Crawfish, Cowboys, and the Northern Lands

Well, it's been a few weeks since my family and I arrived here in America - during this time, so much stuff has happened, and I just haven't had much time for updates. So, here's the highlights of the last few weeks as they stick in my head. I'll try harder to post regularly, but I'm not making any promises...

My family settles into our new home for the next few years- an old, almost condemmned vinyl siding house with a faint smell of mold, and a backyard the size of a regulation soccer field, surrounded by giant green maple,oak and cherry trees.

Yes, That's the lawnmower. I already hate it.

I remember what it was like to move out of home, with borrowed furniture, mattresses on the floor, and never quite being able to find the exact implement you want to cook with. Our house is still very sparse, and has the unique, University-Student-two-minute-noodle Group House feel.

Home, sweet home.

Two Australian Software consultants walk into a crawfish bar in Corpus Christi, Texas. There, they are treated to an enormous mountain of shrimp and crawfish, while fat american cowboys complete with ten gallon hats and six shooters sing terrible karaoke to all time country and western hits. Fortunately, the beer was the "coldest in america", and before long they were singing along too...

My wife Alison and I discover exactly how expensive it is to maintain a life in America, and pay for the debts of our old life in Australia. All of our conversations consist of one of us being terribly disheartened and the other one trying to point out that it's not too bad. Roles are frequently reversed...

We discover that it's nearly impossible to live in Northern Virginia without a car. The car we were going to purchase is caught up in some beaucratic process involving the transtition of a Motor Vehicle title from Florida to Virginia, and is still unable to be registered in Virginia. I sneak out in it at night, unregistered, unlicensed, and uninsured to buy groceries in the 'stealth minivan'. I feel like a fugitive. (So far, I've resisted the temptation to join a gang...)

The quest for some bread that doesn't taste like raisin toast with the raisins removed continues. Americans seem to put way too much sugar in their bread.The grocery store only has about a hundred differrent varieties of bread, so I figure we have about another 92 possible chances.

And, so life over here continues to entertain, surprise and baffle us.