A Venezuelan wacky guy living his Australian dream

Almost two years ago I said ‘I don’t want to see boxes anymore... not in a very long time...’

But apparently the owner of my unit thinks otherwise...

Ever since we arrived to Oz we have been living in the same flat... We rented from Caracas to arrive to our friend’s home, but with a place in which we could leave our boxes, bags and luggage.

This flat saw us picking up two sofa chairs from the rubbish and a wood dining table used by our mates, and their mates and the mates of our mate’s mates. I think it also hated us filling up two beanbags (our very first furniture acquisition) and then trying to get out of unimaginable place the f-ing little beans.

The glass tables weren't among the rubbish... But you can see both sofa chairs :P

We had our first job phone-interview, helped us to receive more friends, shared it cool things (and not so cool). It helped us to imagine how our Aussie life could be, what we want to improve and what we want it just like it is.

It waked us up with birds singing.

A magpie singing...

It waked us up sweat up and afraid of the crushing, earth-quake alike sound of the freight train passing by at full speed at 3 AM.

Little difference... Mine... sometimes... is longer.

It gave us amazing sunsets.

One of the outstanding sunsets... The entire sky orange-reddish.

It gave us amazing sunrises (but I couldn't find any of my pictures to show you =S ).

But at the end... it... wasn’t the flat... it was Australia. And so we decided to move out and go far away from this flat on the ground level of a building in Hornsby...

That’s why we are going to move to the 9th floor of the same building =D

Woohoo!

So... boxes are back... ‘Freaking boxes’... with crates and bags and luggage again... so, we will see how it goes =P

Till next time ;)

These posts are a compilation of every aspect of moving, packing and farewell every migrant will suffer when its time is right. With this I would like to express the stress and exhaustion of the last month getting ready for what awaits.

The last days are split into these separate posts, read it as you wish or follow the order:

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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.

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Once your visa is granted (well, in my case was way before getting the granted) you must tell your boss you are planning to move overseas. In my case, wasn’t a surprise for them and had it expected, preparing everything to avoid delays and help me going. It might sound that my job wanted me out, isn’t? but wasn’t like that, in fact the company was moved to Hermosillo, Mexico and I was offered a position there and I rejected because as for me, was pointless to move to Mexico waiting the Australian visa.

Once I clear out the final days on work (which at first, was last of May, then it was moved to last of June with the purpose of gathering more money) the only thing to do was preparing my way out with the best references I could get, training other coworkers in “my thing” so they could continue working without the gap behind my departure.

In my case, the definition of the “last day of work” was sort of a nightmare, many of my coworkers were prepared for the job, but the manager was lacking of the necessary skills to lead the team (and from my point of view, didn’t mind it to learn it neither) so I got to write a huge report that took me some of the days (odd 10 days) later my leave (which wasn’t cool at all). The hard thing of these days was saying goodbye to your mates and wishing the very best for them (as so do they).

My advice at this point, get everything done so you can resign up to 45 to 60 days before traveling. 30 days seems to be much time, but really isn’t.

Once I was out of duties I could manage my mind and focus to get pending things to its final state, but to accomplish it, I had to create a to-do list.

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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.

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Who doesn’t know what a to-do list work for? I didn’t fully understand it till these days when you get so crowded with stuff in your mind that things when to on priority to “what was I going to do?” in no time.

In any case, my wife got me a piece of paper and told me to list everything I was planning to do in the upcoming days. As I had it mentally listed for so long, building up the list was easy… following it was the hard part :P Got to buy shipping bubble plastic, got to buy the travel bags, got to… do so many things, Oh lord!

I went from home to the streets and back all day long gathering those final details (but important) that many don’t give it importance till you are wasting so much time in things you could had done way before the visa approval.

My advice in this part, build a to-do list with every possible aspect needed for the departure… if you have near 50 items in that list, I bet you there are 20 more you haven’t thought.

