I've got the power!

or not? If you're coming from a country that uses anything but the "I" type of plug it's lights out for you.

I'm planning to take a couple of electrical appliances with me to Oz. The trick is they use a different voltage (240 Volts) and a different power plug (type I) than in Romania (230 Volts, type C and F plug). A worldwide electric guide list can shed some light in this aspect.

To close allow me to quote my friend that shared all this valuable info "So you would need a converter, which you can find in most airports or electrical stores."


Cheers!


Later edit: The comment from below is worth reading.
Much later edit: This information just came in from a trustworthy source. It turns out that the only difference between the power system here in Romania and the one in Australia is the type of plug.

Deadly creatures? Oh come on...

I often hear that in Australia is home of many very poisonous species of animals. Like spiders and snakes.  Just  check out these babies. Or these uglies. Or these beauties

Anyway,  I'm sure you can find a lot of these if you take a good look on the internet. My advice: DON'T. It's a terrible wasted of time and it will freak you out for nothing.

Let me explain: There's a bigger change to be involved in a car accident than to meet any of Australia's deadliest animals.  The snakes appear seldom and antivenoms are widely spread. Sharks attack rarely in shallow waters.

FACTS:

1. Venomous spider bites no longer cause fatalities Australia – the last recorded death was in 1979.
2. Australian snakes behaviour has not evolved to targeting humans

Bottom line is that this is one of the worst excuses one can make to avoid Australia. 

Just getting very well informed and being prepared should be enough to keep you safe. But I think that applies to just about any aspect of life.

Laters,

treaz

James Cook

until now it completely eluded me the this guy, James Cook, that I've been reading now and then in the book about Australia that I have was a really cool dude.

So he named a couple of cities and places along the Australian coast: Botany Bay, Cape York Peninsula, Endeavour River to name just a few.

But he also kind of discovered Hawaiian Islands.

And he was the first to go around New Zealand.

Oh, did I mention he discovered Kiritimati? Maybe that doesn't sound familiar... the actual name is Christmas Island.

So, great respect for this guy... interesting life he must have had. I guess he was a great explorer.

In the end I'd like to take a different point of view: he was the right man in the right place, at the right time. That's why he discovered all that stuff. If he would of been born 3 years later, I'd be talking about some else right now.

And even though the age of new lands has ended, times have changed and we now have the opportunity to discover and explore our current world.

So, opportunity comes once, don't miss it. But don't worry too much if you do (just learn from the mistake), many others will soon come and you'll know what to do to catch them.

Till later,
treaz

Sunny days will come again

The summer is ending here in Romania... the sunny days will soon be gone. Outdoor activity opportunities will start to decrease and the overall fun of life will go down just a little.

The weather has a big impact on a person's activities... no matter what anyone says it's a lot easier to go out on a summer evening (no matter how hot it is) than on a windy winter day (and snow generally makes the balance even worse).

Jeez, these line seem so down compared to the following few. I've been reading a book from National Geographic about Australia.

Check this: Brisbane (QLD) has 245 sunny days each year. That's 2 out of every 3 days. Apparently the cost of living is quite low and this is the kind of city one would choose to "lay back". Sound like my kind of city... check out this temperature chart. This looks too good to be true :)

Unfortunately I couldn't find a world ranking for sunniest cities in the world, but apparently Yuma from US is also close to this number (242 to be more precise), so I'm cool with 245 sunny days :)

Cheers mates!

Sofia in Australia

I  kept on reading other blogs about Australia and this one deserved it's own post.

Sofia's experience in Australia is so awesome. The pics taken in her adventures on beaches, in Sydney and around Australia are just too good to describe. The surfing part of her life just adds more value to all that. At some point it becomes obvious that she's living a dream. Chilling, surfing, exploring, enjoying, living like there's no tomorrow... she and Paul understand it and not only that, they just do it. It's the way life should be :)

I'll definetly want to meet them when I get there.

Supercoolhappylove,
treaz

Just another exchange

I was in the cafeteria today, bored up to a point, but aware of my surroundings... then I heard New Zeeland, Japan, Australia... wtf? One of my colleagues was just saying that they're close. Ok. I know how Australia landed in the context, I can also understand that he likes Japan, so that was obvious too... but, but, but... New Zeeland? What's up with that?

