Supermarkets, Learning to Drive and a Trip to the Lake

So on Wednesday Amy had a day off (hooray)! So we got to spend the whole day together. First we went to a new supermarket (grocery store) that has just opened and spent about 40 mins looking around at everything. I found it absolutely fascinating! There is so much here that we don't have at home, as well as almost everything being a considerable amount cheaper. At the moment everyone is getting ready for Halloween and all the stores have giant boxes of chocolates and lollies (candy) for cheap. Like a box of 100 fun size chocolates for $12.99! Also in a catalogue I saw a 24 box of cans of Coke for $4.99... my dad would be in his element here!

340g of raspberries for $3.99! And yes I know it says strawberries but they were the same price. Also, Amy told me she thought this was expensive and wouldn't pay that much for raspberries. About half this much would be $7 or so at home!

Things are cheap compared to home but prices are all relative to the wage here. Minimum wage is about $9.25 an hour and if you get $12 for an entry level job you're doing pretty well. From looking at job boards etc most are about $10 an hour which seems like a 15 year old wage to me!


After the supermarket Amy decided that she was going to teach me to drive a manual (I have never driven one before). So we parked in a little rest area and despite my protests eventually switched seats.

So I'm smiling but inside I was freaking out!

Ok so it wasn't as bad as I thought. Amy is a great teacher and I can admit to being a quick learner so it wasn't as scary as I thought it would be. I was getting pretty good at changing gears, and the opposite side of the road thing didn't really bother me as long as I could see other cars around. I just need practice on the 'stopping at stop signs without stalling' aspect. I think Amy was impressed with my skills too, although she did spend most of the time just laughing at me, especially when I accidentally did a massive burnout in the middle of a tiny country town!!


I managed to drive most of the rest of the way down to the lake without having a nervous breakdown, then Amy took over for the last little bit. The lake was so PRETTY! It was a beautiful day, sunny and about 20, and we took lots of photos, paddled in the water (it was coooold) and sat on the edge of the lake just talking. All the leaves have changed colour and were falling down, it was a very autumn-y (fall-y) kind of setting.

Pretty autumn trees on the edge of the lake

It was soooooooo nice to have the time to just sit around with Amy and chat, we caught up on a bit of the last 10 years and skipped stones and took photos and climbed things.

Self timer - gold shot set up by Amy

I think we got lucky with the weather that day.. today it is 14 and has been raining on and off most of the day. It's supposed to be raining most of the weekend too. On a better note, the place where we are going for Christmas has had about 7cm of snow - so it's looking good for a white Christmas!!

Super cool twisty tree at the edge of the lake

Anyway that's about all I have to say right now and by the looks of it it's nearly time for dinner. So I will be signing off for now. If you want you can see Facebook for more photos =)


{gemma}