Australians! Lend me your ears!

Hi guys! Just finished my second tier interview with the Australian government. It looks like I might be an expat in your neighborhood. We talked tonight about being in Melbourne in 8 weeks for briefings, taxes, payroll, the stuff concerning being a yank "down under"

What should I expect?

Any hints or suggestions?

(besides; "Yankee, Go Home!)

reply to post by beezzer


Noooooo! Don't leave Beezzer!

Hey hey

Your a lucky lucky man.
Heading to the greatest country on earth and on top of that the greatest city

Start learning about AFL, as a bloke its probably the first thing strangers will talk to you about. Pick any Melbourne team to support except Collingwood (will become obvious why later).

Apart from that I recommend you develop a taste for VB and all will be well

How ya gonna feel about being surrounded by people who dont carry or even own guns? be pretty scary I imagine

Originally posted by smyleegrl
reply to post by beezzer

 

Noooooo! Don't leave Beezzer!

It's an ongoing tough decision, our final "briefing" is Sunday night, Monday morning Oz-time.

They did make me an offer I couldn't refuse. They want to talk to the missus, though, on Sunday to make sure we're all on board.

Originally posted by IkNOwSTuff
Hey hey

Your a lucky lucky man.
Heading to the greatest country on earth and on top of that the greatest city

Start learning about AFL, as a bloke its probably the first thing strangers will talk to you about. Pick any Melbourne team to support except Collingwood (will become obvious why later).

Apart from that I recommend you develop a taste for VB and all will be well

Thanks! Will remember the "Collingwood"!

How ya gonna feel about being surrounded by people who dont carry or even own guns? be pretty scary I imagine

To be honest? Strange.

Originally posted by IkNOwSTuff
Hey hey

Your a lucky lucky man.
Heading to the greatest country on earth and on top of that the greatest city.

Can't be the greatest. Ou guys don't get snow days.

I live for snow days. Sacrifice to pagan gods that school will get cancelled for snow.

Beezzer, you have seen pics of those monster spiders in Oz, right?

Melbourne? Hope you like the cold But then again, its probably nothing compared to what yous would get in the States.

Originally posted by smyleegrl

Originally posted by IkNOwSTuff
Hey hey

Your a lucky lucky man.
Heading to the greatest country on earth and on top of that the greatest city.

Can't be the greatest. Ou guys don't get snow days.

I live for snow days. Sacrifice to pagan gods that school will get cancelled for snow.

Beezzer, you have seen pics of those monster spiders in Oz, right?

Shhhhhhhh!

I told the wife there would be no spiders!

I'll miss snow. But with 6 weeks of vacay days, boo-yah!

Originally posted by DarknStormy
Melbourne? Hope you like the cold

My family lived in Montana, we'll ship our snow mobiles and parkas.

reply to post by smyleegrl


The thing is the big ones are the least of your worries, its the small ones that really do the damage..

Originally posted by beezzer

Originally posted by DarknStormy
Melbourne? Hope you like the cold

My family lived in Montana, we'll ship our snow mobiles and parkas.

Probably better off trading them in for some jet skis But the snow isn't too far away either...

You can expect to pay through the nose for everything. Prices are ridiculous here - there’s three different sources ranking us equal fourth, seventh and eighth most expensive city in the world, which one we are I’m not sure. Apparently we’re 50% more expensive than New York. You’ll get a shock at how much clothes cost here, so a lot of people buy online and then retail wonders why they’re going down hill?

Taxis offer very poor service, and pretty expensive, though I don’t know how much a standard taxi is where you’re from for say a 30min drive. Public transport is third world. It’s f*cked, yet they refuse to spend money on it fixing it. Instead, they spend over $1.3b on a ticketing system, MYKI, which blew out in cost hundreds of millions and was four or five years late with more trouble than a room full of two year olds.

