A Venezuelan wacky guy living his Australian dream

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This post is part of a bigger compilation of thoughts and thus, it might have no sense or lead to miss information. If you want to fully read it, start from here, otherwise continue reading.

In the last post I was telling about issues I had with my passport and several things we needed to get done to get some winter clothes and flight planning to Australia. But in the meanwhile some farewell parties occur.

I must be honest from the beginning, after saying good bye and godspeed you to so many good mates, I deeply wanted my party because says you are almost there, hold on good things are coming. Even though many asked me when my farewell party was meant to, no one really offered himself as host for the party, so the time went by and I started losing hopes on this, till my dear mate frank from the Pineda’s five blog, told me to go to his house for my farewell. This party was meant to be one or two weeks before departing (original departure on August 7, 2009, party planned for July 25, 2009).

At the same time, my mom was planning for my birthday (11th of July) a farewell party as well, so my closest mates, family members and neighbours could say something to us and say bye bye. At my birthday many people came without even knowing I was leaving the country, bunch of people told me “wow, here are so many people leaving to Australia... Why?... mates of you?? Why???... you too leaving????????????”

Anyway, my mom had invited many people in order to be strong to avoid being crying every now and then, but could not help it when was time for the cake; my dad as well hugged me tight wishing me the very best. It is hard for anyone (especially parents) to see their offspring go, even harder when is faraway, so if you are planning to move down under and you have close family you got to be strong and hold it for the last few days; why? Remember that in first place you were the one choosing to move elsewhere to have a better and prosper life, hold tight to these ideas against the general comments such as “sadly, you are leaving your family behind…”; being down under is not just your opportunities, it will open as well opportunities for your family members whom decided to stay.

The next farewell was in frank’s place, we had some ‘choripanes’ with is a hot dog with Spanish sausage instead regular pork meat sausage used in the hot dogs. The choripanes are kind of common here in Venezuela although I have not ever tasted one, so it was cool. Plus many mates from Valencia in Venezuela and other places came by to meet us and say goodbye as well. The evening surprise was having Victor and Raul call (on Skype) and having some knowledge transferred to us of their experiences in Perth. At the end it was a good night with good food and good company.

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Is that all? Nope, those parties were taken place before my passport issues, obviously in the meanwhile I didn’t had any intention of parting but with the plane ticket and passport ready to go I was in the mood again. Frank called me again but this time the party was exclusive, on one of the gorgeous beaches of Venezuela with crystalline water, little fishes swimming around you and fine food, all this for us and the Pineda’s five.

Back in Caracas my mates Santos and Rosely (both architects) told us to gather with them for a barbie; as regular dinner or lunch were frequent we didn’t even gave a thought this one was supposed to be our last with them in Venezuela (at least for a long time) so they also planned to wish us the best on this opportunity and say goodbye. And so, this was the last time Kathy and I meet our mates to have a meal or just chat in Venezuelan soil, next time will be down under.

With parties done, everything packed and little things to do we just had to travel to Bogota (this time meant to buy nice outfits instead just winter clothes as some friends in Sydney already told us the winter was fading away) and once back to Venezuela spend the last couple of days with our family.