperatures around of over 40 degrees (all in Celsius for you Yanks!).

Nevertheless I did not spent all of my time on the beach. For one as there have been a number of shark-sightings. the first one was when a 3-meter white pointer bit the front of a surfski, only centimetres away from the guys feet and only 150 metre out off one of Perth's most popular beaches. Next was another white pointer which was seen eating a 250-kilo seal, a few kilometres off the coast. And after that a hammerhead-shark was spotted as well. Still the beach has its lure with this beautiful weather and I am determined to get myself a body-board and diving-lessons.

And there was the jobhunt. Via various recruitment agencies, I finally got a job-offer from GE Capital IT Solutions. A company I contacted whilst still in the Netherlands. They do similar work as Pink Elephant did, which is why I thought it would be mutual beneficial. However they were currently in need for a more technical, operational person. So for the time being I'm working as a System Engineer, troubleshooting NT and/or Novell network for various customers.

This is not quite what I want in the long run (to be honest I'm not too sure I'm qualified enough to do this right now), but GE knows this and has promised more project orientated work in the future. Also I'm on a 3 month contract right now which gives us both the opportunity to find out about each other. For me it means work during day, a paycheque at the end of the week, experience at working in Perth/Australia, getting around Perth and seeing various companies, and a renewed knowledge of Novell (4.11) and Windows NT (4.0) and all their 'great' features (it's not a bug .. it's a feature).

Work in general is quite relaxed. People on the Westcoast of Australia are pretty quickly on a first name basis (hey, how you're doing ?). On the other hand English culture is apparent and shirt-and-tie are obligated (fortunately no suit or jacket in this heat). It also means that I have to work my way to peaktime Perth traffic each day. What a difference: in the Netherlands I had to cross half the country (nearly a 100 km's each way), through heavy traffic jams which more than doubled the traveltime during peakhour. This forced me to travel on ongodly hours (06:30 and 18:30) to keep the traveltime limited (to an hour each way). Now I only travel 6 km's each way and peakhour here means a pile-up for a traffic light, making the journey last a whopping 15 minutes ! So finally I can wake up at 7 and still be at work before 8. GE have gracefully provided me with a underground parkingspace in the city so even that is not a problem.

With Lisa and me everything is going great. The transition of moving in together was quite smooth and slowly we are growing into this pattern of work, socialising etc.etc. We almost become a boring couple. The next couple of months are leading up to Christmas and there are also some family do's in Lisa's family so our spare time is limited. BTW: Christmas in the midst of summer is going to be a bit of a culture shock!

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