The police and government go on about violence on the streets, but in truth for a capital city the violence isn’t really a problem at all. There’s no more violence, possibly less, for a city of this size. I’ve walked the city streets at all hours on my own without a problem several times, and once absolutely blind drunk - took me over two hours to walked from Little Collins Street to Corrs Lane, near Russel Street and I have no memory of it at all - bad. Alochol at bottle shops in insanely expensive. A slab of average beer, VB or Carlton, is around the $40 mark. MB is $45, and they’re our house beer kind of thing. The better beers range from $45 to $65 a slab. A standard bottle Jim Beam or whatever ranges from $35 to $40.

On a better note, we are the second largest Greek city behind Athens! Due to immigration over the past 150 years, we have a diverse range of cultures in the one spot. The result of this is incredible restaurants and food. From the CBD to the inner suburbs and in the outer suburbs. Lots of Asian people take advantage of a way of getting citizenship easily - you can come here, start a business and employ x amount of people and it really helps fast track the process. Hence one reason why a lot of Chinese restaurants popped up all over the place. In the past few years they’ve been overtake by Thai restaurants.

There’s amazing bars and pubs, and clubs too. Sporting is big here. The MCG is an unbelievable stadium. That whole sporting precinct is world class. You’ve missed the cricket season - last match of the summer was last night and now they’re off to play India over there. City beaches, like Elwood, St Kilda and Middle Park are no where near the quality of Sydney’s city beaches, but the beaches out of Melbourne, like Phillip Island, Surf Coast west of Geelong (Great Ocean Road) and out east Gippsland and Wilsons Prom are amazing. Snow in winter, but probably no where near the quality Europe, New Zealand and the US/Canada gets.

There’s a lot more - close to Asia and the Pacific islands which are incredible. You can go to Asia and travel around living like a king for two months for A$6,000. NT and the Kimberly are a must visit. But you’ll see when you come here about how expensive everything is - housing, utilities, fuel, clothes, electronics... Apart from that I’m sure you’ll love it here.

It is continually voted in the top three most liveable cities in the world.

reply to post by BlindBastards


Thank you. I'll be traveling a lot. What northern islands that were under an "American" protectrorate are now under Aussie control. My job is to deal with specific infrastrutures within those areas.

Cost of living has me concerned to a degree, but we live modestly anyways.

Snake-eating spider says..



Welcome to our country rabbit!

Originally posted by polarwarrior
Snake-eating spider says..

Welcome to our country rabbit!

Okay.

First off, I just pooped myself.

Secondly, I suddenly have a recliner for sale.

reply to post by polarwarrior


Ohhh Egad.....
Well, Australia is definently off my list of places to visit.

Seriously? You have spiders that eat snakes?

I would have to walk around with a flamethrower. That's all there is to it.

reply to post by beezzer


Welcome to Australia Beezzer, I'm sure you'll have a great time even in Melbourne

Don't froget to drive on the left side of the road. I know a woman here who had a head on collision
with an American driving on the wrong side of the road in the outback. It turned out that the American was Shoemaker who co-discovered the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet.

If you find youself in Adelaide, drop in for a beer mate

Originally posted by LeLeu
reply to post by beezzer

 

Welcome to Australia Beezzer, I'm sure you'll have a great time even in Melbourne

Don't froget to drive on the left side of the road. I know a woman here who had a head on collision
with an American driving on the wrong side of the road in the outback. It turned out that the American was Shoemaker who co-discovered the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet.

If you find youself in Adelaide, drop in for a beer mate

Adelaide? Jeez, you poor soul!

reply to post by BlindBastards



Yep

Originally posted by beezzer
reply to post by BlindBastards
[mo

Thank you. I'll be traveling a lot. What northern islands that were under an "American" protectorate are now under Aussie control. My job is to deal with specific infrastrutures within those areas.

Cost of living has me concerned to a degree, but we live modestly anyways.

I don’t know of any that under under US protectorate. American Samoa is one still under your control. I’m unsure of any that were under US control and are now in the hands of Australia. Shouldn’t you know this information, haha? We have 8,222 islands within our maritime borders. Islands like Groote Eylandt and Tiwi Islands, north of NT, are fantastic. Rottnest west off WA is great.