Why we almost bought an IKEA dining table from Texas by Indians and the boys have German football-is-our-life bedding.

What I really like about Australia is this colorful cultural diversity among people. Personally, I would find it difficult to categorize the people here as 'real' and 'fake' Australians. Is our Irish neighbor Paul, who has been living here for over 30 years, not a real Australian? Or Aurel's school friend Noli, born here after his parents originally came from Holland for 2 years of work and are still here 10 years later? Or the guy from the car workshop who we absolutely couldn't understand because of his accent. So that's how a real backwoods Australian sounds! No, not really, he turned out to be Scottish. Indians, Vietnamese, Germans, Italians, South Africans - all Australians!

Considering that the first Europeans only arrived in Australia in 1788, by the way, convicts who wanted to get rid of them on the other side of the world, we should only call Aborigines, who today make up only about 3% of the Australian population, 'true Australians'. But how do the Australians sing so beautifully in their national anthem? For those who’ve come across the seas we’ve boundless plains to share - I'll leave that uncommented...

Since we only plan to stay in Australia for one year, we have decided to use used items to furnish our house. Gumtree.au, the equivalent of our Willhaben.at, was my platform for weeks to furnish our house. A nice side effect of cheap shopping: you get to know many nice Australians! The friendly Bosnian couple, who have been living in Perth since 1992, sold us two beds and gave us a pack of towels. The German woman, who has been married to an Australian for 30 years, is collecting money for a dog shelter in Bali and therefore gave us German football bedding for her adult sons, a toaster and a shelf in addition to the couch we saw on Gumtree. The Indians, from whom we almost bought the Ikea table, only came from Texas 4 months ago, after the father of the family, who works at Shell, was sent to Sydney and the USA and is now back in Australia. But an ancient dining table from a young Australian couple made the race...

Every piece of furniture in our house has a story: the areas you get to know when picking up, the people you meet and their stories... A lot of effort, but also a lot of fun, this hunt on Gumtree! And if there's nothing suitable, luckily there's still Ikea...