Adjusting to Our New Home

We've almost been here 2 full weeks and it's been a blast living in a new culture. In a lot of ways Australia and America are similar, but they are different in a lot of ways as well. We are living with a South African family who immigrated here 8 years ago and they have been very helpful in teaching us things we should know about Australia. Sonja has said that our American English is more similar to South African English than Aussie English so she has helped us figure out certain words. Here are a few things that we have learned!

New words:

Jumper = A sweatshirt

Hungry Jacks = Burger King

Heaps = A lot (We had heaps of fun at youth group last night!)

Mackers = McDonald's

Torch = Flashlight

Sunnies = Sunglasses

Tea = Dinner

Cuppa = A cup of coffee or tea (ex. Want a cuppa?)

Ute = Utility vehicle (Like a truck, or anything you can put stuff in the back of)

Yonks = A long time

Other things we've experienced:

The ask if we are Canadian or American when they hear our accent

One girl said we sound like Sesame Street

It's hard to think in Celsius and Kilometers

It's difficult to see cars on the "wrong" side of the road! We'll let you know what it's like when we start driving

Things we've enjoyed trying!

This is Milo and Instant Coffee...Milo is a drink that is good for kids because it has a lot of vitamins and minerals. You can drink it hot or cold and with water or milk. We have it about twice a day. It kind of reminds us of Hot Chocolate. The coffee is different here. It is instant coffee. You heat up water in a kettle and then put 1 scoop of the coffee into the water. It was very strange at first but we've learned to like it. They don't have flavors like we do.

These are Tim Tams aka Sean's new favorite treat! They come in all different flavors. We like dark chocolate and dark chocolate mint. They are like chocolate wafers and the mint ones remind us of thin mints! Delicious!

We went on a 4-5 mile walk today and took pictures of Yeppoon for you to see. Here are a few pictures of where we live:

This is a river that pours into the ocean. When the tide goes out there is hardly any water, but when it comes the water is all the way up to the boats. It fluctuates 9 m a day which is 29.5 ft!!

The yellow arrow shows where we live.

We are leaving tomorrow for a week long camping trip with the high school youth group. Please pray for us as we are on our trip and we look forward to telling you about it when we get back next Friday!