Gold Coast and Surfers Paradise

One hour’s drive south of Brisbane is Surfers Paradise. A very touristic place with enormous buildings (70 storey +). One thing missing though are the Surfers! The crystal blue waves are beautiful and waiting to be ridden by surfers, but none to be seen. Very weird. Surfers Paradise and no Surfers, what’s going on here?
We didn’t like Surfers Paradise very much and chose to go a little more south. We did well! We arrived at almost desolate golden beaches with perfect blue water. After a long swim and severe sunburn we went for a delicious barbeque with a view. Walking back to the car we got stopped by a clan of people barbequing. They offered us beer, asked if we knew the Australian Anthem and sang it to us. Kind of weird having 20 people sing out loud to us. Luckily they had beer as we soon felt more at ease :o). Of course, they played cricket and demanded I bat a couple of balls. I have got to learn this game. And Yeah I hit the ball! It went flying into the dunes.
On the drive back we saw more beautiful beaches, nice forests, colorful birds, (not only talking about the animals mate).

Celebrate what’s great… mate

Australia day: Something like Queen’s day in the Netherland only the local color isn’t orange it’s blue but the people are just as crazy. We arrive at festivities location where beer flows freely and people are singing. Soon after I arrive I purchase a very fast cockroach for the cocky races. It’ll run in the 1pm race under the name I have given it during a short ceremony: “I dub thee Rolls Roach, may thy runnings be fast and may thy sprints be swift”. Rolls will run in the Seventh Race as the 15th entrant. By the way my name was respectably chosen as opposed to others: “Big Black Cocky, 12 inch Cocky, Circumcised Cocky”… You get the picture. Ok, so hundreds of people are sitting around the roach running arena and the names are announced to the great amusement of the crowd (“Rolls Roach” got a few laughs and some “aw that’s smart”). The roaches are marched in under the sound of bagpipes and drums. And after a loud 5…4…3…2…1… GO! The roaches are released and they run for their lives and our amusement. Within 15 seconds of absolute carnage (roaches fly around, woman duck in panic, men try to catch them and show them to their horrified wives) it’s all over.

Needless to say, Roll Roach didn’t make it. I’m sure he’s happy in heaven.

Oz Talk

The Australian Language isn’t English at all, in fact it doesn’t even sound like English. Here’s a couple of common expressions here. Good luck on finding any logic, I know had a hard time finding their meaning.

• Chuck a sickie : take the day off sick from work when you're perfectly healthy
• Dead horse : Tomato sauce
• Dinkum, fair dinkum : true, real, genuine ("I'm a dinkum Aussie"; "is he fair dinkum?")
• Fair suck of the sav! : exclamation of wonder, awe, disbelief (see also "sav")
• Flat out like a lizard drinking : flat out, busy
• Harold Holt, to do the : To bolt. (Also "to do the Harold") N.B. Harold Holt was a former Prime Minister who suddenly drowned while swimming off the coast of Victoria, so there is a double meaning here, quite clever.
• Kangaroos loose in the top paddock : Intellectually inadequate ("he's got kangaroos loose in the top paddock")
• Larrikin : a bloke who is always enjoying himself, harmless prankster... by the way Bloke : man, guy
• Mallee bull, as fit as a : very fit and strong. The Mallee is very arid beef country in Victoria/South Australia
• Mongrel : despicable person

Pissed off clients?

Australia: I love it. In the past 2 days we’ve been at a client’s whose entire System infrastructure had collapsed. A couple of servers in France, a couple in Gove and a few in Brisbane. The problem is very complex and the symptoms are highly unpredictable.
Okay, now if this would have happened in the Netherlands you’d be sitting in a dark room with some very pissed off managers and extremely pissed off IT personal, looking at you in a very pissed off way. They’d be ready to skin you alive. Nobody is happy and everyone is out to screw the other guy.
Here however everyone is smiling and joking. 600 draftsmen not being able to work, Bhaahaha. 800GB of drawing not available HIHIHIHIhiii, a gazillion dollars down the drain and deadlines busted to smithereens: Bwawahaaa.
This does not mean we’re not working hard and of course the pressure is on to resolve issues but it makes it so much easier.

Home, central Home

Our temporary home is the middle of the center which is centralized in the midst of the city’s midpoint. :o). Here are a couple of pics:



1st Bedroom (with a view!)





1st Bathroom (luckyly no view)
Livingroom












2nd Bathroom


2nd Bedroom

Aussie Welcome

How would you be welcomed to a Dutch firm as a new employee? Well, a cup of coffee, a piece of pie. That's about it. Here in Australia they'll grease up the Barbie and open a couple of beers. Indeed: the second day at work was welcome day, and at noon we fired up the Barbie (single most important office equipment unit at my employers). So everybody drops whatever they were doing, grabs a beer and BBQ’s away. Nice salads, bread and pasta.
I talked to most of my colleagues and found out that three of them own powerful motorboats (yeehaaa: I'll be waterskiing this year) one owns a 40 foot yacht (I am sailing, I am sailing...) and one is a Kite Surfer (Yay finally, it's been too long).
A couple of beers later, it was time to visit my first client.

