My long haitus on the site has been the result of a 2 week holiday back to the States. Back to visit family, to visit my 2 week old neice, and to further plan for my upcoming wedding in September. It was a good trip; no a great trip, but it was a whirlwind of a trip nonetheless. Two weeks of nonstop activities has me longing for a holiday from my holiday. It’s good to be home though. It’s very good to be home. While I miss my friends and family, and always will, I’ve realised that Australia fits me. It’s a really good fit actually. Fifteen minutes into my drive from the Los Angeles airport, I remembered why I was always frustrated on Southern California highways. Fifteen minutes into a shopping experience at a local mall in San Diego, I remembered why an economy of scale has its positives and negatives. Fifteen minutes after I left, I remembered that I’m 7,000 miles away from my closest friends and family.

Living overseas has always been an adventure, but after returning home for the first time since leaving 18 months ago, I’ve been able to refresh my thoughts and truly understand and remember why I was so excited and jazzed about moving to another country. More specifically, Australia.

The majority of my trip was spent in San Diego, however between my partner and I, we had trips to Los Angeles (Disneyland), San Francisco, and Las Vegas. Each of these locales, although all quite different from each other, had traits that very similiar; traits that I wouldn’t have otherwise noticed had I not been out of the country for the past 18 months.

1.) Excess - That’s right, excess. America is all about excess. I love food, a lot, but I found myself rarely being able to finish the meal that was given to me. The portions were absolutely huge. People say that I’ve lost weight since moving to Australia. I was never THAT big to begin with, but I suppose I can see why. Unlimited refills on drinks (not a common occurance in Australia), towering mountains of french fries and more salad dressing that I know what to do with sat before me at almost every meal I had. I must say though, the unlimited refills on coffee struck a very pleasing chord.
Especially in Las Vegas, where excess is the norm, everything (and I mean everything/everyone) was in excess. Drinking, gambling, food ($9 Prime Ribs) were abundant. You couldn’t help but be surrounding by an uneccesarily large amount of everything, everywhere you went.

2.) Traffic - Traffic, and the way people drive. Large suburbans driven by soccer moms who, according to them, are the single most important person on the freeway, made only worse by the fact that they’re tailgating you in the slow lane because your 75mph just isn’t fast enough for them. Perhaps I’m stereotyping, perhaps not. Either way, drivers in Souther California as a whole, don’t use their blinkers, don’t let you in when merging, don’t understand where the fast lane is, and seem to think that driving 90mph while talking on their cellphone, weaving in and out of traffic in their SUV to get to their destination 2 minutes earlier, is the most important issue of the day.

3.) Outlook - This may seem a bit weird, but American’s need to lighten up, myself included. Things are too serious. Watching newcasters on TV, seeing people interact in a business environment, daily life seems to be a bit to rigid. Now I’m not saying that Americans don’t know how to have a good time, but c’mon, life is funny. Laugh at yourself, slow down, smell the roses. It’s not all about rushing from one place to another and checking things off your list. I know everyone has that kind of day every once in awhile, but have a chat with the barista at the coffee shop, talk to your coworkers, understand what’s going on around you. People tend to shut themselves off in Southern California. Windows on their cars are up with the A/C full blast, people walking around with iPods on, they order their coffee whilst on the phone, barely giving the person working the time of day; this is the kind of stuff that is a stark difference for me, between Australia and America.

While life would be different in any country, and each have their positives and negatives, this past trip has shown me that my decision to live in Australia was a good one. It’s one that has more positives than negatives associated with it, and although it has put me 7000 miles away from a great number of people that are important to me, I know that the ones that are truly great friends and great family members we’ll see on a pretty regular basis. To be honest, between Skype, Vonage VOIP, and email, I talk to my parents on almost a daily basis, and my closest friends almost every other day. The world is getting smaller. Maybe that’s a good thing? Fifteen years ago, Australia would have felt a lot further away, more isolated.

Either way, I love it here.