It turns up that there's this guy at work that is planing to go there. I was astonished and suddenly really interested in his story. You see, I can't forget that NZ is a more user-friendly country (as in no real threats to human existence). I felt the urge of talking to him, maybe just for a few minutes.

I was once again amazed by his simple plan: use the AIESEC exchange program. Cogs started moving and my first question popped up: Are you a student? NO. He subscribed last fall in order to have a chance to apply for this opportunity. BAM! I was struck by confusion (why was I so stupid???). This sounds like a great idea, but it never occurred to me (what on earth have I been thinking about all this time?).

I will try to get him to talk more about his future plans. (so... I will enjoy writing another post on this subject).

Cheers,
Horia

P.S.: I have friend that told m that talking about my master plan was a bad idea (because people might perceive me as unwilling, because it won't matter anyway, since I'm leaving, to get emotionally attached;). Telling them I'm planning to leave would lower the expectations... yada yada yada... come to think of it, I truly believed it. But it turns out it doesn't work that way... just spread the word and let the people decide for themselves if they enjoy your presence and get the free gift of find connections and getting valuable feedback.
So, case closed, I won't brag about my plans to go in the land of Oz, but I won't hide them either.

Walkabouts

In becomes more and more obvious to me that going to Australia and not having a reliable mean of transportation is close to the biggest mistake one can make.

My recent trip to Greece made me realize that public transport has the major drawback of the unpredictable arrival times. Being limited by the first/last bus/subway is frustrating and waiting an night in remote bus stations could get you into trouble (so I've heard).

It's generally accepted that Logistics are really important, no matter what you do.

So, maybe a car will be too expensive to buy/rent once I get to Oz?
A bicycle is way up on my things-to-buy-there list. (as it's slower than a car and it would give me a chance to see the views, get properly aquintanted with the neighborhood)
Yeah, and I'd buy a GPS before the car (maybe use it on the bike a little)

As a general conclusion, owning a vehicle (car, bicycle, moped, bike, horse, whatever you like and can afford) that would make getting from point A to point B hassle-free is a must for anyone that wants to have an easy life getting around.

Edit: Under the new light shed by Rod on this matter I'll just buy a cheap bicycle and will probably already have a phone with incorporated GPS. This is the best cheap alternative and will probably keep me satisfied after my arrival.

Cheers,
treaz

Reading blogs

as one might expect there is abundant information about the process of moving to Oz. It will take someone a lot of time to sort it through, this is my attempt.

I just finished reading the blog of A venezuelan couple living their Australian dreams and all in all it contains good information. Has very few off topic posts and I liked it. I recommend.
As this is the first blog I read, I'm sorry, but I didn't mark the very important posts.

Reading this blog took me a day (but it's 40 posts at most). It's about a family of 5 that immigrated to Sydney and their 8 month of living there. It's a good read and I found these posts most interesting:
1) How to ease your integration in the social life
2) Spider in a newspaper
3) Getting ready to move to OZ
4) Property buying tutorial

A really small blog was Swivel's Blog. It's in Spanish and English and contains little useful info (but then again... it takes 2 hours max to read it). I found a couple of interesting things on it though:
1) A big list of useful links
2) Some shorts about OZ
3) A site on which you can search a migration agent by location

A blog with only 4 entries that's full of useful job finding advice is http://firstjobaustralia.blogspot.com/ This guy really tells it how it is and gives some practical specific tips that would help anyone new to OZ.

Another blog about life of a British in Australia is One Whinging Pom. I found myself amused reading quite a few of the posts there. So it's all worth reading, but the practical advise is in these posts:

1. Tips about banks
2. A short description of animals that could live in your yard
3. Buying second hand car
4. Australia after a year
5. Healthcare system? Yeah... it's hard
6. Cost of living seen through a brit's eyes
7. Driving madness

Soon to come... 

The city of Melbourne

so, I'm terribly enthusiastic that I found this site:
The City of Melbourne

Cheers

Linking up - Conneting - Surfing

It turns out that starting this blog was more than a really good idea. Besides allowing to organize ideas it helps connecting with likely minded people. Recently I've had some comments that were really valuable and have shed some light on visa obtaining process.