With the to-do list ready and priorities assigned the following days are execute those tasks shipping those not possible for now. Our top priority was trespass our vaccine history to the yellow card (International certificate of vaccination).

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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.

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After a day or two a gathering all your stuff, documents and other important things you will start thinking about “what is that important thing to do next? What to leave behind and what shouldn’t I?”

In our case, Kathy and I had lots of home things such as pots, pans, kitchen aids, our tableware, cutlery, and so on plus our bed clothes, bathroom accessories, etc; our dilemma was keep it or leave it.

After an intense internet search (related to prices in Australia) we decided to leave behind every electric device not complaining Australian standards, some useless books and really old clothes, the rest will travel with us (or shipped down under).

But why did we choose to take almost everything else with us?

Taking a look to cutlery (for instance), we find nice stuff over the Internet which might be our first things down under, but talking to our Sydney friends, they express the quality vs. price as the following: “obviously there are cheap things, but aren’t good neither durable; in the other hand, good and durable things are really expensive, it’s your call”. Then doing some calculations, we were going to “throw away” all our stuff (almost for free) to get new things down under (at full tag), those new things require lots more money than we could possible get from our stuff here… So, why to bother? Is kind of better to ship our stuff there, clean it up, package it and wait for it to get there.

Is there any tip or advice? Not really, these decisions are kind of personal and it really doesn’t matter if you want to leave to your family your cutlery even though down under are pretty much expensive and the price you are going to pay on shipping plus its value will be less than getting a new one.

This topic is divided into these two posts:

Next to picking and packing was shipping.

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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.

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Again, the searching for convenience is a most choosing what to leave and what to take with us in our moving... As you may know, several months ago we moved to a new apartment in Caracas, getting ready for the upcoming changes, at that moment we disposed several damaged, unused or worthless pieces of clothes (with disposal I mean gave away to someone, if clothes were in good shape to charity otherwise to my mom so she could use it as cleaning rag) taking ahead on this duty.

But what is the important thing in this post, how to pack our clothes. And you may say, “what? How to pack our clothes? Man, everyone knows how to do their bags!” and you might be right, but I think it was worth it to be remarked the advice someone in Australia told me once.

Try to do your luggage taking note of everything. Don’t just throw everything in the bags because you might need to know where the bloody hell you left your tie, shirt, pants, underwear, etc. And so we did, at first we start compressing our clothes (you should read the saving space post first in case you didn’t, here) trying to keep some ‘order’ into the huge mess, storing some underwear, shirts and pants here and there... What does that means?

We didn’t set all our pants in just one bag, neither the shirt underwear and so on. Why? Just in case any of our bags were sent by mistake to Uganda; seriously I don’t want to imagine the face of the aussies with me walking with shorts and no shirt on Sydney’s CBD. The same tactic applies to fur coat (for winter) or swimming suits (for summer). Most of our clothes fit into six bags and one big box which was sent by post office in Caracas.

This labour was made in parallel with packing our stuff (other than clothes). And if you want to know what kind of bags did I used, read this post.

Once done all the packaging, came the shipping.

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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.

As I already said here, we had lots of kitchen aids, tableware, bathroom accessories, bedroom clothes and accessories and we decided to take everything with us that might be expensive in Down Under excluding electrical devices. Most of those things were planned to be sent by post office and few within our luggage.

So, what’s the standard procedure to pack fragile things such as plates or drinking glasses?

Easy, you will need bubble plastic, polypropylene pellets, paper duck tape, tick cardboard and cardboard boxes of different sizes. The purpose of boxes of different sizes is, small boxes will contain the fragile articles and bigger boxes will isolate (with the pellets) the small boxes from unexpected bangs.

So, let’s imagine we are going to pack our tableware. The first thing to do is protect dishes, cups and other stuff with cardboard so it does not hit each other within the “small” box. Then cover the ‘small’ box with bubble plastic leaving the bubble facing in and the smooth surface facing out; this way the bubble will protect the box from impacts and the smooth face will help you with duck tape stickiness.

