Second Bermuda Triangle in the Pacific?

So, my moving container was supposed to arrive in Australia the day before yesterday, but apparently, the ship is delayed by 7 days. It isn't a big deal and I am not familiar with the operation of a ship, but how can a ship suddenly be late? And when I say suddenly I mean that, apparently, the captain - who has been at sea for four weeks at that point - only finds out about a 1-week delay two days before the scheduled arrival date. Being completely unfamiliar with maritime navigation, I assume that you know your starting point, you know your end point, the distance between the two and your average speed - should be pretty straightforward to figure out how long it takes (give or take a day or two). And, failing that, it should be possible to figure out any possible changes in the arrival date way ahead of time.

As I said, it's not a big deal, I'm mostly just curious as to the inner workings of the shipping industry.

On a more annoying note, this means that I have to spend at least another seven days on the air mattress - I am so sick of it by now (it's been over 3 weeks), I can't wait to sleep in a REAL bed again - not to mention the fact that my apartment is still essentially empty, and the emptiness and echo are starting to get really old.

At least I finally got my driver's license and a credit card (applying for them required documents I received only recently - namely, a printed payslip and a utility bill) - well, technically, I don't have either yet, but I have a temporary license and an approval-note from the credit card issuer, so in a couple of days, I should have both, taking one more step back towards normality. I also submitted a lease-application for a car, so hopefully, in a week or two, I will have my own set of wheels again...

One step at a time (and other blunders)

Booya!!

I finally got an apartment...unbelievable how hard it is to get an apartment in Australia - or maybe I just suck at apartment-hunting? Either way, I now have a place again. I actually got more than a bit concerned, since the one month of company-paid temporary accomodations was about to end (after which it would have gotten very pricy very fast), so I applied for the first apartment I looked at after I got rejected the last time. Surprise, suprise, I got accepted - now I have an apartment that is quite a bit more expensive than I had planned, but also quite a bit nicer - and it is also in Perth. For those of you who don't know what that means: Even though Perth is usually listed as having 1.6 million people and occupying 5382 sq. km, these numbers are actually referring to "greater Perth", i.e. Perth and all its Suburbs; Perth itself is much, much smaller - essentially only the Central Business District (CBD), which is the Ozzy-equivalent of the American "downtown". So now I am not only very close to the center of Perth, but also only 15 minutes away from work - and all "by accident".

Naturally, as always, there is a fly in the ointment: The apartment does not seem to have air conditioning (or I am really, REALLY blind!) ; at this point I assume that the A/C has not been installed yet (the building is brand new and only opened recently; there is actually still small-scale construction going on in some parts of the building) - otherwise, the summer is going to get extremely toasty ;-)
It's also missing most of the appliances (basically, it only has an oven and a drier right now), but we'll see if there is more stuff to come or if I have to buy the rest myself (wouldn't be a problem, even though I am not keen on it)

Unfortunately, since my stuff from the US of A is still floating on the Pacific somewhere, I still can't put up pictures as of yet, so hold your horses! (especially you, Chris ;-p )

Oh, and I now have a suspicion why I might have been denied for the other apartment: There is one particular question in the (pretty detailed) questionnaire: "Are you a smoker?" with the words "Yes" and "No" next to them (just the words, no checkboxes). Naturally (being mostly a non-smoker), I marked "No". I didn't realize at the time that this could also have been interpreted as me crossing out "No", essentially answering "Yes". I only realized this problem when I applied for my current apartment and the lady at the real estate agency checked the application and verified my answer with me. In my opinion, it would be extremely easy to prevent this from happening by putting small checkboxes next to each answer. But I guess the moral of the story is: If you fill out a form, make absolutely sure that your choices cannot possibly be misinterpreted.

My home is my castle....

....unfortunately, I nave neither right now - I'm still living in temporary housing arranged by my employer, and while I definitely appreciate not having to pay for my accomodations right no0w, I cannot wait to get back into a place I can call "home". Fortunately, I have applied for an apartment and with some luck, I should get approved by Monday or Tuesday.

Even though I went through the exact same experience when I moved to the US 8 years ago, I had completely forgotten how many of the daily comforts we enjoy in the "western" world are contingent on having a permanent address - the ability to get decent TV channels (Hotel TV channels are bearable, but nowhere near decent), a personal cell/mobile phone, a car that is not a rental, not to mention cheap Internet-access, all those require some "proof-of-address", or, in other words, a utility bill.

Well, hopefully, after next week, I'll have my own place again, and can start to get back all those little amenities we all depend on far more than most of us are willing to admit...

