Settling In

G'day mates!
We have made good progress this past week as far as getting settled. Just this week we purchased a fridge and a washing machine. Duane bought a bike to tackle the ever rolling hills and for exercise. Yesterday, Rachel and I took the train into the city and attained a Queensland driver's licence. We also stopped by the Australian blood bank and both of us donated blood. Rachel applied for a job yesterday at Australian National Geographic store and by evening they called her for an interview for this Saturday. She has applied for schooling at three universities this past week. They will contact her in January to let her know if she gets in or not. We also held a bible study at our house on Friday evening. The month of November, I will be teaching Sunday school for Our Redeemer in Kallangur. Yes, I think we are finally settling in.
Our furniture has not arrived as of yet. The last we were told, the ship is stuck in heavy traffic trying to get through the Asian port and will hopefully make it to Brisbane November 6th. We just hope that it makes it to port and clears customs by Christmas! The children have done remarkably well without their toys. We are sleeping with our travel size pillows in sleeping bags on beds that we are renting. A friend of Rachel's loaned her some sheets and a blanket for her bed just this week. I think sheets and regular sized pillows is the only thing that I really miss and perhaps a clock. We also purchased a patio set for the veranda. Our furniture rental is up the 10th of November so we will probably not renew it. We have everything that we need now except a sofa, TV, and beds. We will purchase some air mattresses to get us through.
By the way, my e-mail (Stacey's) was finally cut off last week.
Please e-mail me at hengst1962@gmail.com.
To celebrate Rachel giving blood for the first time, We are going out for lunch today. There are no familiar chain restaurants in our area. They do have fast food chains, but nothing like Denny's, Red Lobster, or Olive Garden. Just an interesting fact: Out Back is not in Australia! Australians have never heard of Out Back Steak House. I thought that was funny!
There are plenty of KFC, Mc Cafes (Donalds), Pizza Hut, Dominoes Pizza, Hungry Jacks (Burger King), and Subway. Their chains are called names such as Hog's Breath and Pig N Whistle. Sounds appetizing, huh?
Most of the nice restaurants are pubs and very pricey. There is no place for good affordable family dining, at least we haven't found any. That's alright. Nothing beats home cooking anyway!
Driving has gotten so much easier. A roundabout is simply an intersection in the form of a circle without stop signs or traffic lights. Sounds thrilling doesn't it? It is! Australians are not big on traffic lights or stop signs. Roundabouts are popular. Downtown Brisbane does use lights rather than roundabouts. I have driven through downtown Brisbane more in the last month, than I ever drove through downtown Houston in the thirty years that I lived there.
Yep, Our gracious Lord and Savior is certainly watching over the Hengst family! We are missing our piano and our Lutheran Hymnal. We have family devotions every Wednesday evening and we would love for Rachel to play some hymns for us. We will also us it for nights that we host Bible study. The Hymnal here is alright, but we miss what we are familiar with. We do sing hymns without the piano but it would be nice for Rachel's playing to keep us on key! We are certainly not the Von Trap family singers!
We are settling in just fine, finally, but we do miss all of you. We would love to get e-mails from you! Sally, would you please give my new e-mail address to Jeannie so that I can still receive the prayer chain? Thanks!
May the Lord keep you all in His gracious care!

