Aussie Aussie Aussie! Oi oi oi!

A postie just showed up with an envelope for me from the immigration department. As of Tuesday I have permanent residence.

And there was much rejoicing (yay).

Hey, I can quit my job and sign up for the dole now! As if....

Today I submitted all my paperwork for the second stage of my visa application, minus the Australian Federal Police clearance, which hasn't arrived yet, and could be another week or more. So I'm this close to being a permanent resident.

edit: Guess what was in the mail when I got home...

Today I received a big yellow envelope with all the forms and instructions for the second half of my visa application. And they only gave us a few weeks to get it all together. No matter though. I figure I can get most of it together in about a week, except for the police clearance, which they said could take six weeks, and the statutory declarations, which are kinda out of my hands since those have to be done by other people.

Anyway...hopefully the police clearance comes in LESS than the 30 days they estimated, and we can submit everything together for once, instead of in three separate bits like last time. And then the ONLY thing I won't be able to do here is vote. Which is just as well, since I don't think I'm familiar enough with things here to do so yet.

I never knew there were so many kinds of rice. Thanks to immigrants from Asia and Italy, in an Australian supermarket, you have long grain white rice, medium grain white rice, jasmine rice, basmati rice, arborio rice, brown rice, and possibly others that I haven't seen yet. I have yet to see a package of rice that simply says "rice."

In American supermarkets, you see three main types of rice: white rice, brown or wild rice (which are rare enough to group them together) and Minute Rice.

Minute Rice? Yes. Minute Rice. Which bears little resemblance to actual rice, because it's processed in such a way that you only need to boil it for five minutes and it's ready to eat. Terribly convenient, easy, quick, and unhealthy. When I lived alone, I loved Minute Rice. I had it once or twice a week. I wouldn't touch the stuff now even if I was eating rice.

1. Upon entering a restaurant: "Smoking or non?" All restaurants are smoke-free, with the exception of pubs, but then it's restricted to the bar area.

2. After stating smoking preference: "Would you like a table or a booth?" The only places that have booths here seem to be fast food shops. And ONE Fasta Pasta in Golden Grove.

3. Ordering from the menu: "Soup or salad?" Usually you get the whole meal together, and sometimes your meal comes with choice of salad or vegetables.

4. At the supermarket: "Paper or plastic?" I've been to ONE shop where they gave me a paper bag with my purchase, and it wasn't a supermarket. The standard is plastic, unless you bring your own calico bags, which a lot of people do. South Australia is getting rid of the plastic bags entirely in the next few years; Kangaroo Island already has.

5. Also at the supermarket: "Do you want drive-up?" Hahaha. Supermarkets don't have drive-up. Neither do banks. I haven't even seen a drive-up ATM since I got here. The only places that have them are fast food places.

6. At a fast food place: "Do you want fries with that?" They're called chips.

In the years following World War 2, Australia became home to thousands of Italian immigrants. This of course means that there's a big Italian influence in Australia's culture. And I've found in the last year and a half living here that Italian food just doesn't appeal to me.

I think we all know that Italians are known for pasta. And I used to love the stuff too, but having given it up over a year ago, believe it or not, I actually find the idea of eating pasta kinda repulsive. So the supermarkets are full of it; you've got about half of one side of the aisle devoted to dry pasta, and another section in the refrigerated area for fresh pasta. And the sauces? They pretty much line up the other side of the pasta aisle.

So I go into this aisle looking for some tomato sauce. And I see sauces with weird names like bolognaise, napolitana, carbonara...um, okay, where's the TOMATO sauce? You know, the stuff you can spread out on a pizza base? The stuff that doesn't have huge chunks of tomato and onions and peppers/capsicum all through it, and weird herbs I've never heard of? No such thing. If you want that, you have to get tomato PASTE and add water & spices yourself. Or you can buy these tiny little 140 gram (er, about 5 ounces I think) containers of pizza sauce for a dollar each. And amazingly enough, you really CAN buy "Spaghetti sauce" with meat, but it's way up on the top shelf.

Then there's dining out. You enter this restaurant, and it's...a cafe. And not the kind of cafe most Americans from small towns would be used to, either. This is the European style cafe, with tables and chairs and stone/linoleum floors and high ceilings that spells NOISE. These places are crowded and noisy and it's really hard to have a conversation when you can't hear the other people at your table over the noise of the people at everyone else's tables.

So you're in the cafe. And this style of dining means you go to the counter and order your meal, then pick a spot to sit, and they'll bring it out to you. Not a problem so far. But then they hand you the menu. Half the stuff on cafe menus I don't even recognise. The other half I might know what it is, but since it's based around bread or pasta, it's not really a good idea for me when I suspect I'm wheat sensitive. So what CAN I eat? Well, they've got a couple salads, but the dressings are all vinegarettes. Sorry, but I just can't see how I'd like a dressing based around vinegar, having tasted a couple. Plain salad? Boring. Glass of water, thanks.

