A bit more settling in...

Sunday, May 10th:

We decided to try the same church Clarice went to last Sunday, but instead of going to the early service we went to the 10:00 “family” service. Narrabeen Baptist Church (NBC) is about 1.5 miles down the road – close enough that we could walk in warmer weather. For that sake, I hope it is the place we end up calling “home” for the next year.

Since it was Mother’s Day the children we not dismissed early in the service, but sat through several songs and readings. NBC has a lot of families who attend the 10:00 service with a lot of kids and young adults. There was no prolific age groups as I think there were as many older people as there were kids. Probably 120 in the service we attended. Of the 4 praise songs, we knew only one so Clarice is going to have a lot of new songs to learn and teach the Praise Team at Fellowship when we get back home!

Instead of having their head pastor preach every Sunday, it appears they have a rotation set up where different people speak, but the same main study continues throughout and the main pastor speaks most of the time. Again, because it was Mother’s Day a lay leader spoke. He was an older gentleman who had been a missionary in his pre-retirement years. While I sometimes had a hard time following his points, he did preach from the Word and that was a very important thing for both of us. Clarice heard their head pastor last week (he speaks again next week) and enjoyed him very much.

After the service we were invited to join everyone in the other building (they are raising funds to tear it down and build a more permanent addition) for tea and snacks. Everyone was very friendly and came up to meet the “Americans”. We were even invited to have dinner with a few different families once we get settled. We enjoyed the church very much and plan on attending again next week.

After church we went shopping. The plan was to finish getting some last minute items, and to buy a TV so we could use the Wii I brought from the US. The TVs here have different decoders in them so even though the crummy TV here has the correct RCA inputs, the Wii would never work with it. That was fine since it was a crummy TV (granted we have been spoiled by the 60” behemoth back home). We finally ended up with a pretty nice TV that can also be used as a computer monitor. Now we can hook up the laptop and watch TV online, and more importantly if I can find a way to get NFL games over the internet I’m all set! I have to find some lovely friend who is going to get Sunday Ticket with NFL SuperFan from DirecTV. SuperFan includes the ability to watch the games online. Anyone? Send me an email. I’d be willing to pitch in some funds.


Tuesday, May 12th:

I took Clarice to work yesterday so that I could have the car. Oh, we have a very nice Mitsubishi (red with leather interior and sunroof) thank you very much! Clarice freaked about me driving on the left since I was not used to it, but it came much easier this time than when we went to Scotland. I don’t know if it will ever be natural, but everything seems to make so much more sense this time.

I came home, cleaned up, had some breakfast and headed out. I needed to get my Visa entered into my passport, pick up an e-tag for the tolls so we do not have to stop and pay with cash (many places you can’t even pay cash anymore!) and find a good step down converter so we can use our North American Wii with the 220 power here. I got them all accomplished and then some.

On my way home I stopped at an office supply store. I wanted to get a yearlong calendar where we can plan our trips and I can see the “busy” weeks for Clarice and avoid them in the plans. While I was there I picked up an office chair on sale (needed since I’ll be working from home) and a multi-function printer to use for work. Once the stupid internet people get things working I’ll be all set. Apparently it is harder to turn on internet service here than it is as home because I found out today (Tuesday) that it may be another week. Arrgghhh! I have my first online class on Thursday! Paul and Amber said I could wander over and use their connection if I need to, but I am also supposed to start work on Monday and I’d really like to have the internet up before then. I have some things I need to do that I can do from my laptop and upload later, but the biggest thing for me is the ability to communicate with the “outside world”. I need to let work know what I am working on, and let them have the capability to prioritize the things I am working one. Phone is one thing, and I’ll have to be up quite early/late to call, but I really need the internet. Oh well, it will get settled when it does and not before. There is nothing else I can do to speed the process.

The last couple of days I’ve taken long walks around the neighborhood usually ended along the beach. Narrabeen has the longest beach I have ever seen and the waves are relaxing to watch. While there are certainly surfers up here, there are more preferred areas/beaches so the beach is never crowded – plus we are coming on “winter”. I put that in quotes since it never gets colder than mid-60’s Fahrenheit. Actually, since it was cooler and cloudy today there was almost no one out there when I was walking earlier.

I think that’s it for now.

Jon