Wednesday, 16 May 2012
Tuesday, 2 March 2010
Home
We look at the calendar and realise that time is quickly running past, it is now 15 months since we arrived on these shores from the UK. We have seen some family over here but really miss the contact we had with friends and family. It is about time we considered a trip back home to see everyone. The fact that none of my family are ever likely to come and visit us in this country makes the return home more important.
We have decided that we will return to the UK in July, flying out at the end of June and staying for three weeks. Moira is going to see if work will let her work in the UK on a overseas visit, Oxfam might be into letting Moira work in the UK for the experience. Sounds like a plan to me.
Flights are just amazingly expensive, I didn’t care when we flew out, after all the flights were one way and were paid for by Oxfam. Now this is my money and I have worked hard for this. Our savings are going to take a bit of a battering. Still we are going to see our family and you can’t put a price on that. But $2,500 dollars each is a hell of a price!!
The travel agent tells us for an additional $20 each we can have two days in Hong Kong. Now i am not one of those people who usually use a travel agent, I much prefer letting Moira search the internet and find the cheapest flights. The she will book them and ensure the reservations are correct and we have all our itinery sorted. She even writes up a list of documents I have to bring with us, usually passport and money. This time though I thought I would leave the job to someone else and let a travel agent ease the stress. Usually caused by finding a flight three pounds cheaper than on you have been watching only to discover the price has gone up on both when you try and book, what a nightmare online booking can sometimes be. Any way our agent has promised to check out accommodation in Hong Kong as well so he is proving very useful.
The fact of the trip has also raised another very important issue, mainly concerning my passport which is due to expire in October of this year. Australia will not let people travel on a passport with less than six months on it if it is not an Australian passport. So before we can go away for this holiday I have to apply for my new passport. That will leave me with another conundrum as my visa will be on the old passport, I am sure they will allow me to transfer it across but how long will that take and more importantly, how much will this cost me. So the passport application is in and I am investigating how much the visa will rob me of.
Still it will be nice to see everyone again. Internet and phone calls can only fill so much of the void left when you don’t have friends and family living down the road, but we are in a much better environment when we can skype people and call on our mobile, constant texting and facebook is shrinking the relative distances between relatives. Which just goes to show that we are evolving in this digital age and we should take advantage of it.
This weekend is labour day weekend. Another reason for those wily aussies to get another day off work. The story behind the day is that workers at Melbourne University were demanding that the day be split into three, 8 hrs for work, 8 hours for play and 8 hours for sleep. There was such strong feeling that this should be how the working day in Australia should be split that the workers in the University downed tools and refused to return to work until legislation was written allowing this. Nowadays this split is not really adhered to as we all work longer hours and spend less time at home, even sleep is being missed, I seem to be functioning on less sleep the odler I get, I can happily enjoy 5-6 hours and then be fully refreshed for work. Still the holiday has been established and is one of the ten public holidays in most states. Ironically students attending the very birthplace of this traditional holiday are not allowed to take labour day off, but they are students so cannot be classed as working anyway.
We have decided that we will return to the UK in July, flying out at the end of June and staying for three weeks. Moira is going to see if work will let her work in the UK on a overseas visit, Oxfam might be into letting Moira work in the UK for the experience. Sounds like a plan to me.
Flights are just amazingly expensive, I didn’t care when we flew out, after all the flights were one way and were paid for by Oxfam. Now this is my money and I have worked hard for this. Our savings are going to take a bit of a battering. Still we are going to see our family and you can’t put a price on that. But $2,500 dollars each is a hell of a price!!
The travel agent tells us for an additional $20 each we can have two days in Hong Kong. Now i am not one of those people who usually use a travel agent, I much prefer letting Moira search the internet and find the cheapest flights. The she will book them and ensure the reservations are correct and we have all our itinery sorted. She even writes up a list of documents I have to bring with us, usually passport and money. This time though I thought I would leave the job to someone else and let a travel agent ease the stress. Usually caused by finding a flight three pounds cheaper than on you have been watching only to discover the price has gone up on both when you try and book, what a nightmare online booking can sometimes be. Any way our agent has promised to check out accommodation in Hong Kong as well so he is proving very useful.
The fact of the trip has also raised another very important issue, mainly concerning my passport which is due to expire in October of this year. Australia will not let people travel on a passport with less than six months on it if it is not an Australian passport. So before we can go away for this holiday I have to apply for my new passport. That will leave me with another conundrum as my visa will be on the old passport, I am sure they will allow me to transfer it across but how long will that take and more importantly, how much will this cost me. So the passport application is in and I am investigating how much the visa will rob me of.
Still it will be nice to see everyone again. Internet and phone calls can only fill so much of the void left when you don’t have friends and family living down the road, but we are in a much better environment when we can skype people and call on our mobile, constant texting and facebook is shrinking the relative distances between relatives. Which just goes to show that we are evolving in this digital age and we should take advantage of it.
This weekend is labour day weekend. Another reason for those wily aussies to get another day off work. The story behind the day is that workers at Melbourne University were demanding that the day be split into three, 8 hrs for work, 8 hours for play and 8 hours for sleep. There was such strong feeling that this should be how the working day in Australia should be split that the workers in the University downed tools and refused to return to work until legislation was written allowing this. Nowadays this split is not really adhered to as we all work longer hours and spend less time at home, even sleep is being missed, I seem to be functioning on less sleep the odler I get, I can happily enjoy 5-6 hours and then be fully refreshed for work. Still the holiday has been established and is one of the ten public holidays in most states. Ironically students attending the very birthplace of this traditional holiday are not allowed to take labour day off, but they are students so cannot be classed as working anyway.