A very late post

Sorry for not posting in so long! We've all been busy and I don't think that any of us have even thought about it for a while. Everyone is doing well. Amy and Caleb have been back in school for a week after their two week spring break. They are both still enjoying school and seem to be doing well. Mom and Dad have been trying to continue the settling in process although I think some of it at least is pretty frustrating. The house we are renting and moved into is working out okay although I for one am upset that it is for sale already. Yesterday we found out that our shipment from the states is delayed again and will probably not arrive in Brisbane until the 2nd week of November. We them have to wait for it to get through customs which could take another 4 weeks! As we keep telling ourselves, at least we'll have it by Christmas. We've found it very hard to get much of anything done. As we try to change our address with companies in the states, we've found that it is nearly impossible. Mom and I have also found that getting me a bank account is difficult. They need a certain amount of Australian I.D. to open the account, most of which I don't have and never will have (e.g. an Australian birth certificate). Getting a Queensland driver's license has been confusing also, although we think we may have found a way now. Mom is more comfortable with driving around Indooroopilly now and I don't think she gets out of the car with her legs shaking anymore, which is good news. I myself have driven twice and I think scared Mom to death the first time (for no good reason, I might add) but she seemed fine with it the second time around. For once I think that Dad is the one in the family with the least driving experience. Because he only drives occasionally and is still set in his American driving ways, Mom has passed him up! That may not last long, but it will hold up for now. I have been busy applying for university and jobs. I am nearly sick of them, but have to perservere if I hope to be able to pay for school. Because I am not completely sure what I want to study (although it has been narrowed down), I applied for something a little different at each of three universities. At the University of Queensland (UQ) I put my two preferences as being 1) Bachelor of Science (Marine Biology)
2)Bachelor of Science/Laws (Psychology/Law)
At the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) I put three preferences.
1) Bachelor of Behavioural Science/Laws (Psychology/Laws)
2) Bachelor of Justice (primary major - criminology, secondary major - law)
3) Bachelor of Applied Science (primary major - forensic science, secondary major - biochemistry)
I also applied at a third university (Griffith University) where I put down three choices of study.
1) Bachelor of Forensic Science/ Bachelor of Criminology and Criminal Justice
2) Bachelor of Psychological science/ Bachelor of Criminology and Criminal Justice
3) Bachelor of Marine Science (marine biology)
If I get accepted into all three universities, I'm not sure how I'll decide which to go to. They all cost around the same and while some are closer to my house than others, the difference is not that big. One of the factors that I'll use is how long it takes to complete the degree. A degree of psychology and law take between 1 and 2 1/2 years longer to complete than the other degrees. If I took that major, I'd have to obtain another visa because mine expires after 4 years and I would want to finish the degree here. Anyway, aside from that not much is going on. Hopefully I will be able to convince Mom to post soon. We hope everyone back home is doing good and we miss y'all!

Our House

For some of you who do not have contact info for us, here it is!
Our address. 129 Russell Terrace
Indooroopilly, QLD, AU. 4068
Stacey's e-mail hengst@sbcglobal.net
Duane's e-mail 1981cougar@gmail.com
Duane's work duane.hengst@toowoombapipeline.com.au
Amy's e-mail amyehengst@gmail.com
Rachel's e-mail oxfay321@yahoo.com
Michael's e-mail mhengst3@gmail.com
Caleb's email is the same as mine (we share)
If anyone sends a letter through the mail, please write air mail on it and pay postage accordingly, otherwise the mail comes by ship and takes weeks to get here.
Our house is pretty neat. It is an old home but has been updated. The floors are all timber except in the laundry room and loo (toilet area) where it is tiled. Amy's room has carpet.
There is a huge veranda off from the dining area and we spend time out there watching all of the beautiful birds. The Kookaburras are the most fun to listen to. They sound as if they are laughing. It is quite contagious. There are tons of Cockatoos also. They are so pretty and very noisy. Both the kookaburra and the cockatoo will fly as close to you as they can. They are not a bit bothered by humans. A Kookaburra landed on some play equipment that Amy was on and she could have reached out and touched it. It stayed there for a long time with her playing all around it. It even began to make its hilarious laugh for us. It flew off once and then came right back flying between Caleb and I and almost touching both of us with it's wings. Cockatoos are also very entertaining. If you can get the attention of a bored Cockatoo, they will perform for you; showing off spreading their wings and hanging upside down on a branch or dancing on a limb bobbing their heads and turning them 360 degrees. The Lorikeets are also beautiful but not as much fun to watch. Anyway, we like to spend time on the veranda. I'll have Rachel post some pictures of our house. We are renting it. The owners put it on the market to sell last week. I hope for their sake that they sell it quickly. It is a nice house. The owners have assured us that they will honor our lease agreement.
Our furniture is still on the ship. It left Italy a couple of weeks ago and is due to arrive in Brisbane on or about October 9th. Customs will have it anywhere from two weeks to a month before we get it. We have been renting beds and sleeping with our sleeping bags but it is nearing summertime here and it is getting very warm. We may have to break down and borrow some sheets from church members who have offered them. There is no central air or heat in the house. There is a ceiling fan in the living room and all of the bedrooms and their is a wall unit in the master bedroom. I suppose that when it gets very hot that our bedroom will be the living and sleeping area.
Rachel's bedroom is down stairs. She has her own bathroom and a huge living area down there. Of course there is no furniture yet. She also has a veranda right out the back of her bedroom. The master bedroom also has a very nice veranda.
Mt. Cootha Forest is just up the street from us; within walking distance. It has lots of hiking and biking trails and some horseback riding trails. I still need to check it out! There is also some Aboriginal art work that is open to the public at Mt. Cootha. Just about six houses up from us and across the street , is the Green Hill reservoir and from the top of it, (at night), you can see downtown Brisbane's lit up buildings and the valley so clearly. We live up a hill but to get to this outlook it's an even bigger hill. Duane asked if i wanted a bike for leisure. I had to say no. It is tough enough walking up and down these hills. I can't imagine biking them although I see alot of men biking. Duane loves a challenge . He is actively looking to purchase a bike so that he can fully enjoy the terrain. I admire his spirit!
I hope this blog helps you to see and know more about where we are. We would love to get e-mails from you and keep in touch! If there is something that you would like to see on our blog, please let us know. By the way, Queensland does not change their clocks twice a year. It is bright daylight here by about 5:10 am. It is getting daylight earlier and earlier as we approach summer. We wake up early and go to bed early!

