A major concern for many people thinking of moving to Australia is will I miss my friends? Will I make new friends? I’ve asked these questions before in previous posts and given my thoughts and ideas on them.
It is such an important part of the “moving to Australia” process, that I included my previous three posts about making friends at the bottom of my page dedicated to, and you can go to it here, How to Move to Australia.
Just check out the three posts at the bottom under the title What About My Friends.
But today I have decided to add a fourth post to my making friends series, because I’ve now been here just over three years. So, what’s my social life like?
Making Friends in Australia Part 4
We went out again on Saturday night, this time to a restaurant in the West End to celebrate a friend’s birthday. We were looking forward to the bright lights of the West End, except…..
Turned out the restaurant we’d chosen, Mondo, wasn’t in the bright lights bit. The flashing lights stuff was about a kilometre down the road. But that made not the slightest difference; the food, organic, was excellent, the service was faultless and we all had a fantastic time.
For those who like to know, the bill came to $720 for eight of us, so it was $90 a head. We each had a starter and of course, a main meal. Us blokes had four beers each and the girls had three bottles of wine between them.
I thought $90 a head for all that was pretty good, given the quality of the restaurant. But if you were to compare it to England at current exchange rates, $1.60 AUD to the pound, that would be about £56 a head. So maybe that is a tad on the expensive side?
But if you were to go back to a time when the pound was strong, say $2.50, then the meal would have been £36 a head. Now that would have been cheap! But there is another way of comparing the cost of living between Australia and England. I think it’s better and I’ll explain it in full on Wednesday.
But now, and here’s a big clue, I have calculated it would have taken 4 1/4 hours to earn enough money to buy this meal in England, but less than three hours here.
Anyway, it got me thinking about our social life here in Australia. We seem to have gone out a lot lately, you could say we are leading a busy social life. In just the last two months alone we have….
- Been to a local friend’s party, around 30 to 40 guests at that one.
- Gone to the Gold Coast to celebrate a friends 40th birthday, about a dozen of us at that one.
- Had a couple round ours for dinner, Mrs BobinOz displaying her cooking skills.
- Been round our friends for dinner, Mrs Beninoz in the kitchen for that one.
- Been to the Suncorp to watch Brisbane play football followed by a visit to the pub, of course, to watch more football.
- Had our own party, on Halloween, again something like 30 to 40 guests.
- Been to a gala dinner, table for 10.
- We had a barbecue by the sea to celebrate our three years in Oz.
And then, as mentioned, this weekend’s birthday celebration. That, to be precise, is 10 weekends in a row, all with something special going on.
Three years ago we had no friends!
So if you are worried about rebuilding your social life here, it is possible. Crikey, if we can do it, anybody can. Believe me on that one!
The next couple of weeks are looking quite busy too, we’ve got the Bush Christmas, The Fall live in Australia, that one will definitely be in the bright lights bit of the West End, an end of season football drink and celebration at the Pig and Whistle and a visit to see Santa and the lights in the city followed by a meal in a restaurant.
I am so busy, I’m thinking of buying a diary.
Okay, that’s the end of today’s post. Thanks for reading. But if it’s all the same with you, I’m going to keep writing because I’ve got a little more to say. Strange as it may sound, I’m actually doing it for me. I’ll probably come back and read this again and again. That said, you’re more than welcome to read it if you wish.
Back to Saturday night.
We’d got to the restaurant at around 7:30 PM and we were all done with eating by half past ten. At that stage, us boys wanted to get a cab over to Caxton Street to watch Arsenal versus Tottenham live on the huge sports screen they have there.
The girls, on the other hand, preferred the idea of us all going back to Mark and Louise’s house to have drinks there.
Guess what we did?
Yes, that’s right, we went back to Mark and Louise’s house to have drinks there. But, as Mark and Louise’s house has an alfresco bar area that looks like a pub, complete with a large screen TV showing Arsenal versus Tottenham live, we didn’t put up too much of a fight.
For those that don’t know, Arsenal and Tottenham are fierce rivals. It’s a derby; both teams are in North London and despise each other. Tottenham, through an incredible amount of bad luck, nothing else, haven’t beaten Arsenal at their place for 17 years. But as a Tottenham fan myself, I have to watch it, just in case. Don’t want to miss the one where we do at last win.
But by the time we’d got to Mark and Louise’s house, 37 minutes of the match had been played and Arsenal were winning 2-0. Same old same old?
No! Not with this Tottenham side.
Gareth Bale pulled one back 5 minutes after the break. Van der Vaart equalises exactly halfway through the second half and 5 minutes from the end, Younes Kaboul headed home the winner.
Full time: Arsenal 2 Tottenham 3
This is what the Arsenal manager, Arsene Wenger thought of it…
Me, I thought it was my birthday too.
Come on you Spurs!