Stephane Torriglia flew in from Spain about a month ago to check out a row house for sale on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., and declared it the “perfect” buy for someone like him, a foreign businessman with euros to invest.

“The idea is we’ll convert our euros into dollars,” Torriglia said. “We can rent the place out. Maybe in five years or six, the dollar will be strong again and the real estate will gain value. It’s an opportunity.”

With the U.S. dollar at its weakest level in decades, international buyers are chasing housing bargains in America, eager to take advantage of their purchasing power and the declining prices in some of the best-known U.S. cities.

Against that backdrop, the Washington area is luring more than the usual crowd of diplomats. Now that the dollar is cheap, the region’s appeal has broadened, enticing international business types and sophisticated investors who find comfort in the area’s global reputation as a recession-proof market.

Several area real estate agents said inquiries from abroad have at least doubled since a year ago, mostly from wealthy Europeans and people in such growing economies as India and Russia, where the currencies are gaining against the dollar. Some are making all-cash offers. Even Web sites are seeing a surge in page views from overseas. The international traffic for D.C. area listings was recently up 60 percent year over year on Zillow.com, a popular real estate Web site.

“The impact of the weak dollar on foreign demand is one of these market forces that has snuck up on us,” said Jonathan Miller, chief executive of Miller Samuel, an appraisal company in New York. “It’s been gradually gaining momentum, and the demand has accelerated as the fall in the dollar has accelerated.”

The math works out nicely for Torriglia, 50, and his wife, Isabel. The euro is now worth about $1.55 – a record high. On top of that, Torriglia has bargaining power in a down market.

Torriglia has been working with Dana Scanlon, of Keller Williams Metro Realty, an agent he found on the Internet. Scanlon said Torriglia was one of three foreign potential buyers who contacted her in a single week in January. A year ago, the only foreign clients she had were relocating for their jobs, not investors like Torriglia, she said.

“The increase in that kind of buyer has been exponential. I’ve gone from zero to 10 nibbles since the beginning of the year,” said Scanlon.

Hasan Nazzal, who lives in the United Arab Emirates, has been shopping since December for land in Virginia where he could build a house and possibly keep horses. Leesburg appeals to him, he said, because it’s close to one of his brothers, who has lived in the area for nine years.

“I see this as being for my son’s future” or maybe a place for the family to gather, he said.

Nazzal, an engineer who owns an interior-design firm, said he can spend $1 million on the land.

In a 2007 study by the National Association of Realtors, about 25 percent of the real estate agents surveyed said they had more business from international clients than they did five years earlier. The weak dollar was cited as one of the reasons for the uptick.

More than a quarter of the foreign buyers bought their homes with cash, and those who did take out loans put down more money than domestic buyers, the study found.

Tired of the rain? Me too, but it’s doing us, and the economy some good. Have a look.

“More than half of NSW is now out of drought, the latest government figures show. NSW Premier Morris Iemma said 46.1 per cent of the state was drought-affected, down from 52.6 per cent in December. Mr Iemma said it was the third successive month that the drought figures had fallen.

“Hopefully this will translate into cheaper food at the supermarket cash register, especially for staples like fruit, vegetables and meat,” he said today.

“Hardworking families have been doing it tough because of the drought and the signs are positive that 2008 will be the year the worst drought in living memory finally breaks.

“The state has had a drenching in the past week and hopefully that will continue.”

Primary Industries Minister Ian Macdonald said 32.9 per cent of NSW was now rated satisfactory, while 21 per cent was marginal. He said while rain had filled dams, helped pasture growth for livestock and impacted summer crops, there was still a long way to go.

“We are not out of the woods yet,” he said.

“Recovery will still be tough.”"

Sounds promising. I suppose it’s good that a lot of rain is falling in a very short period of time. It allows the ground to stay saturated, resulting in more runoff into the catchment areas. I can live with it, for awhile.
The dog won’t stop playing the puddles. I’m tired of cleaning up after him.