Back in the 21st century!

A-HA! I am back in the 21st century with a cell phone and a laptop; so I can once again access my email and research cars, apartments and all the other various bits and pieces I need to take care of to settle in.

I am beginning to really like the Perth Winter: Sunny, relatively balmy (around 15-20 degrees), and generally pleasant, a far cry from the Winters I am used to from Germany and the US - snow, ice, sleet, and temperatures of up to -40 degrees.

Still no pictures, since I am currently working on a office laptop, which I do not want to install any software on...but I guess I will be able to put up something in a couple of days.

The curse of modern technology

Well, it's been a bit since my last post, and all I can say is you only really realize how much you depend on new technology (Internet, Cell Phone, etc.), once you are cut off from them. Right now, I have almost no internet-access (I have to use either the public PCs in the lobby of my hotel, which cost quite a bit to surf with - or, as I am doing right now, use a colleagues' laptop), and basically no mobile phone access (I brought my US-mobile, but they charge me an arm, a leg and a kidney to use it) and apparently Australian cell phone providers are really picky who they give a mobile contract to (Right now I would need 5 different forms of ID, plus a sample of my blood and DNA, and character references from both the Pope and the President of the Untited States :-p) I have to investigate if there is a way around this - I want a local cell phone, but I do not want to mess around with this prepaid nonsense, if I can help it.

I'll keep posting as I get a chance until I finally get a work laptop, which I can use (which should be either tomorrow or on Monday)

until then - Cheers!

Why nice coworkers are far more important than anything else at work....

I just got home after having a get-together with our whole office to send me off.

As the office director was giving his speech, summarizing my time in this office , I had an opportunity to reflect on my stay here. All in all, I had a great time here, thanks mostly to the people I had the pleasure of working with. Everybody was very friendly, welcoming and went out of their way to help me. I consider myself lucky, that during my entire work life so far, I was always blessed with colleagues like that - sure, there may have been one or two scrooges among them, but the vast majority was friendly, great people who made working with them a real joy.

This makes this move a little bittersweet - on the one hand, I am excited to go to Australia and take on new challenges (professionally and personally) in a faraway land, on the other hand, I have to say goodbye to a bunch of very nice people, some of which I will really miss....but I guess that is inevitable.



For those of you who don't know what they are looking at: This is one of the goodbye-presents my colleagues gave me: A beautiful Minnesota-blanket (even though it would be a crime to use it as a blanket) with iconic images of Minnesotan life/history worked in. In case you were wondering why you can't see the top: I had to drape it over my TV to photograph it, since there is no way that I put two nails into a wall two days before I move out of this apartment....sue me ;-)

Getting closer...

Four days to go. Ok, time is really dragging now - I guess it's because I have nothing to do at the moment at all, but it is still annoying.




This used to be my workspace for the last 2 years - it's a bit on the small side, but at least it was next to a window, and away from the main hallway.

Getting there...

Only 5 days to go until the flight. I have to admit, the last few days seem to go reasonably fast - I had expected the time to go much slower; maybe it's because I am back at work instead of being on vacation at home twiddling my thumbs.
Besides, I really have absolutely no reason to complain about the time frame, on the contrary: Despite having had some vague desire to go to Australia for several years, I only made concrete plans to move down under in late April this year (almost exactly on my birthday, go figure), which makes the total time from first plan to final move about 3 months; other people have been trying for years (I have read about some people waiting as long as 4 years to get their Visa). Of course it helps that I have already signed a contract with the Australian subsidiary of the major corporation I am currently working for and have been working for for over 10 years, and that my new supervisor is somebody I have already worked with for several years in the past, but still - 3 months as opposed to (up to) 4 years? Yeah, really no room for any complaints.

All arrangements are made (as far as I can tell, hope I didn't forget anything), and I can't wait to board my flight this coming weekend - Total trip time (including layovers): 29 (!!) hours - I better use every opportunity to charge my MP3-player, otherwise it could get very long ;-)

And Chris, if you are reading this (you know who you are): Update your blog for cryin' out loud - I want to see pictures!! :-p

First Blog Entry

So I finally decided to join the bloggers and make my own. I don't expect to put much in here in terms of writing, but instead treat this as some kind of photo diary to chronicle my new life in Australia. However, from my own experience, this idea will probably fizzle and die pretty quickly, for two reasons, one, I'm not much of a photographer, and two, I don't really like the concept of diaries - I hate making musings about myself and my life...so let's see, if I actually use this or not ;-)