And a new idea came to me: connect to all the blogs that are related (it seems I'm not special, others have though of this WAY before me).

This took me 2 steps:

1. following everyone that had a relevant blog on blogspot and looking at what they followed (and followed relevant blogs they followed) and so on.
2. using a google search. Yeah, nothing miraculous here. The special thing was including a google search keyword: site:blogspot.com. This means that google will search only the site blogspot.com. And the result? All the blogs hosted on blogspot that contain references to Australia+moving+Melbourne+whatnot. Of course you could search any blog hosting platform. :)

So, for the moment I have so much information that it scares me. Check them out in Different Perspectives section.

Cheers

30 mins seminar 'bout Skilled Migration

Just found a 3 part presentation about the process of obtaining the visa and I wanted to share it with you.

Without further ado:
Part1, Part2 and Part3.

In case you're wondering: There are 606 days until Thursday, 1 December 2011.

Time is ticking away

This is such a great and simple idea that it deserves it's own entry.

From now on, I'm going to count the days that are left until my departure (1 December 2011).
It'll make the concept of leaving easier to grasp.

There are 627 days until Thursday, 1 December 2011.

Letting them know

It just struck me... the easiest way to tell the close ones about leaving is... (I'm gonna leave you some seconds to thing about it)... Yeah, you probably guessed it if yo already read this post.

Using baby steps is the way to do it... if you'll just wait until the final moment to bring it up, you could end up giving you old folks a heart attack. I didn't think about this at the beginning but as time passed it became more and more obvious. In fact the earlier your bring it up the better it is (you could even get their support).

So, it's quite simple, randomly start talking about Oz, about what you think it's cool about it. And keep on doing it until you encounter resistance, then just drop it. After some time start talking about it again. When you do this try to gradually get closer to the idea of moving there.

And people will eventually get accustomed to the idea that you're talking serious business.

And this behavior can be used almost everywhere and anywhere (as long as time permits it).

The only drawback that this particular situation has is that if you'll start talking to new people about this from the start some of them will be really careful about committing when it comes to you. Don't worry about it, it's only a few that react in this particular way.

Hooroo!

Metaphorically Surviving the Outback

Part of making such a big move is being truly able to survive all by yourself. Like no friends, no relatives, no acquaintances, if fact when you get there there's a big chance no one will give a rat's ass about you. And you must be prepared for that or else you'll crack.

And this is a big one: it's not only being able to find a place to live, and finding a job. These are trivial. It's important to be able to cope with the sudden change (and this is a very big lifestyle change).

So the main idea is to have as many things settled down before you leave (and I mean learn all the things that can be learned) so you can use most of the energy you have to adapt. That should make sense, it's only a reminder.

Here's a list (not comprehensive whatsoever) of things that i expect to change (to be extended): 

1. the climate
2. using english on a day to day basis
3. having no one to talk to
4. different culture/lifestyle

So I'll have to start adapting right now: 

1. The first thing I totally suck at is cooking my own food. I was spared until now, but my time has come. And I started doing this one month ago. What I found out is that I hate cooking. The simple fact that I have to pay attention to such a casual task is driving me nuts. The solution to save me came from here: Minimalist Eating. 3 ingredient recipes sound so cool I will try them as soon as I get more time to search for good quality ingredients.
2. Washing clothes. I wonder how many perfectly good clothes I will ruin in this process. :)
3. Getting more familiar with aussie slang. I've went on imdb and checked out the top 100 pure Australian films. I got to see some cool stuff and some crap, all in all that didn't serve my purpose entirely. So the next step is getting my hands on documentaries about Australia and probably getting some literature.
4. Getting more familiar with English. Today I decided that after I finish reading all my books in Romanian I'll switch to English (exclusively... probably buy some cool books from amazon). Remember? This is the same reason I'm writing this blog in English (only for this post I've looked 4 words in the dictionary)

No OZ embassy/consulate in Romania?

The answer is yes. Australia has no official representatives in Romania. The embassy that handles us is in Serbia.
And the consulate was closed at the end of 2009. That's a shame...

The silver lining is that I've procrastinating calling them for one month and a half and it turned out it wouldn't have mattered if I took the decision to call them then.