Arrived

I’m going to keep this short and sweet as I have a ton of things to do and am still jetlagged like… like… well I am very jetlagged.
A horribly long trip, I have no other word for it… horrible. Apparently we’ve landed in Kuala Lumpur somewhere Saturday, I really can’t tell. Furthermore it seems that we’ve also stopped at Sydney where the last plane is supposed to take off at 23:00. We took off at 22:59.
So now we live in between the Sunshine Coast and Surfers Paradise, not far from Gold Coast and next to Paradise Beach. They call it Brisbey Land and so far it’s fabulous. Really nice indeed. Extremely nice even!
The apartment is amazing. It has two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a nice view, a complete kitchen, dining table and best of all: it’s right in the middle of the city. To top it off, the fridge was stocked with food and beverages when we arrived Saturday night (very late). I’ll post some pictures soon to give you an impression. Too bad we’re staying here only 1 month.
O yeah, Brisbane does not have daylight saving, so even the city is more to the east than Sydney, we’re still an hour earlier. Which means it’s light at 04:50 and the sun is up at 05:05.

Invitation in code

Okay,
This is the invitation I sent to my collegues. It's in Dutch and those who read Dutch: good luck decyphering it.

Beste gildebroeders en ambtsbroeders,

Wij percipiëren thans een heuse exodus, nu niet één paladijn u zal apostaseren, maar twee. Dit ´fait accompli´ zal bij u voorzeker een defaitistische, mismoedige en morose gemoedsgesteldheid teweegbrengen. Voorwaar, wij hopen niet dat deze revelatie u in, vergeef ons de uitdrukking, blijheid of een hallelujastemming brengt. Dit zou ons immers perpetueel bedroeven. Desniettegenstaande het vorige en om dysforie in euforie te transformeren, inviteren wij u, met alle soorten van genoegen, bij een libatie ter gelegenheid van onze afmars.

De opulente en potentate gezagsdragers onzer myriade verschaften ons met een importante veelheid aan pegulanten. Dit laatste, gesuppleerd met een complement van onze bezoldiging, stelt ons in staat u te vergasten in een taveerne, alwaar men zich kan laven aan een significante hoeveelheid gerstenat, spraakwater, geestrijk vocht en druivennat.

Wij indiceren dat u in het slotcadens van dit memorandum raadgeving vindt, rakend aan de accurate ´terminus ad quen´ evenals het oord van het culminatiepunt. Tot slot suppliëren wij u geen plenums, convents of pourparlers te arrangeren in de ochtendstond van de posterieure dag, dit, betrachtend mogelijk considerabel hoofdleed en geestelijke absentie.

Hoogachtend,

Idiots and Maniacs

The stress of moving, the social duties, lack of sleep and assuming decisions made are taking their toll. On a usual day I am steady as a rock in a sea of tranquility, but NOT today!
Today I consider anyone driver slower than me a complete idiot and anyone driving faster an utter maniac. In my rearview mirror I saw two of these maniacs trying to overtake me. ‘Thou shalt not pass’ I heard myself say and I tried to keep up with them. In vain… Frustrated and very pissed I saw a Porsche drawing near in my rearview mirror. ‘Thou shalt not PASS!’ I screamed out so loud the lady in the car next to me must have heard: she looked little worried. With foam on my lips and sweaty palms I engaged pursuit. Unfortunately the car I was driving has absolutely no chance in hell of ever catching up with a Porsche. I chose not to defy logic by trying to catch a sports car with a family car and returned to my natural state of steadiness. Next time I encounter a Porche he’ll eat roadside I promised myself grinding my teeth.

Complicated agenda.

We try to avoid the void we still call home and we manage pretty well actually: We leave in 9 days and this is what’s left to do: 4x to the restaurant, 3 parties, leave one weekend as lovers and one evening with grandma. Unfortunately we live in the Netherlands where most bills are settled the Dutch way. (going Dutch, rings a bell?) so I should be completely broke and utterly poor just before my flight leaves. I am pretty sure they have pasta and peanut butter in Australia so I should be fine for the first months. Besides, I hear the weather is quite good this time of year, so I’ll trade a comfortable hotel room for a cardboard box by the beach any day.

Moving stuff

Everything we own is now at my father’s; neatly stowed away in boxes. My back is broken in three places, muscles ache in places I didn’t know exist, I’ve lost a pint of blood and my general condition is poor. “All moving is war” as one can read in the book the art of moving: Sun Tzu.

My house is now like the inside of an empty carton of milk. White walls, white ceiling and absolutely nothing in it except for our window to the world (TV) and a bed. Fortunately my wife was kind enough to treat me with a massage. Still, I don’t want to do that again this year. Oh yeah: I’d probably be a drooling mess if it wasn’t for my good friend Flipse who helped me out moving our stuff! Thanks for the help mate! I owe you one.

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."