X-mas in Sydney

Officially Australians only celebrate 1 day of Christmas (the 25th of December, Christmas Day). The 26th (Boxing Day) is a public holiday but not a real day of celebration like in Europe.

On Christmas day we had a long lunch at out friend Mark's place with some other guys. We had planned to do a picnic in the park, but the weather made us divert inside.

On Boxing day, Sale started in downtown Sydney so we took a stroll towards Myer and DJ's but it was just too crowed. Later that afternoon our friends from Holland Aukje, Arthur and their 3 girls came over for dinner. They migrated to Australia in August, are still travelling around and happened to be in the Sydney area. We had a great BBQ dinner with them. We had chicken skewers, giant king prawns and baby octopus on the barbie. Ofcourse Aukje also wrote about it on her Blog.

 

   
Hans cooking

 
Arjan arranging the crackers

Bregje and the Sticky Date pudding

 
Yummy, Sticky Date pudding

Merry Christmas

Today was our last day at work for this year. We are now off till January 2nd so plenty of time to relax and explore our new hometown some more.

 

We'd like to wish all visitors to our Blog a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

 

Sydney Town Hall

Goods arrived in Sydney

After a long long wait, our stuff has finally arrived at our apartment. Most of the boxes where opened by Quarantine officials, but because we packed carefully and according to their instructions, the shipment was cleared without impediments.

We were happy to be able to sleep in our own bed, and finally have a TV. The best thing was to have our Nespresso coffee machine again.

Here are the details of the shipment:

• Pick-up in Amsterdam: 4th September
• Departure from the port of Rotterdam: 29th September
• Arrival in Sydney; 11th November
• Customs Clearance: 19th November
• Quarantine Clearance: 6th December
• Delivery in Sydney: 10th December

So it took 98 days to travel 16.000km, that's less then 7km/hr.

Northern Beaches

Today we made a trip to the Northern Beaches. We booked a car through a community car sharing plan called Charterdrive, much like Greenwheels in the Netherlands. It was a Smart forfour.

Our car

The ride took us all along the coast via Whale Beach towards Palm Beach. Along the way we made various stops to admire the view, take pictures and have coffee and lunch.

 
Whale Beach

Palm Beach is town with a beautiful beach where a lot of surfing goes on. It was not very busy today. Probably everyone went Christmas shopping.

A customs station was on the beach established in 1843 as the Headland marked the entrance to Broken Bay and the Pittwater which were considered to be the backdoor of Sydney for smugglers

The far end of the Beach, Barrenjoey Head is part of the Kuringgai National Park. On the head you can find a lighthouse, Barrenjoey lighthouse, constructed in 1881, constructed to either guide ships into the safe Broken Bay during bad weather, or alongside on their way to Sydney.

We took the steep walk up the hill to visit the lighthouse. A volunteer gave us a tour of the grounds and the lighthouse itself. The lighthouse is still in service, but instead of running on kerosene, it now has a 75.000 candlepower halogen lamp.

On our way back it started to rain. So we decided to take an alternate route back via Ikea to buy a few things we needed.

Tomorrow the removals company will bring the stuff we shipped.

Feeling real Aussies

Because we got our first pay-check, it seemed a good idea to spend some of it on the one and only essential thing one needs in Australia, a Barbecue.

Because we only have a small balcony, we went for the Weber Baby Q100. This is a gas-operated BBQ since the building doesn't allow one on real coals. The gas tank isn't pictured but it contains LPG and can be swapped at any gas-station when empty.

Our first meal consisted of Steak, vegetable-skewers and as dessert: bananas in tinfoil with Australian Bundaberg Rum. Yummm!

Second week

A little over 2 weeks in Sydney now, what has happend in the last week:

• Moved to our new apartment
• Got our furniture and appliances deliverd
• Did a lot of shopping for household stuff
• Got our New South Wales driver-licence
• Got our Medicare insurance
• Arranged contents insurance and private health insurance
• Got our phoneline connected (ADSL due early next week)

Our Sydney home..

..is beginning to take shape. After seeing a lot of furniture shops we finally bought all of our furniture at an Australian furniture store. We picked stuff that "happened" to be in stock so they were able to deliver it 2 days later. It's nice to have something to sit on :)

The hole there should fit the TV.. which is due to arrive in NSW waters next Sunday. The entire apartment is fitted with built-in lights so we don't really have to buy lamps.

A walk-in closet! When our own bed arrives this will be the spare bed. Sleeps a lot better than the hotel-bed we spent 2 weeks in.

Apartment Secured!

Last week we applied for an apartment and today we heard we got accepted as tenants. It is located right on Oxford street on the edge of the Darlinghurst/Surry Hills suburbs. We get the keys on Friday 2nd of November, and we will move in that same day.







