Melbourne to Qld

This is in response, largely, to Bern Morley's blog of a few days ago. She's done the opposite to me. She's moved to Melbourne from the Gold Coast. In the mid 90s I moved from Melbourne to Ipswich. The move was the desperate measure of a recent graduate. Nursing jobs were a bit thin on the ground then, what with Kennett and his severe cost cutting measures. I'd started applying all over the joint. I even fired off an application to Kalgoorlie. In the end, Ipswich hospital got there first. The month after that was filled with a lot of lists, as well as packing. My hubbie (then boyfriend) was to come up later. Things were a bit rocky, so I was a bit doubtful, but he did.
I noticed the change in weather in NSW as we approached the border. A highlight of the trip up was when my son held a toy microphone plus stand out the car window and lost the stand. As my daughter looked at me (it was hers), I said, "I'm not going back". It was early September. Melbourne was still cold, with a cold, changeable wind, still kinda winter weather, occasionally warmer. This wasn't. The wind wasn't even cold, for crying out loud.
We moved into one of those "charming" high set houses that were built a lot in the 70s and 80s. It had no insulation, crappy carpet, no real curtains and the "laundry" (and I use the term loosely) was downstairs. Oddly enough, the bathroom was huge. Go figure. To go with the no insulation, Ipswich has a slightly different climate to Brisbane, hotter in summer, colder in winter. Best of both worlds so to speak, so that house was real comfortable at times. We did shift into an outer suburb of Brisbane after a few years. The humidity still sucks sometimes. Thanks to airconditioning. The evaporative cooling system is pointless up here, unless you like the climate of say Darwin or Cairns.
I found that a lot more people up here went to church than they did in Melbourne. Maybe all my acquaintances were a bunch of Godless wretches, but I don't think so.
Shops didn't open on Sundays at all and only until 12 on Saturdays. You could've fired a cannon down the main drag in Ipswich Saturday 2pm.
I got handed a white dress (several actually) when I picked up my uniforms at the hospital and got told to  buy brown shoes and my own red cape. WTF??? I'm not the flying nun here. I was used to the white shirt with navy pants/skirt, which now we actually have.
I did get truly sick of being called a Mexican, with varying degrees of contempt. Usually the most contemptuous were by men that I'd turned down. Interesting that. I really don't recall Qlders have the piss taken out of them like that.
Driving......people up here couldn't use roundabouts, merge and disliked being overtaken. The worst offenders for this would sit in the right lane, next to a car in the left lane with long lines of cars behind both cars. Again, WTF??? If I catch my hubby doing that, I tell him that he's driving like a Qlder, that gets a bit of movement.
I think, eventually we might move back to Melbourne, or at least the Mornington Peninsula. Of course our 2 oldest have grown up here and will, no doubt, make their lives here and our younger 2 were born here, but we're keeping an open mind.
Do I like Qld? Of course, but I do understand those that yearn just a bit for home.