Goodbye to friends and family

My sister, whom I love, organized a little get-together for me, Emma and friends. A restaurant and then straight to the pub. After a long binge-drinking-session with my best friends (I think I went to bed at 6:00) I woke up the next day with the mother of all hangovers. I can always tell I had a good time by the severeness of my headache, this was a good one :o)
If I remember correctly, a couple of my friends will visit me in Brisbane within a year.

Good stuff!

I had to throw up till 18:00 and recovered just in time to go to my parent’s and sit at the Christmas dinner table, a little pale and shaky, but hey.. I was there. Parents, of course, are weird beings; they don’t want you to leave, but wish you the best.

Good stuff indeed!

So now it’s time to sleep and try to repair the damage done to the body and brain.

Lake of spirits

I have always kept quite a few bottles of booze in stock as I like to shake a cocktail every once in a while. One thing I don’t want is a couple of pissed off Ozzie customs officers telling me I’m smuggling vast quantities of alcoholic beverages. I can’t take them with me, so now I need to get rid of them.
Drinking it all would mean certain death, throwing it away is a criminal act here in the Netherlands punishable by a whipping, so I think I’ll have a party. Either that or invite my good friend Robin, who is immune to firewater and can imbibe terrifying amounts before passing out. (We’re talking bottles here). I’m sure we’ll get through this lake of spirits him and me.

Telling others

So what about our friends and family? Do they know we’re leaving? Well, some of them know and some of them don’t. I guess we’ll send out a Season’s greetings e-mail containing this Blog. Some reactions so far:

• My sister: “That’s really cool!”, My sister is always happy and positive: great girl.
• A good friend: “That’ll be another holiday address.” A little Egoistic there mate :o)
• A friend: “Bollocks, you lucky bastard” The jealous type.
• A colleague: “So you’re going hump around with kangaroos” A dirty mind.
• My cousin: “Welcome, you’re going to love it here” He lives in Brisbane.

Quite a few said: “Hey! I’d like to do that as well.” or “I’ve been thinking about moving as well”. Amazing to hear this from people you wouldn’t expect to change their situation, house or job. I wonder what others will say.

The great clearout

OK so how much stuff do we have? Well, a lot doesn’t even start to describe the vast amounts of personal belongings we have gathered over the years like squirrels. (Remember Hammy the squirrel on caffeine?).

All this stuff needs to be sold, put in boxes, be thrown away or thrown out of the window. Giant heaps of boxes arise in our storage space, and yet our home looks as full as always. This is going to take a couple of weeks, one or two broken backs and a lot of sweat.

Decisions, Decisions

After a long and difficult debate, where wine flowed freely and negotiators used their most powerful means and skills of convincing we have come to a decision:

Emmanuelle will stay in the Netherlands for the months to come. Our agreement also stipulates that she shall willingly and sound of mind accompany me to Brisbane to do some reconnaissance. This basically means she'll tell me where I shall live in Brisbane. Which, by the way, is a good thing since she has good taste (She lived in a house on the beach in Barbados) and I don't (I've lived in a horrible apartment in Amersfoort).

Cool! I'm happy. Well not that I won't see her for soooo long. But this is the intelligent choice for her career and mine... Choice made. Negotiators happy. Sorted! as they say in Zimbabwe.

The gremlins…

Aww damn.

You'd think the devil had a hand in it. My wife just was offered a wonderful, well paid and very exciting new job… here in the Netherlands and NOT in Australia. I'm very happy for her and with her, truly I am… But Damn… The gremlins have been busy again. Why is it that each time we take a decision something comes along to make us doubt, uncertain and makes us question our decision...

The Signature that changes life as I know it

Right: today the contract came by DHL. Looks good and about the same as the draft versions I received earlier. Sign it, say a little prayer and send it. Cool, so now I've officially resigned, signed a new contract and lodged an application for a visa at the Sydney Office.
Worst case scenario: I don't get the visa, bought my one-way ticket for nothing; lose job, wife leaves, dog dies and car burns.
happy that I don't own a dog right now…
Best case scenario: I start a new and exciting life in about 7 weeks.

Negotiation

Ok, so now we have a standoff. I can´t leave until the 1^st of April and I needn´t go to Australia after the 1^st of January. Right… now what…
Time to bring out the big guns: threaten to leave anyway and use my, oh so shrewdly saved holidays. After an uneasy moment my employer agrees to let me go the 18^th of January. Knowing my first day of work will be the 21^st of January: well; after 3 long flights, that should give me about 6 hours to find the hotel, sleep off my jet-lag, have breakfast and find my new employers office in Brisbane to start work… I'm gonna die!

Clash of corporate cultures

My new employer in Australia has its head office in the states and my current employer has its head office in the Netherlands. Where the Netherlands has a corporate culture of endless meetings, non-stop discussion and slow decision making, my new employer seems to be al little quicker.
They've asked me to be in Australia by the 1st of January (2008 that is). That's in 50 days! and I have a 2 months' notice... Even more worrying, I haven't signed a contract yet.

But hey, what the hell, an opportunity like this one won't fall in my lap again, so yeah let's do this.

I convoke a meeting with my manager and tell him he should be happy I'm finally buggering off. I could see he wasn't happy at all. In fact he's disappointed and even not-amused. "But we need you!" he said, knowing 3 of our 5 member team will be leaving the company with the next 2 months. "No No No, I can't let you go before the 1st of April."

Welcome

Welcome to our Blog.

It looks like I'll be moving from the Netherlands to Australia. I'll tell you how I´m doing.
Bas and of course Emmanuelle