Where in the world is February a nice month?

It turns out February isn't the nicest month in Brisbane. It's the rainy season, which we knew, and it's really pretty rainy. We aren't having the floods that a lot of Queensland is having, but it's really pretty damp around here. Just so all of you northern hemisphere people know, it's not all sunshine and butterflies around here :) True, it's still warm and there are still palm trees, but it's durn DAMP. Locals tell me this is the crummiest month, it's the hottest and the wettest month of the year.

Moving to Dublin I grooved around the city sights for hours on end and met a lot of people really pretty quickly. Still slow to do that here, between naps and snacks and rain it's a different scene - it's starting to come along. Plus Brisbane isn't the tourist trap that Dublin is, one of the biggest draws is the park that's across the street (way cool park) so sightseeing is definitely different. We started a Kindermusik class, it's really small and so far the only people in it are another B&V wife I got to drive me and the music school owner's granddaughter. I went to playgroup at the library and there were a million kids there, most were considerably older than FFM. I was meeting another B&V wife there and while I was waiting for her I thought I'd just go up and randomly introduce myself to someone. So I picked one of the few people with a younger aged baby. Turned out not only were they American they were a fellow B&V wife, too (not the one I was meeting, a new one!). Small world.

One truly great thing is that the 15% rule does not apply here. Those of you that came to visit us in Dublin learned Travis' 15% theory, that everything in Ireland is 15% smaller than in the US. Houses, beds, rooms, restaurants, etc. Thus those of us who are normal (or slightly taller than normal) sized Americans felt about 15% too big for our space most of the time. Not so here! Here everything feels NICE AND SPACIOUS. We can stretch out and stand tall and drive without snagging a side mirror on a wall or oncoming traffic. Oh, and lanes are actually wide enough for big cars, which there are a lot of here, SUVs and everything. I enjoy Brisbane's blend of big enough for us to fit comfortably but still being a pedestrian city so I can walk places easily and get around with public transportation.

Shopping is almost like home here. Instead of thinking of that item you 'need' and then discovering it's 1)not available or 2)so amazingly expensive you'd never ever actually consider buying it, it's just slightly more expensive than home here. Baby items are LOTS more expensive, but we're pretty well equipped (thanks Uncle Q for the jumperoo, you wouldn't believe what that costs here!). IKEA is a wonderful place. Cheap things for your temporary home! And nice things that we look at and think, wouldn't that be nice to have if we didn't have to move it...

So, that's the current quick and dirty low down on our daily life around here at the start of week four of life down under.