Today marks the third day we’ve been in Australia.  We’re starting to settle in, adjust to the differences (and there are many) and find our way around the city.

Our first day in Brisbane it felt like we were bombarded with so much.  The drive from the airport in the taxi was eye opening.  It was our first taste of the “backwards” driving. I sure am glad I was just sitting in the passenger seat and not trying to drive.  Traffic is crazy here and when you couple that will the fact that everyone is driving on the wrong side of the road it makes for some pretty nerve-wracking moments.  Not to mention that we quite possibly had the craziest cab driver in all of Brisbane.  He was weaving in and out of traffic and driving at ridiculously high speeds for the traffic conditions.  I was surprised that we made it to our apartment building unscathed!

Driving isn’t the only thing that is backwards to us here.  It seems like so many things are different. I sometimes feel like I’m living in a world of opposites.  Crazy little things are different.  Like, the light switches are all upside down. So to turn a light on you flick the switch down and to turn it off you flick the switch up. Crazy, right!

The time difference has taken a bit to get used to.  The biggest thing for me is adjusting to the fact that it is a day later here than my brain thinks it should be.  Today is Friday but my head thinks it should be Thursday.  We aren’t too terribly jetlagged.  Although we have been going to bed crazy early.  Last night we were all in bed my 7:30.  Of course, that means we’re up super early too!  Hopefully in the next couple of days we’ll fully recovery from the jetlag.

Our apartment is nice, especially the location.  Not as nice as I would expect for the exorbitant amount of money it costs to stay here per month, but nice.  The view from our balcony is gorgeous.  We have a nice view of the city plus some rolling hills in the distance. It is a very peaceful (well minus the loud traffic noise) to sit out on the balcony and just relax.

Yesterday Lorne had his first day at the office so Maya and I decided to head out on our first little adventure.  We found a park not too far from our apartment and decided to check it out.  The park grounds are gorgeous. It was so nice to see the beautiful green vegetation and the colorful flowers that I’ve been missing at home this winter.

The park had a playground so Maya and I spent a couple of hours just hanging out, playing at the playground.  Just after we got there we both spotted this huge lizard just lying next to one of the pieces of playground equipment.  I looked around a bit and noticed 3 or 4 more of these huge lizards just hanging out. It was the strangest and coolest thing.  It must be quite common because none of the local kids at the playground were messing with them, the lizards and the kids just sort of ignored each other. Maya was a bit freaked out at first.  I think she thought they were going to bite her.  But, once she realized they were harmless she started to think it was neat and would point out every time a new lizard made its way onto the playground.

It is going to take us a little bit to fully get used to the layout of the city and really find our way around, but in the mean time we’ll have fun wandering around the streets, exploring what our neighborhood has to offer.