Our First Party

Happy Halloween - welcome to the Ho-Down!

Hey y'all! After discovering that Halloween is not celebrated much here, we decided to have a Halloween party. We combined it with classic southern-style bbq. Everyone was a really good sport, and we had some great costumes!

Howdy!

Noel's favorite costume - a genuine Florida Gator! (go Gators!)

We all took turns carving a jack-o-lantern (another novelty here)

This is G.I. John

Kristy "give me a P" Moore (cheerleader)

Pete "call me Hank" Williams

Super Girl

Mark ... I'm an American?


Our bbq feast!


After dinner, Martijn (a Dutch Vampire) made traditional poffertjes


Group picture!

Happy Halloween y'all!

Great Ocean Road trip

Hey all!

Noel and I had a great time the second weekend of September when we attempted two great feats: driving on the left, then using our new driving skills, navigating one of the curviest and most beautiful drives in the world. The great ocean road is a two lane road from Torquay, a famous surfing town, and Warrnambool in Victoria.

Torquay was a short 2 hour drive from downtown Melbourne. Noel and I stopped for lunch and visited the headquarters of surfing company Ripcurl. Torquay is a really small but beautiful surfing village. The entire town revolves around surfing and was featured in the move point break. After a quick bite to eat and a t-shirt or two, we moved on to the start of the great ocean road.

We pressed on from Torquay for another 2 hours to the city of Apollo Bay. The road hugs tightly to the coast almost the entire drive to Apollo Bay. Views of the Southern Ocean were absolutely spectacular.

We arrived in Apollo Bay to find our hotel. It was a little cabin up on the hill side. While small, the atmosphere was very welcoming and the morning sunrise was second to none!

We continued our trip down the great ocean road to the twelve apostles. The twelve apostles are a series of six rock formations. The remaining six have fallen over time, but those that remain were quite a sight.

We made it!

Cheers and see you next time!

Pete & Noel

Work Life Balance

Hello! It's been awhile, but we're still here ...

This time we decided to post some pictures of us and our co-workers, the office is very social, and we arrived just in time for the social event of the KPMG year - but more on that later ...

First, as promised, is Noel's favorite piece of public art, Cow Up a Tree!

This giant cow is just outside our front door, as the centerpiece of the Harbour Esplanade waterfront :)

Also, we've been enjoying the sunnier weather - last weekend we went to Daleysford, a small wine and spa town about 1 hour outside of the city. This picture is at the top of the lookout tower in the botanical garden. It was a good day trip, and nice to get out of the city.


Also occupying our weekends is Pete's new hobby of beer making. We'll be having the first batch at his birthday party ... We'll let you know how it turns out ...



Oh yeah - we saw this in the liquor store, and figured you wouldn't see this in the US ;)



Okay, on to the main topic ... Work Life, well actually just the fun parts:

A few colleagues were in from Sydney, so there was a dinner organised. We went to Chinese Supper Inn, and no this isn't just a bad picture - the place is totally dodgy! Melbournians love their flash restaurants, but they insist the best food is at the dodgy restaurants ... the jury is still out on the food here (I think they went a bit heavy on the MSG), but it was heaps of fun!



After dinner we headed over to a typical night club, which means down an alley, around the corner, and past the dumpster. This place is Croft Institute, it's a medical laboratory theme and they brew their own vodka ... interesting place:

Lucky for us, the highlight of the KPMG social calendar is the ball, which is held at the end of July. We are very glad we made it here in time for this event. It was over-the-top to say the least. The theme was Masquerade, and everyone had to come w/ a mask!

This is a picture taken by the photographers of the room set-up, there were over 1500 in attendance:

Before dinner there were live performances, starting with the stilt walkers to Phantom of the Opera music:
Next were the trapeeze artists:



... and then ... well, we're not sure what to call these performers ... but they definitely got the crowd cheering ...

Here we are in our super special ball masks:

This is Roopa and Martijn. Martijn is on Secondment from Amsterdam.

Me and Roopa

Me, Jacinta, and Amanda

Okay, last of the girlie pictures

At the End-Of-Financial-Year Dinner (unfortunately we forgot our camera for that one), Pete challenged Roopa to a "Dance-Off" ... don't ask, it started w/ some friendly teasing, some South Park references ... and turned into something I dreaded having to witness at the Ball ... however, I think they actually combined their individual powers of dance into quite a cute performance ... see for yourself







A great time was had by all! Pete says "see ya next time!"


p.s. We miss everyone terribly!! The homesickness has begun setting in, not so much for places, but for our friends and family - we are thinking of all of you every day, and hope everyone can come and visit!!