Then, cover every face of the bigger box with plastic duck tape without leaving spots. This technique is great because helps to cardboard to be impermeable and stronger. Cut open the up side face to the next step.

Next, put some pellets inside the bigger box (making a soft bed for the small box) and put the tableware box on that bed, leaving an inch from side to side. Then you can fill in the spaces with small (but resistant) stuffs such as books, spoons or kitchen aids to finally add more pellets; shake every now and then the box so the pellets fall in inaccessible places, creating a better protection.

Finally, close the up side of the box with duck tape and cover the box (if required) with bond paper. In Venezuela the bond paper is a most, because the box’s cardboard face doesn’t allow the post stamp’s glue to work properly, plus you got to remember every box’s face was covered with plastic duck tape.

This way you can forget how uncaring the handler could be.

Next thing to do, ship boxes down under.

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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.

Shipping stuff over is one of the obvious tasks to do moving anywhere, and correct information is a must before taking boxes out with us (especially when we don’t have any car) so we called the post office and talked to a kind man named Jesus. He give us some directions of how to pack everything so he can check it prior handle it.

With things classified and ready to be sent from overseas to Australia we took a taxi (in fact, were two taxi’s) to the main post office in Caracas (address here), and after some minutes waiting a kind man came from his cubicle saying “are you rod? Hi! I am Jesus, remember?” proceeding to take care of our boxes and helping us to get the weight of every single box.

This procedure is really simple to complete, just go ahead to the post office, with the boxes upside open and without any pellets (discussed in the previous post) so these guys can check the content inside the boxes. Then add all the protective material you want and leave it to them.

In our case, the boxes took odd 15 days to arrive tops, and as the days goes by, it gets quicker.

If you haven’t read how we shop our bags, then click here. Otherwise continue reading “closing unnecessary things”

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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.

One of those things that makes me wonder what would be a great purchase, were the travel bags or luggage. I wanted to be slick and strong enough to resist bad handling and even heavy treatment, but at the same time something easy to handle and light so I can use as much as possible in the airplane.

Checking on the Internet and chatting with my mate Victor, found a great deal with the travel bags, because are light, most cases has wheels (which is great when the content is too heavy) and once used easy to store.

And right there is the important feature “easy to store”, many people don’t realise why good bags are better than suitcases which will be nicer to look at... But when you are moving anywhere in permanent basis you most think about the space you are going to use in your temporal or final residence. In our case we bought 8 bags (maximum allowed by IOM and the airlines) in which we stuffed all our immediate things, and then moved to my parents home to finally take it with us to Australia.

And the question will be, “tell me Rod, what travel bags should I get?” the answer is, it depends on you. I choose something alike to the picture, the colour doesn’t really matter the important thing is you feel comfortable with it and you have (or will have) the proper space to save it for later.

Next you will need to close unnecessary things.

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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.

Prior moving down under (which isn’t precisely close to anything) you will need to establish what to leave open and what not to. In my case bank account and everything else were closed and some mail addresses changed to a P.O Box where my family could check it every now and then for me.

This post might apply only for Venezuela, so read it at discretion.

In Venezuela the bank entities just sucks. Every single bank is a major headache and none try to give you better products, treatment or benefits. So I decided to close everything, if you choose so, build your patience, write a letter saying you want to close your accounts (credit accounts, money saver account, saving accounts, everything) and head to the branch office. Talk to a teller or office representative, if you start with the wrong foot, request the manager presence and continue finishing your accounts.

We also request the end of service of electricity, water, Internet, and gas.

I just had post this earlier, but rushing around to get the money, get things done before departing and working is kind of a pain at the moment :P

Anyway, shortly after getting the grant, my wife and I went to the sanity department to get shotted with the yellow fever vaccine and it was pretty much easy. Well, to be honest I was the only one receiving shots cause my wife had to donate blood to my godmother, meanwhile I got a very sore arm for a couple of days; not because of the yellow fever, I got 4 other shots (those were the just in case... you never know...)

