Moving to Australia
A Digital Nomad's Tale of Transformation
Let me tell you how my journey to the other side of the world actually happened. If you know me, you probably already know that the only plan I made for this journey was just to get the Visa, buy the plane ticket and book 5 days in Sydney. It is on my DNA to go where the adventure takes me.
Amsterdam Lacks Sex Workers
It all started in Amsterdam. I flew to the city and stayed there for 4 days before my next flight. Last time I went to Amsterdam it was in 2018 before going to China to finish my master's degree. In a way, I feel I am retaking the same steps 5 years later, but this time, is for the other hemisphere in the other side of the world.
While in the Netherlands besides revisiting the city's ex-libris, such as, the Red light district, the city's canals or passing by the beautiful Dutch train station, I also manage to visit a new city, Rotterdam. Two really different cities with different vibes. One is more corporate and money oriented, the other more touristy, and people's oriented.
Overall, besides visiting Amsterdam in different situations and in opposite season times, I felt that this time the city is loosing the aura it had before. I saw, for the first time, so many job offers to work in cafés or local establishments or (which is more surprising) in those vitrines asking for night sex workers to rent those meter square spaces. This happened even in the main street of the Red Light District.
China Being China
On the 8th of April it was time to go. I packed my luggage and head for the airport. To start the trip on the best conditions possible, my luggage remembered to loose a wheel, and every 100 meters it would required fixing. You can imagine in irregular terrain, a trip that would take a 10 min walking, would be converted to a 50 min walking. On top of that, the luggage was 20kg.
By the time I sat on my seat on the airplane, I got that strange feeling that it will be a long time before I get back. My thoughts were "Well, this is it, Full send mode!" (Drone language ahah). Since it was a night flight, it was the best flight for me in order to avoid jet lag. My recommendation is to sleep the whole flight, which was pretty much what happened.
At Xiamen airport I needed to kill 7 hours of stopover before my next flight, in this way i managed to use one of the amazing perks (for free) of Xiamen airlines. If you require, they provide you with an hotel until your next flight. The only thing you need to pay is the transportation to the hotel which is 100 yuan (12 euros).
The whole 7 hours I stayed in China, were a complete comedy! Since my level of spoken of Mandarin goes around the HSK2/3 (In English scale level means A2/B1), every time I addressed anyone, and said a few sentences in Mandarin to facilitate the communication, they would just say: "Woooooow your chinese is so good!" which is actually the full representation of this video.
One of my favorite episodes was the ride back from the hotel. My driver for 4 times got lost in the way to the airport and continued missing the turns that were showing on the maps. Every time he mistakenly missed the turn, he would say 3-4 swear words while hitting his head with his hand. While watching that i would laugh my ass off and swear with him. When he understood I could understand a few swear words and some extra spicy words, he laugh out of embarrassment and apologize for the swearing while the 2 other (Australian) passengers were quite clueless and shock of what was actually happening.
Finally my last episode was on the security check of the airport where I had a major discussion with the chinese officer in "chinglish", meaning that when I couldn't find the word in chinese i would say it in English and he was vice-versa. All because of a power bank that did not label the capacity specifications on it. I was trying to show him that I traveled with it from Amsterdam, passed through several security checks, got out and in of the chinese airport, and no one have ever said anything about it. In the end he wouldn't let go and I had to give up... but read this... I had a second Power bank on my computer case and it was exactly the same as the other! What did he do about it? NOTHING! I managed to leave china with one of the power banks they were b*tching about.
I Just Woke Up In Australia!
It was my last flight and as the same as before, it was a night flight. A perfect situation for me to sleep the whole flight. I woke up to the rising sun at 5/6 am (local time) seeing Cairns on the horizon and how nothing is between civilization besides wildings and nature. It was the first truly beautiful moment I got in this new continent.
These first 5 days were amazing to get to explore the city and the surroundings. It is unbelievable how Sydney is built! This city looks like it was built in a computer game, something like SimCity. It has everything on the correct space and the urban design is so well developed that is impossible not to fall in love with it. I managed to take some crazy photographs to the city that made me super proud of my small companion with 4 propellers.
I would say that this city is so safe that you can leave your stuff somewhere for 30 min and no one will dare touch it! Nonetheless, and sadly in these 5 days 2 terrorist attacks took place in the city, one of which I was really closed when happened. I was at Bondi Beach and not far from there, in Bondi Junction Shopping Mall, a man stabbed 6 people at cold blood. It kind of made me numb for a while, thinking that I have passed by the same shopping mall a few hours before it all happened.
Wollongong Wolfes
5 days later I moved to south of Sydney. Think of this as any suburb location of any world capital, but in this case is just 2 hours away from Sydney by train. I would say that they try to disperse the population concentration in order to have less remote areas, which is, I believe, quite impossible to achieve with just 25 million habitants.
Sydney is way more expensive than the outskirts, I guess in every city is like that! Additionally I wanted to be at a walking distance from the beach, and in Sydney i would have to take a bus to Bondi or other nearby beaches.
First week in and I was doing marathons to every hotel in the area to see if they required my drone services. Turns out 90% of the hotels say "send me an email" to say "I'm not interested", since no one ever answered my emails. Fortunately I got a possible partnership on the scope, but we have to wait to believe it.
Keep tuned because I have soooo much to write about!