Love & miss,

Noel and Pete

Finally - proof that we're actually in Australia
... and not just hiding out in South Beach :)


Koala!!
These first pictures are by far the highlight of our time here so far. We visited an animal sanctuary, about an hour outside the city. This koala was raised there, and is used to being handled. He climbed on the keeper as she was walking by, so she brought him over for us to pet.

Noel and koala:

Pete and koala:

Us and koala:

He was actually very soft, and smelled a bit like eucalyptus.

Footy!
(Australian Rules Football)

Our apartment is adjacent to the Telstra Dome, one of the 2 major footy stadiums in the city - they love sports here. AFL is played throughout the country, but mostly in Melbourne. There are 12 teams in the city alone, one for each suburb. At the recommendation of a co-worker, we attended the St. Kilda Saints vs. Collingwood Magpies game. The crowd was very spirited, and we learned a lot about the game from their colourful commentary ;)

We decided that we liked the Saints so much, that Pete got the official scarf (or maybe it was just b/c it was very chilly). They won by a landslide. Unfortunately, our allegiance is somewhat fickle; we went to another footy match this past Friday and barracked (we would say "rooted" - but that has a very dirty connotation in Australia) for the Melbourne Demons, they were also victorious and we'd like to think we're good luck!

Pete - the Saints fan:

The view from our seats. Those are the goal posts, and different amounts of points are awarded depending on which set of posts the ball is kicked through.

Fans leaving the game, also, the view from our balcony :)

Art
The Melbournians love art, modern art mostly. There are more public displays of art here than I've seen anywhere else. Actually, as they would say ... "the most public art in the southern hemisphere!"

This past weekend was a modern design celebration week, which included a "ready-made" show on Sunday. We went to see the cool stuff from young designers, hoping to pick up some funky stuff to decorate with ... Unfortunately, they are serious designers, and a bit pricey - but it was fun nonetheless. Here's a picture Pete took of me shopping for elephant outlines printed on various pieces of fabric. If the surrounding looks a bit dodgy, that's b/c the exhibition was held in the car park (parking garage) ... strange, but it worked:

And for the finale ... Pete's favourite public display of art thus far - performance art nonetheless ... the one and only:

Sonic Manipulator!!

Yeah - Pete loves this guy. He's dressed in a "space suit" and "raps" about the "martians that are coming to drink all our beer". He appears on weekends, on busy street corners. He has an album, which can be purchased through his website - you can google it yourself, if you're really that interested ;) Melbourne, while a large city for Australia - isn't that big. You see the same street performers every weekend, sometimes they move around, but there are only 6 or 7 ... so, this guy stands out!

That's all for now, the next blog will feature some of the "small, but noticeable" differences b/w here and the US ... it's the little things that count ... Also ... more photos of public art, including "Cow Up a Tree", Noel's local favourite!

Our Place

Hi! We've finally managed to sit still for a couple of hours :) So, here are some pictures of what we've been up to so far...

First - here is all of our luggage, this was on the day we arrived, in our temporary hotel:

It was 9 bags in all! We were really excited to get into our apartment, and we decided to move everything over on a Thursday night ... it ended up being a bit of a pain, which is evedent on my face ;)

But, once we were in - we were very happy to finally start getting settled!

This is our living room, viewed from the entrace hall:

This is the opposite view, looking toward the kitchen:

This is the view at night. The picture is a bit blurry, but it's the city-scape.

We like our apartment - it's 2 bedrooms, with a decent balcony and a great view of the Telstra Dome and city.

These are some strange, native, flowers I picked up ... they're furry!



More pictures to come later, including some of us and a koala!!

G'Day Australia

Hi everyone!! First I’d like to apologize for taking so long to touch base – the last 3 weeks have been hectic, and we’ve finally had a weekend where we could catch our breath a bit. We’ve managed to have a lot of fun amongst the moving, working and furnishing our apartment.

After arriving on a Monday, we began work on Tuesday. Coincidentally, that day was the annual strategy meeting for the coming year. It was a good introduction to some of the differences b/w here and our US practice – mainly this office is much larger (1500 total – with 100+ in our group), and that everyone always wears a suit. It was surreal to march across the street from the office with 1500 people all in dark suits, long lines of us going up the escalators and filing into the ballroom… Anyway, maybe it seemed weirder b/c of our jet-lag…

I think I’ve just adjusted to the time change this week, I still wake up in the middle of the night sometimes. The first 2 weeks were the worst, we couldn’t stay awake past 7pm and we’d wake up at 4am. This wasn’t helped by all the world-cup watching Socceroos fans who would celebrate through the streets of Melbourne after a victory (b/c of the time difference the world-cup games are shown here b/w 1 and 4 am).

