It takes two...to drive

Day 1: Terrifying. Lots of screaming, stalling and drifting to the right side of the road.

Day 2: Still pretty much a disaster. Severe clenching when any other cars were around us.

Day 3: We got our official Queensland licenses in less than 30 minutes. Too soon?

Day 5: The chance of using our insurance decreased by 50% (this matters because we got healthcare on day 5)

Right after we ran over a couch cushion on the motorway...

A week later, we're walking, swimming, and dreaming on the left. Cate is mainly behind the wheel still because Taylor has a lot of hours to put in before Australia can rest easy. Taylor acts as the human GPS slash emergency brake releaser for steep inclines slash instant therapist for Caitlin when the tires screech (eg. "breathe...it's the pavement's fault, not yours").

We're in the process of naming our precious hunk of metal and we need suggestions. It's definitely a girl...a feisty little girl with a temper. Maybe a 3-letter name because she's compact, maybe a "cute little cafe name like Zoe or Eve" as Cate describes her. We need ideas!

They still gave us licenses

At the end of week 1 we headed south to the kids' grandparents' beach house because they get 2 weeks off school between semesters. Our official practices have started and we're being whipped back into shape at a rapid rate. It feels good to be practicing regularly again and the pool we train at is the bomb.com. Warm water, outdoors, right next to a harbor and lots of nationally ranked athletes by our side for motivation :)

In our next post we'll show you some of the fun activities we were up to before our first practices...

TTFN

*We have a video to accompany this post but we're having technical difficulties trying to upload it :S

One-way tickets

Our first video is a look at our journey down here once we met up in Los Angeles. Equipped with bright yellow team backpacks, Australia flip-flops and plug adapters, we made the epic journey from Toronto/L.A. to Brisbane. We missed out entirely on September 10, 2010 crossing the dateline. The LAX-->SYD flight was 14 hours but very entertaining thanks to V Australia and their massive personal entertainment systems and full course meals. We had to sprint to catch our flight from Sydney to Brisbane thanks to Taylor's bags coming off the belt last to clear customs. Cate got inspected for declaring Starburst and Teddy Grams, and Taylor got sniffed for drugs by a cute little beagle, which kept us laughing through the rush.

To follow up on the compression sock experiment, Taylor’s ankles ended up normal size, but we can’t say the same for her feet.

We’re excited to see how strong the right side of our brains are as we take on the left side of the road. Watch out Australia! …no seriously.

Continental Drift

Hi Everyone!

At the beginning of September we packed up our lives in North America (into only 2 suitcases!) and headed to the land down under with big hopes. We didn’t come to Australia for a typical post-college getaway…we’re in this for the long haul. We’ve been fortunate enough to get a go ahead to compete with Australia in our sport of synchronized swimming. Both of us have always wanted to live in Australia, and with the help of our family & friends our dream has come true (pardon the cliché).

For those of you who know us well, you know that we rarely encounter dull moments. Hopefully you find our antics as entertaining as we do. :)