The Move: Day 1

After boarding an SAA flight to Jhb, we had an uneventful trip via Qantas to Sydney. As the wheels lifted off from Johannesburg International, I felt nothing. We had said our goodbyes in Cape Town and that was so hard because we have left people behind that will only join us in a while, but of SA there was no sense for me of loss. We landed in Sydney and S & T collected us with a real Aussie welcome and the gift of a cute, soft Koala bear toy and after dumping our bags at their house, we took a stroll together in the gathering twilight down towards the local Woolworths. Mom's were walking with their kids in prams, there were no beggars with their bibs and implicit threats in the car park or loiterers outside the shop. The shelves were quite confusing as we searched for different products, but it was such a sense of freedom to walk out and home in suburbia without any concern for safety or negotiating a gauntlet. For any who read this blog, let me put this out there: I have no intention of ever trashing the land of my birth, but I also have no intention of not sharing the things that I appreciate in this new life either. We walked by Avalon beach and it was peaceful - some surfers (there are always surfers out on the water) catching some small waves. This is the life I want for my wife, my parents, my siblings, my family and friends and my future children. It is what a home should be.