We’ve moved in to our apartment, it’s close to the city and there are at least 20 restaurants w/in walking distance. Our building is also adjacent to the Telstra Dome, where they play Aussie Rules Football. We haven’t been to a game yet, but plan to go soon. We currently are w/out furniture – so, we’ve been camping out on the floor (we ordered furniture today - yay).

The social scene here is great, which is good since we didn’t know anyone. Last Friday was the end-of-financial-year dinner for our group at work. They rented out a restaurant and had a sit-down meal. There were also “awards” given for goofy things people had done throughout the year. Afterwards we went to a club. The nightclubs here are strange – the good ones don’t advertise and hide themselves in alley-ways. The place was fun – standard club: dj, bar, giant red velvet sculpture in the middle of the dance floor :)

Last weekend a couple of “the girls” from the office took us along on a trip to Healsville Animal Sanctuary (about an hour outside the city). It was really great to get up close to all the strange critters that live here – we also had the highlight of our trip so far … we got to pet a koala!

Coming up in August is the KPMG Ball, which is apparently a really huge event w/ live entertainment. I have to get a formal dress for it :) Some of the girls in the office have offered to help me shop :) :) Speaking of …

The shopping here is really great, but unfortunately everything is 20 – 30% more than at home. I’ll definitely be visiting the states with an empty suitcase to fill. Also, there is almost no on-line shopping, not IKEA, not Target, no clothes! The one thing I can order-up though is groceries, which is pretty neat – and once we get our fridge we’ll try it out.

So, everything is going well here - we like it a lot, unfortunately it's a bit far from friends and family. We'll definitely be thinking of everyone this Tuesday the 4th (which is not a holiday here). I'd like everyone to have a hot dog and light a sparkler for me! Love and miss - Noel

Hello Australia!

Wow, the first three weeks have gone by fast. Tomorrow marks our 21^st day in Australia and it feels like we just arrived.

Our last few days in Florida went by in a flash. Without some last minute help from the Svercek’s I doubt we would have completed out packing. Still, Noel and I made it to Melbourne safely with our 226 Kgs (that’s 500lbs) of luggage. The airport crew at Fort Lauderdale International went beyond their line of duty to get our bags successfully checked through for what would be a two airline, double stopover, 21 hour international journey. In total, we had 13 bags including an oversized kiteboard carrier. When we arrived, the driver KPMG hired looked as if we were out of mind. A second van was required to fit our luggage.

KPMG put us into a serviced apartment for the first two weeks. That gave us enough time to look around the city and find a spot to call home. The temporary apartment was small but centrally located. It was a short, two block, walk to work. The location was key since induction training was scheduled the day after we arrived.

The first four days of work were short and filled with training. We were also introduced to the 105 people within our group. By contrast, our Florida team is less than 40. Everyone was extremely friendly and outgoing. People offered to take us out to lunch and dinner nearly every day. What’s more, several offered to take us shopping, lend us furniture, appliances, and even their car. We spent that first weekend with our new colleagues shopping, dining, and learning the city. We soon realized that our work/life experience would be quite different from that of the states.

A relocation agent was assigned to assist in an apartment search. Since we decided to go without a car in Australia, we limited ourselves to locations with walking distance to public transportation. Fortunately, the Melbourne train and tram system is the best in the southern hemisphere – according to the locals. Melbourne is densely populated with some 3.5 million residents living within 15 kilometers. We opted for a brand new apartment in an area called the Docklands. The area was recently developed from a shipping port and is within walking distance to the central business district.

Secondment

The decision to take an international rotation, or as they say in OZ, "secondment", was not an easy one. Noel and I both love our family, our friends, our jobs, and yes, even South Florida. The realization that we’ll be 9,689 miles away from what we know and love is concerning. Still, we recognize that life is short and an opportunity such as this doesn’t come along too often.

We’ve talked with many people who have done similar things and their conscious was unanimous; living abroad was one of the most memorable and rewarding experience for themselves and their family.

We’re fortunate to work for an organization that is actively supporting a secondment for both Noel and myself. Our professional responsibilities will remain largely the same, but at the same time we expect some significant differences in the Australian approach to work and life. We believe there has never been, nor there be, a better time to take this opportunity - both from a professional and personal perspective. We’re not seeking a better life in Australia; we're seeking an experience that we can learn and grow from.

A big thank you is due to everyone who has supported our move: the Svercek Family, the Williams Family, our friends, KPMG management, and many others.

We encourage you to check back here in a few weeks for our first OZ update. Till then,

Cheers!

Noel and Pete Williams