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.

I am not going to tell how the last two days in home were, lots of crying and few sleeping sums it up. It was hard to take a look to my family through to glass door that separates the check-in area and the duty free and I could not held it, I started crying what I was holding last three months when chatting with my siblings, or mom and dad, or godmother, but there was no turning back because ahead was my future and my offspring waiting for a good life.

After a while the plane parked at gate 6, we board it and take off to ‘Santiago de Chile’. My advice here, if you can reserve (book) left plane seats you will be able to have a spectacular view of the Andes mountain system, second height in the world. Quick note on this plane, do not sleep, you will understand it within the next few lines. Once in the airport (if you have a notebook, netbook or macbook) you will have free internet access, so you can send some information to your beloved ones, but if you are low on battery (as we were) I got to tell you, Chile’s power plugs are different to those in America or Venezuela; instead of two flat sticks it uses three rounded sticks, so unless you got time to buy the proper adapter you won’t be able to find a computer or plug to use the internet. What we did was, changed some dollars to Chile’s currency, then got a phone card (5000 pesos is too much for calling, try to get something cheaper as 5000 gives you more than 20 minutes on calling to mobiles) and dial to my mom’s mobile and Kathy’s dads mobile.

When the Qantas flight arrive (or in our case was a LAN plane with Qantas connection) the adrenaline tops and your heart is pumping hard... finally you are about to see (in 17 more hours of flight) to Australia.

Quick note on this, if you really paid attention to not sleeping in the first flight you should be pretty tired at this moment, which is great! As soon as you are ready in this airplane (Santiago de Chile to Sydney, via Auckland, New Zealand) buckle up your seat belts and prepare for sleep as much as you can; easily you might sleep 13 hours (till you get New Zealand) then stop at Auckland, refresh yourself in the bathrooms and buy whatever you want to, then jump back to the airplane and keep dreaming for two more hours. If you did it right you will be fresh as an apple when the airplane touches land and you will be totally ready to endure 14 hours of Jet lag.

Many people told me that I would be disappointed with Sydney’s International Airport and well I kind of was... The airport was a racking mess; some sections of the airport were under construction but, what the hell... I was moving to Sydney not the airport! I headed to immigration, gave our passports and visas and with a pretty nice tone of voice, our officer looked into our eyes and said “Mr, Mrs... You are very welcome to Australia, have a nice stay.” I ran to pick up our luggage (which arrived in perfect conditions), headed to the luggage inspection area were the officer took our card, checked it and made us open two or three bags, looked our shoes (which we cleaned with soap and water, then brushed with vinegar so it were sparkling) and let us go. Once out, you watch a bunch of flags hanging from the ceiling saying “welcome to Australia”, “welcome Down Under” and at that very moment, I could hear was Iz singing this beautiful song...

- somewhere over the rainbow -

Finally, Australia is here for us to take... Now we need to get a job and make a decent living.

If you thought these were the last posts, aren’t. My target is Australia, not just to get here, but to live it.

Thanks for reading and till next time (that should be explaining how I have my apartment or so).

Why should I talk about other migration services?

As I said before, my migration process is been care by the organization “VEA”. But as my wife and I have been going through this process, we have met other families or people with the same dream as we have.

A quick search gave us two options and a chat with a friend gave us another. I am not going to discuss live in Australia, mostly because is the same company as “Viva en Australia” which is Southern Cross Alliance.

The other option was Migration Expert, which is a online organization with some free services. Their main objective is to assist a large number of skilled and business professionals wishing to migrate to Australia, Canada or United Kingdom. Their services are notable less expensive than SCA services or AMES. But you must spend some time doing your forms, getting help with the document construction process and sending your papers to Australia.

Oceania Worldwide services, is a private company which help the emigrant to move to Australia or New Zealand with a very personal treatment. Isn't the largest, recognition or the one with more customers, but certainly is the one with the more loyal customers as I have seen in forums.

The last recommended service was AMES (Adult Multicultural Education Services), is one of the largest employment and settlement services which provide assistance to the emigrant with government contracts or insertion in the educational and laborer fields. The friend who told me about this service is not on its productive age and so, it is difficult to find sponsorship with the Australian government and some services... He started the migration process with AMES because they told him not to worry, they wanted to do the best to help him make his dream come true; meanwhile SCA told him they couldn't accept their case because of the age issue.

I am not going further with these topics because my information can’t relate experiences but at least gives you a idea of where to look (besides of Google :P)

Early in 2004, my wife and I started to think about the security, economical and political issues bothering my natal country, Venezuela. According to Chavez everything is great here in Venezuela, but oddly (for him of course) everyone I know, have left the country to find a new, peaceful, rewarding and better tomorrow.