Tuesday, 16 February 2010
Australia day
The one great thing about summer over here is the extremely gratuitous amount of public holidays. Starting with Australia day on the 26th January, soon to come is Anzac day and Labour Day as well as Easter. Obviously this is paid for with a long wait in winter where there are no holidays. However for now we’re blessed.
Australia day is the one day of the year when Australians get to celebrate something they are really good at, basically being Australian. They all sit down and fire up the barbie then spend the day drinking beer. Well most do, some of the younger and more bogan of the population will go to the pub and spend the entire day filling themselves with alcohol. Usually they can be seen around closing time staggering down the street, Australian flag draped round their shoulders, or worse vomiting into the gutter. The day itself is dedicated to Australian culture and in between beer and meat pies, BBQ’s and Southern Cross flags every Aussie gets a day off work to celebrate.
We decided that this year we would do something different, so we had a BBQ on Sunday instead and then on Australia day we went to the tennis. The Australian open was into its final week and we had seats in the main arena. We had two women’s matches and one men’s, the sun was shining and it looked like a great day. Rod Laver arena is where the tennis takes place each year and we got there nice and early, around the outside of the arena there are screens and the crowd can watch the tennis just like they do on “Henman Hill/Murray Mount” in Wimbledon.
Looking around the arena it became obvious I would only have one thing to worry about, do I buy a large oversized tennis ball or do I go for the towel. This is an important decision as the choice of souvenir sends out a strong signal to other spectators, do I want to be seen as childish and fun or serous and in need of a towel. The choice was obvious to me.
Tennis is great fun to watch, all the bouncing of the balls and whacking of the racquet. Getting drinks from the bar was a logistical nightmare as the doors were only opened for a few minutes each time the players switched ends. So usually there would be three games missed when going for a drink. We timed this fine and avoided leaving when something important was happening. The women’s matches all went to the limit, with three sets being fought out. Whilst every effort was done to reduce the disruption caused by the spectators getting drinks there was no way of stopping the disruption caused by the jet display team. They flew over the arena and around the arena as part of Australia day celebrations and the tennis players were not too happy to see them as the sounds was quite deafening. The tennis was great but we really wanted to see Andy Murray play, his match was in the evening and we had day tickets, but we thought that we would go into the public park and watch on one of the screens. However when the tennis was over rain started to fall and we decided that it would be better to watch the Murray match from the safety of our front room.
The pity of the day was really that we didn’t get to see anyone who got into the finals, Andy Roddick was kicked out in the following round and Justine Henin didn’t get much further. Still the day was good fun and a lot easier to get into than Wimbledon.
I still use the towel when I am at the beach!
Australia day is the one day of the year when Australians get to celebrate something they are really good at, basically being Australian. They all sit down and fire up the barbie then spend the day drinking beer. Well most do, some of the younger and more bogan of the population will go to the pub and spend the entire day filling themselves with alcohol. Usually they can be seen around closing time staggering down the street, Australian flag draped round their shoulders, or worse vomiting into the gutter. The day itself is dedicated to Australian culture and in between beer and meat pies, BBQ’s and Southern Cross flags every Aussie gets a day off work to celebrate.
We decided that this year we would do something different, so we had a BBQ on Sunday instead and then on Australia day we went to the tennis. The Australian open was into its final week and we had seats in the main arena. We had two women’s matches and one men’s, the sun was shining and it looked like a great day. Rod Laver arena is where the tennis takes place each year and we got there nice and early, around the outside of the arena there are screens and the crowd can watch the tennis just like they do on “Henman Hill/Murray Mount” in Wimbledon.
Looking around the arena it became obvious I would only have one thing to worry about, do I buy a large oversized tennis ball or do I go for the towel. This is an important decision as the choice of souvenir sends out a strong signal to other spectators, do I want to be seen as childish and fun or serous and in need of a towel. The choice was obvious to me.
Tennis is great fun to watch, all the bouncing of the balls and whacking of the racquet. Getting drinks from the bar was a logistical nightmare as the doors were only opened for a few minutes each time the players switched ends. So usually there would be three games missed when going for a drink. We timed this fine and avoided leaving when something important was happening. The women’s matches all went to the limit, with three sets being fought out. Whilst every effort was done to reduce the disruption caused by the spectators getting drinks there was no way of stopping the disruption caused by the jet display team. They flew over the arena and around the arena as part of Australia day celebrations and the tennis players were not too happy to see them as the sounds was quite deafening. The tennis was great but we really wanted to see Andy Murray play, his match was in the evening and we had day tickets, but we thought that we would go into the public park and watch on one of the screens. However when the tennis was over rain started to fall and we decided that it would be better to watch the Murray match from the safety of our front room.
The pity of the day was really that we didn’t get to see anyone who got into the finals, Andy Roddick was kicked out in the following round and Justine Henin didn’t get much further. Still the day was good fun and a lot easier to get into than Wimbledon.
I still use the towel when I am at the beach!
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