Or should I say the adventurous of renewing a Dutch Passport in Australia? Since we are staying longer than the two years we initially planned, Luka and I are now looking at passports that are about to expire and we are planning to travel abroad in the not too far future. So, we can just go to the consulate in Melbourne, right?
Wrong! Since 2015 the consulate in Melbourne does no longer deal with passport renewals. Continue reading “Renewing a Dutch passport in Australia – Part 1”
Culture Shock is the psychological disorientation that most people suffer when they move into a culture that is different from their own. It’s natural and healthy.
-Geert Hofstede-
For us the Australian life style has been very easy to adapt to in many ways. Always people there to give you a helping hand even if you do not ask for it. The easy going life style and having random chats with complete strangers on an almost daily basis. The international background of almost every one you meet.
Living in a new country comes with joys, opportunities and challenges. However one of the things that everyone is bound to experience is culture shock. Life abroad certainly has its ups but at times also has a few downs. Continue reading “Living Abroad and Culture Shock”
We just booked four Virgin Australia return flights to New Zealand and paid nothing at all! We will be visiting the closest neighboring country and that is almost a four hour flight from Melbourne. That is comparable to a flight from Amsterdam to Morocco. Yes, that is how remote Australia is. Continue reading “Free flights to New Zealand”
We do not live very far from the Yara Valley wine region, and although we drove through it a couple of times and had many ‘almost go that winery’ opportunities, we never actually stopped at any one. And it is number 21 on our Australia bucketlist and we still did not write a blog post about it. So when one of Oliver’s colleagues asked if there was interest to go to a food and wine festival there it did not take us long to reply.
The shortest lunch is organized to celebrate the shortest weekend of the year to ward off the winter chills. Twenty six of the small wineries open their doors and this is what happens. Continue reading “The shortest lunch”
When people ask Kai what school he goes to he responds that he goes to a senior college. This is usually received by surprised faces, as he just turned 11 and Senior college starts in grade 10, so for 16 years olds.
Is he an extremely bright kid (of course he is, he is our son…duh…) that skipped five years? What is the story? Continue reading “Changing Schools – a year after”
Most of the birthday parties that we have experienced in Australia so far involve going somewhere with a large, or very large group of children. Having over 15 kids is no exception, rather a norm. However, we stuck to our traditions here and Luka invited as many girls as her age.
We considered many different locations: the pool, cinema, a dance-lesson party or skating. However at the end Luka decided to do a home party this year and she wanted to watch a movie. Continue reading “Birthday party for a nine year old”
Melbourne is a city that hosts a lot of major sports events, so there is great enthusiasm in both watching and participating. That love for sports gets seeded very early on in Australia. Next to the normal sports hour in school, there are after school sport activities, sports days and inter school sports – competitions against other schools.
In the almost two years that we lived here, Kai has qualified for some of the school teams, so we got to see what the competition is like. Here is our experience. Continue reading “Primary School Sport in Victoria”
My Dutch parents have been here for six weeks and time has flown by. It was their first visit, but it is safe to say that they have been infected with the Australia virus. They were already talking about coming back before they even left.
Can I put six weeks in one blog post? Probably not, but here’s a short impression of what we did with them. Continue reading “Visitors from Europe”
Once a year Essex Heights Primary School has a day for grandparents and special friends. It is an important gathering, as it takes up half of the school day.
For Luka this year it was a very special event this year, as we have ‘opa en oma’ from overseas! Continue reading “Grandparents day at school”
Of course the best way to see Australian wildlife is to go on a road trip. But if you would like to see more animals in one day a zoo or a sanctuary are a good alternative.
We started with the three Melbourne zoo’s, the general Melbourne Zoo in the city, Healesville Sanctuary for the Australian animals and the African Weribbee Zoo, but recently we discovered that the sanctuaries can be a great place to visit as well. Moonlite Sanctuary is one of those places. It is about an hours drive South of Melbourne CBD, towards the Mornington Peninsula. A great way to encounter the unique Australian wildlife in just one day. Continue reading “The best way to see Australian Wildlife”
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