laundry adventures

Our house is set up with a washing machine and a clothesline. The clothesline is on a hill therefore I really have to stretch to reach some of the lines in order to hang out the wash. This is not a problem unless I am taking the wash off of the line after dark and as I'm stretching to reach the clothespin with my mouth open, I notice something running across the line directly above my face. It was only a lizard, but before I realized that, I quickly let go of the line and it flung the poor lizard right off. I'm just happy it didn't fall into my mouth! Our neighbor just informed me that he has a Carpet Snake (Python) living under his house. They average six and a half feet in length but can grow to 10 feet with no dramas. He said it was huge! I would not mind it living under our house and eating rodents and other snakes as long as I didn't step on it on a dark night while retrieving the laundry from the line. I understand that pythons of that length and especially carpet snakes as common as grass snakes. One website said that there was only one report that a carpet snake tried to eat a seven year old boy. I think with all of the bush turkeys around here that all of carpet snakes stay well fed! I have noticed that cats are not popular around here or small dogs.
I'll post pictures of our house on the next blog.

More Australian Animals

These are just a few more pictures for you all to see. One of them is another picture of a cockatoo, which I already posted a picture of. The bird that is running is a bush turkey. We get several of them hanging around usually. They particularly like to hang out in our neighbor's backyard. The frog (toad?) was in the park one time when we went. I don't know what kind it is, but maybe one of us will find out soon. The last bird is a Kookaburra. We have just recently begun to spot these birds in the trees. I got lucky enough to get some decent pictures of this one at the park because we spotted it land in a nearby tree. No kangaroo or koala spottings yet, but hopefully they'll show up eventually!

Aussie Nature

These are just a few pictures of the local Australian nature. The smaller black and white bird is a magpie. We see them around frequently and they can be pretty agressive during nesting season. Just yesterday one of our neighbors was "attacked" by one at the park. It left a mark on her cheek. The lizard is a water dragon. I took this picture by the Brisbane River. They also hang around by the creek that runs through the campus of Amy and Caleb's school. The white bird in the tree is a cockatoo. We have seen many of them in the trees surrounding the school and park. They are very noisy and if you can keep the attention of one, they will show off for you. The tree in the next picture is called a parasite tree. It takes over a regular tree and starts to grow roots from the branches. They grow until the reach the ground and make the tree seem even larger. In one of the local parks they have several of these type of trees. I am not sure what the bird in the last picture is called, but they hang around some of the parks and outdoor shopping areas. They walk around with the pigeons looking for food and Caleb has a lot of fun chasing them around! They may look big, but they are easily scared away by running boys, magpies, and the much smaller miner bird. I will hopefully put some more pictures on soon.