View Larger Map

First week

We are 1 week in Sydney now. The first few days we were really bothered by Jet-lag, maybe more than usual because of the fact that we were trying to get into the normal rhythm more then on a holiday.

Let’s see what we've done so far:

• Opened our bank-accounts.
This is really easy and they give you the debit-cards straight away. Transfer from the Dutch bank-account takes only 2 working-days.
• Applied for a Tax File Number (TFN)
• Found an apartment (more about that later on)
• Been to Ikea
• Bought some furniture (sofa, bed, table and chairs) – not Ikea ;)
• Bought some appliances (fridge, washing machine, vacuum cleaner)
• Met up with some old friends

We have arrived!

After a very long flight from Amsterdam to London and Singapore we have arrived in Sydney. Passing immigration is a bit of an anti-climax since they just stamp your passport and dont ask any questions. Also no welcoming committee with flowers on behalf of the governor of New South Wales ;)

Time to say goodbye (part 3)

At Schiphol Airport with all the bags.

Having coffee with friends and family at the airport, the last time to say goodbye.

Bye Bye everyone, see ya all later in Sydney !
Off to the gate.

Packing 3

Done!! Only 82kg!

Packing 2

Half-way. Everything may actually fit!

Packing 1

Finally, we're packing.. or how to fit your life in a suitcase.

Time to say goodbye (part 2)

Today was the second farewell party. We invited about 60 people, both friends and family to our party, held at Prik in Amsterdam. The weather was surprisingly good so we could spend some time in the sun. My friend Harald held a great speech on behalf of our friends and presented us with a little book in which they had all written a few memorable facts. We'd like to thank everyone for their presence and the gifts.

  Listening to the speech.

Together with our nephew Joeri.

Time to say goodbye (part 1)

Today was out last day at work. This also meant the start of saying goodbye. A lot of co-workers came to the farewell gettogether in companies cafeteria. We also got a great gift: a 1 year rental of a piece of art in Sydney. Great for our new home.

Goods NOT on their way :(

Due to a mistake at the terminal, our stuff is not onboard the Kyoto Express. It has been loaded on the Savannah Express which has departed Rotterdam the 29th of September.

Househunting

We get a lot of questions from people "do you have a place to stay yet". Well... we don't. The Australian rental-market seems to work a little different then in NL. Most rental properties that come on the market, are available right away. This means that we can only search for and respond to apartments in the one or two weeks before we arrive.

Obviously we are already looking around, mostly at http://www.domain.com.au/ and http://www.realestate.com.au/.

Suburbs we are looking at are visible in the little map I made.

Goods on their way!

Today we got word that our goods have left the port of Rotterdam on the vessel Kyoto Express, one of the largest container ships in the world. It has a lenght of 336 meters and a dead-weight of 103800 tonnes.

I'm sure those few boxes won't be a problem.

Everything is packed

All boxes are now full and taped shut. We have 16 boxes and 5 big parts of our bed. We used about 25m of bubble-wrap and 200m of packing tape.
Tomorrow the movers will come to pick everything up. The stuff will then be loaded into a container together with other goods, and shipped off to Australia.

The cats are not part of the shipment.

Departure date set

After a little bit of shifting dates, today we've fixed our departure date and flights to Sunday 21st of October. Below are our flight details.

We've booked our flights through IOM to get extra luggage allowance.

From: Amsterdam, Netherlands
to Heathrow (London), United Kingdom
Flight Number: BA0441
Depart: Sun 21 October 2007, 19:00
Arrive: Sun 21 October 2007, 19:15
Operated By: British Airways
---------------------------------------
From: Heathrow (London), United Kingdom
to Sydney, Australia
Flight Number: BA0015
Depart: Sun 21 October 2007, 21:35
Arrive: Tue 23 October 2007, 05:15
Operated By: British Airways
Number of Stops: 1

Aukje and Arthur left today

Today Aukje, Arthur and their 3 girls left for Melbourne.

Ofcourse they needed a hand with their 12 suitcases and I was happy to assist and see them off. We will see them in again in December when their trip trough Australia will take them to Sydney.

Berlin

Today we got our visa evidenced in our Passports at the Australian Embassy in Berlin. Since the Embassy in The Hague no longer has an evidencing facility, you either have to send your passport to Berlin, or travel there yourself. We drove up the day before to enjoy a bit of Berlin.

We had made an appointment at the embassy, so we didnt have to wait for our turn. After about half an hour wait our passports were returned to us with the visa sticker in them.

Visa granted !

Great news from George Lombard: the Department of Immigration and Citizenship has granted us our Skilled Independent visa (Class BN Subclass 136).

Next phase is getting the visa evidenced in our passports. This needs to be done at the Australian Embassy in Berlin.