I miss going into Perkins or Country Kitchen or some other family restaurant, being seated in a BOOTH with padded seats and carpet under my feet, looking at the menu and finding TOO MANY choices rather than too few, and starting off my meal with a nice green salad with Ranch dressing. I miss looking on the back menu page to find the drinks and NOT being met by a silly wine list. I miss knowing what all the items on the menu are, and being able to pronounce them, even if I didn't like them.

1. "Under penalty of law, this tag not to be removed except by consumer." I only noticed this the other day when I bought some new pillows, and tore the tags off so they wouldn't make noise while I'm trying to sleep.

2. Food boxes with a little perforated tab that says "Press here to open," but no matter how hard you press the tab, the perforation doesn't break. Aussie food boxes with perforated tabs actually work the way they're supposed to.

3. "No shirt, no shoes, no service."

First let me state for the Aussie readers that this is IN NO WAY saying that I think it sucks here, because I don't think that. But if you'd been living overseas for ten months, you'd be putting together a list of the things you missed too (like Tim Tams, Vegemite, meat pies, and sausage rolls).

1. Velveeta. Many years ago, when I was first using IRC, I had an ongoing debate with a guy named "Saveall" on #bighouse on Undernet. We couldn't agree on whether or not Velveeta was cheese (although now I can't remember who was on which side). But who cares, really? Mmmm...processed cheese food. (Interestingly though, Australian Quarantine won't let Velveeta be imported because of its "cheese content," so I guess that answers the question.)

2. Oscar Mayer braunschweiger. Yes, I'm one of those bizarre people who likes liverwurst. Which is funny, since I don't like liver in any of its other forms. I have found two brands here that are somewhat similar - one is the right texture & consistency, but the taste isn't quite right, and the other has the taste, but also chunky bits. Perhaps someday I'll get around to checking out the shops in the very-German Hahndorf to see if they've got a suitable substitute.

3. Whole turkeys for PENNIES a pound. I think the figures I remember are around 39 or 49 cents a pound. Which is roughly...uhh...let me get my calculator...just over a dollar a kilogram in Australian dollars. Even chicken isn't that cheap.

4. Big, orange, round pumpkins. The kind you make jack-o-lanterns out of, or (my preference) pumpkin pies.

5. Wal Mart. If you've been to one, 'nuff said. If you haven't, think Big W on steroids.

6. Freeways. Australia's two biggest cities aren't even joined by freeway yet, and Adelaide has two freeways. Which don't even intersect.

7. Internet connections with no download cap. Mostly unknown down under.

8. American cheese. This is a particular variety of cheese, made out of the leftovers from Cheddar. It's a nice, mild, yellow cheese, and my own personal favourite. Impossible to find here (although the cheese on a burger from McDonald's or Hungry Jack's comes close). Interestingly, while looking for a good link about American cheese, I came across a What Type of Cheese Are You? quiz, and was classified (surprise!) as American cheese.

9. Going to the gas (petrol) station at 11 pm the night before payday with three dollars in your bank account and knowing your direct deposit will make it to the bank before the $20-30 payment you're about to make. Sometimes slow banking systems are a good thing.

10. Cheese curds. This is a very Wisconsin thing. Cheese curds are little bits of cheese that are left over in the cheesemaking process. They're salty and tasty and the really good, fresh ones squeak when you chew them. Major staple at any potluck/picnic/family reunion-ish type thing. The A&W in Baldwin, Wisconsin, deep-fries them; also, a town 20 miles away from where I grew up calls itself the Cheese Curd capital of the world, and holds a Cheese Curd Festival every year.

Wanna know what REALLY bugs me about stores' websites in Australia? The only thing they tend to use them for is to PUT UP A COPY OF THEIR WEEKLY CATALOG! Can't they put anything USEFUL there? Like, if you're looking for one particular item, say a fridge with a frost-free freezer twice the size of the one you currently use which retails for just over $400, unless it's on sale at that store this week, it's not listed. At all. And THAT is annoying. Do they have any idea how much trouble it is to get on a bus and GO to all these stores that stock this particular brand to find out if they carry the exact model you're looking for? Of course not. Not only that, doing web pages like that reeks of a lack of creativity. Really, how hard is it to scan each page of the catalog and post it on a web site? Our cat could do that. In his sleep.

Not that I'm against having the ad available online. That is useful to a degree. But to have ONLY that? Ridiculous. If that's all they're gonna do, and still send out PRINTED catalogs, why bother having a web site at all?

This morning I passed a written driving test at Transport SA across the road, and received a South Australia driver's license. Right now it's just a piece of paper, but in about ten days, I'll get my photo license in the mail. Yippee. This will make it MUCH easier to identify myself when I need to. Right now, I need my passport for photo ID, a bank statement for proof of address, and marriage license for proof of the name change. Sheesh. And once my photo license arrives, I'm going to send my passport off to Melbourne to get my name changed in that as well. So I'm finally able to simplify my life since the arrival of the visa yesterday.

Now if I could just track down my Medicare letter...