So what? What’s the point with this post? Oh, you got to remember to get this vaccine 40 days prior travelling, got it remembered today be the airfare seller by saying “if you do not have the yellow card (the international vaccine history card) you will have to wait in quarantine in Auckland, New Zealand till Oz is pretty much sure you don’t have it, ok?”

Even though I got shotted, my history board isn’t yellow... So I have to go back to sanity dept and ask for the international one, already called and is pretty much simple, all you got to do is take your white card, go to sanity dept and ask for the international card, within some minutes you will be done and ready. Here in Venezuela is pretty much common not provide the yellow card when you get any vaccine, so they are used to being called and asked for the same thing.

Cheers and till next post.

Why?... What? Didn’t I tell you? I had to move to an apartment in the Caracas CBD (which isn’t that glamorous as the Sydney CBD by the way...) meanwhile my family moved to a town called “Sabaneta del Hatillo”, a satellite town of Caracas.

The thing is, I didn’t pictured moving elsewhere but Australia. The truth is, I had to move here... At first (I must onfess) did not like the idea of moving to a dangerous place as the CBD, but didn’t had a choice because my parents house will be too far from my office and I really had to start going by my own (when is related to self hosted or living alone with my wife).

So, how is everything? A lot better than expected... With several painting layers and tons of work started to be our home; not too big, not too shabby but ours.

Funny thing, the packing and unpacking had pretty good consequences, lots of garbage were throw, useful clothes gave away and some research about how to save space (which you might read, link is above), but even with all those preparations we didn’t even give a thought on... “What will we need for the apartment?”

The Sundays night (March 1st, our first night in the apartment) we didn’t had enough to have a decent dinner... Thankfully a couple of sandwiches were the solution and during the entire week fill up our food stocks. But Murphy’s Law is always working... with the apartment done (or almost done) we got a letter from DIAC saying “a case officer was assigned to your application... you are requested to sign and send over the form 1281 before March 31, 2009”. Amazed and confused, didn’t give the proper credit to my eyes and read again... and again... and again. “Woohoo! We have a case officer!!!” said jumping, and with the same impulse took the cell phone called my wife, as soon as her voice said “Alo?” my mouth said “we have CO!!! We have CO!!!”. My co-workers should have been thinking “this dude gone crazy or what? What’s all that fuzz?” but the matter of fact is, the closure of my visa application and a final answer is getting closer, a sweet feeling after 15 months when my application got to DIAC.

The last couple of days, my family started moving out to what is going to become our house. My wife and I will be moving somewhere else (to an apartment which will be closer to my work), 

so packing up became our most frequent activity during nights and weekends; to be honest I didn’t think moving was so exhausting till now. Anyway, packing up things made me realise how much space I was wasting when clothes are being put in boxes or even in bags; there is so much space filled with unneeded empty space which I could be using in a better way.

Looking on the Internet and chatting with mates some information popped: “vacuum storage bags”, How didn’t I think about it before? So we got some of them from the local hardware store or market to try it on.

We bought the Space Bag’s vacuum storage bags pack (3 pack bags: one 68x98cm and two 60x80cm) to try it on; if the results were ok we will come back to bough a bunch more to send clothes to Australia via the post office. As we haven’t watched these bags ever, we also bought a Ziploc’s 10 bags pack in order to make some comparison between both designs and behaviours.

The obvious thing to notice when we unpacked the Space Bag’s products was the leak proof valve at a side of the bag, where it is supposed to be attached the vacuum cleaner. Its internal design consists on fins (at the valve’s base) preventing clothes fabric to stick the duct’s air input and a piece of flexible plastic which generates the valve void effect by avoiding the air to go back once is pumped out.