Friday, March 21, 2008

Farewell parties

Everyone knows what a farewell party is. A couple of your closest friends gathering together to say goodbye / trip to those how are starting a new journey. As I said before (in other post named “meeting new people”) the idea of organize reunions are to meet new people; but in this parties the idea is to get even more close with those whom you want to become neighbor of.

When you start the migration process you start feeling a bit lonely and out of the planet, not many people share your same ideas and realities; so a way to deal with it is to find more friends, share your picture and open up your mind. But this isn’t enough, you need to find those whom fulfill you somehow, whom you feel comfortable with and as the time goes by you start to have some connection and friendship.

The same thing happened to us with other couples and families way ahead of us in the process and we could not let them go ahead without a proper reunion and “have a nice trip and see you soon…” the good see you soon.

Those with a path already walked invited us to share a night with them, something small but nice, just family and closest friends, it was our first farewell party, saying goodbye to Ricardo and his family as well to Jea, and it was so nice that we started the feeling to organized something alike. The first experiment was the Reinaldo’s farewell on hooters (also mentioned in other post). Everything was ok and another date was set to another reunion, another friend on its way (Victor and Betzy family).


The Victor’s family farewell party was hosted on my house. It started Sunday at 10 am and ended Monday at 1am, all day menus was subs sandwiches, beer, coke, snacks, etc. It was amazing the quality of the people… everyone took anything to the party, it didn’t matter so much what it was, but at least something to eat or to get distracted made the reunion memorable and thanks god the party showed exactly how I wanted to say goodbye to these dear friends. Again at the end of the party another reunion was set; same place, same channel (hehe, Spanish way to say same hour, location and conditions) this time was Moira’s family (my dear and liberated Moira, Alfonso and Guille).

The Moira’s family farewell was planed Saturday morning till Sarvo (Saturday afternoon) but again the night came, everyone chatting and having a great time. This time menu was meat and chicken skewers, “guasacaca pico e’ perico” (a sauce made with advocado, onions, tomato and parsley finely chopped and mixed with a little bit of pepper and salt) and cassava with milk cream sauce. It was simply magnificent and hopefully they liked it.

In the end, another party was on its way and the arrangement was to organize these parties once every month to say goodbye to our closest friend and those you are on its way to become close.

If you want to organize this kind of reunions all you need is.
  • Proper clean location, not too cold, not to hot.
  • Chairs… Unless you want to torture your guests you need chairs for them to rest. Tables are not required unless you’re menus requires it.
  • Background music isn’t required and in some cases, will be not desired. In our case wasn’t necessary.
  • Flexible menus… It means, if you are going to prepare food, make different flavors, variety is the key point to make everyone happy.
  • Plenty of snacks… the people is going to be more distracted than hungry and need something easy to eat but constant. Snacks will do it. Bring some nachos, cheese balls and stuff like that. Try also some sweet but remember, sweet will be over first, so keep it out side of the stares until you know everyone invited has arrived.
  • Plenty of drinks… this is vital, have sodas, water, beers, ice… everything needed to have a nice refreshing drink made in less than 10 seconds because people will talk a lot… and we you talk a lot you mouth turns into a hot and dry desert.
  • Reservoirs. Other key points are the reservoirs because you don’t know exactly how much time the reunion will take (unless you start kicking out people out your home). Have anything for an emergency in case you ran out of food and your guests are a little at the expectation of something to eat.

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Physicals

The physicals are a bunch of tests to determine if you are eligible for an Aussie visa or not. You'll be tested for AIDS, hypertension (high blood pressure), tuberculosis, urine infections, hernias and other kind of diseases. The results will determine if you are a healthy candidate for a visa and you are not a weight to the Aussie health system.


We had to be at the hospital at 8 a.m to start with the examination and my wife and I thought we could be out and get a brunch at 11... Once there, the nurse gave us the examination order for the blood test, urine test and x-rays... Every order a big bold and red word "urgent". The nurse asked for the form 26, form 160, two pictures and passport copies and before everyone moved a finger remarked "you have to make the lab responsible to sign those papers before 12 pm else you will have to come other day... Once the results are done the doctor will check you up... hopefully at 4PM you will be done."

Wordless to say my wife face; we could not do anything else to wait. Went down to basement 2 (where the lab is) to pay for the tests and to wait till are finished. While in the line we started to have the nature call... and someone near us had a waterfall sound as ringtone... a total torture...

Anyway, at 10 am we had all the preliminary examination done, when to get the brunch done before the physical with the doctor Jacques Dennis, there the doc asked us for every disease or medical record... I was asked for a detailed report of my general doctor (I suffer of migraine) and my wife's gynecologist report.

My suggestion is, if you have had any medical record of anything persistent issue; ask for the reports before going to the physical examination.

As extra information, check the doctor panel allowed by Australia government to determine who’s near you plus; download all the information required by the forms (such as the office requiring the examination and so on).
Link to health requirements (here you will find forms, Panel doctors and other information)
Link to Panel Doctors

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