Alstonville and Lismore

We live in a town called Alstonville, which has a population just under 4000, and is only a 20 minute drive to the University in Lismore. We live with a lady named Marlene Davey who is wonderfully crazy in the best kind of way. She's a little bit deaf so you choose your conversation topics carefully because it takes too much effort to say something menial. In her backyard there are two types of mandarin (pronounced mandareen) orange trees that are both producing fruit, a banana tree which is still kinda green, lemon trees, passion fruit tree, naval orange tree, and I think that's about it. I probably eat 5-10 mandarins per day and although every time I offer Rosalin some she spits it out, she always thinks it's something she really wants. We have mandarin juice (freshly squeezed of course) for breakfast and home made lemonade on occasion. Don't go anywhere without some mandarins.

Everyone here has FIFA fever although our Socceroos aren't doing great. We lost the first game 0-4 to Germany who went on to lose to Serbia I think, but we tied Ghana Saturday night keeping our hopes alive. I honestly don't think they'll make it much further, but don't tell anyone I said that. Here in Australia, the sports are kind of confusing. There is soccer (as we all know it), Rugby league (which is rugby as Canadians play it), and Rugby which is a confusing sport which baffles me to the extreme. Rugby is an interesting mixture of rugby, soccer, and basketball. You should see if you can find a video of it, because it requires dribbling every 5 steps, but is generally rugby rules I think.

The streets of Alstonville and Lismore as well as every other community we've driven through is full of roundabouts!! At first, it was confusing but everyone treats them like an uncontrolled 4-way. We had the opportunity of driving with Marlene into Lismore one day, and she is a crazy lady driver! She never looks going into a roundabout because most people don't really, but when there is actually someone coming, she just stops irregardless of whether she's blocking the other vehicles or not. Sh has confided with us that she has had her license revoked (3 speeding tickets within a certain time period) and recently totaled her car because she was trying to back out of an exit she took accidentally and miscalculated how quickly the vehicles behind her were approaching and she got rear-ended. Whenever we drive with her now, she lets Spencer drive which makes me feel a lot better.

The weather has been forecast between 20-22 since we got here and we're told it won't get much colder this winter. Yesterday was about 21 degrees and ladies were definitely wearing toques and wool sweaters in church with several people who had blankets on their lap. I think the low at night has been fairly mild also, with a low of 8 the other night which had people talking.

Spencer keeps telling me that I need to introduce the Australian people to black sweatpants that are Lulu Lemon style. There is a fad here in Australia that is quite disturbing but for some reason the girls here think it's fashionable. Imagine this --denim leggings-- That's all, no skirt over top and don't you dare imagine a long shirt to cover the bum. All on their own painted on denim leggings with flats and a cropped t-shirt which is abominable in itself. These girls need to see that black stretchy pants really are the way to go.

We don't have internet at home unless the neighbours turn on their wireless so it's really hit and miss especially because they choose to go to bed around 10 and turn it off every night. We're looking for somewhere to live and are looking at spending about 200/wk for a furnished place or 150/wk for unfurnished. We're tempted to go unfurnished because in a month or two we would have saved the money needed to buy rudimentary furnishings. The ward has been great and we've been lent a car seat (we'll take pictures, it's ridiculous), a highchair, and a porta-cot (play pen). We've looked at the op-shops (second hand stores) for furniture but nothing yet.

Rosy woke up, gotta run. Love to all.