Cheers to our one month anniversary of moving to the land down under. While there are certainly things to cheers about, moving to Melbourne can best be described as bittersweet. So many contradictory things going on for us that it would make your head spin. The sweet is that we have finally been approved for an apartment that should suit us quite nicely. It’s a two-bedroom, top floor unit in a smaller block in a southern suburb of Melbourne called St Kilda East. There’s a train station nearby, some tram lines as well and we’re decently close to the ocean. We’ll also be walking distance to groceries, cafés and a bunch of restaurants. We weren’t entirely thrilled with having to move further south from the city but we’re trying to be optimistic. Maybe there’s a reason this was the one we were approved for? The price is right and it’s a place to call home. We were really hoping for a unit we inspected on Darling street which was only 10 doors down from our old place; but no luck on that one! Maybe this apartment will be a good fit and end up being even better than we think it will be (fingers crossed).
The bitter is seemingly everything else right now. That’s an overly dramatic statement but it’s how I feel in this moment. We made this move in good faith knowing that being granted permanent residency would open a lot of doors for us. We would be more employable and worth the risk for realtors and employers as we can work and live without restrictions and settle in. However, that doesn’t really seem to be panning out as we’ve expected. No matter how you frame it, we’re immigrants to Australia and therefore not as desirable or attractive as citizens are. It’s always more challenging to get professional work and preferred apartments, which sucks.
Michael was blessed to get a full-time position in hospitality and I’ve been subbing casually. It will be some steady income for us, but I know in Michael’s heart he wants to be building houses and my heart wants to be doing almost anything other than subbing. We continue to pray that the right company will take the perceived risk and higher a Canadian and see just how capable and wonderful we are. We will continue to apply and put ourselves out there. We bet on ourselves coming down here and aren’t going to give up that easily…even when we feel defeated and tired.
We also continue the saga of collecting our personal effects. Our new ETA for our shipment is November 16th. We have decided to hire an agency to represent us for customs and quarantine clearance. We are trying to minimize our headaches and this seems to be the best course of action. We also read on the weekend that there is some cyber security incident causing major delays at the ports for incoming and outgoing freight. It seems like a joke that yet another thing might make this difficult transition even more difficult. But I guess we’ll see.
Once our things clear the border they should be delivered sometime between Nov 21-24. Unfortunately, we don’t get the apartment until Nov 29. So yet again there is another hiccup that needs to be accounted for. We booked another air bnb until the 30th to cover the last bit of displacement until we can move in. We also confirmed that our friends will be able to store our stuff in their garage until we get possession. This is super nice of them, but it’s also annoying that we have to move everything from the truck into their garage and then 5 days later move it back into a moving truck and then again into our apartment, (which also happens to be up two flights of stairs and no elevator which will be less than awesome).
To add to the stress, we need to buy a mattress, bed frame, couch, TV, fridge and washing machine for move in. The question is, where do we order and ship these large items to? We can’t ship to our new place yet because the previous tenants still live there and we can’t ship to our friends place because there simply won’t be enough room for our Canadian stuff and the other things we need buy. So we’ve gone with the only plausible option and got ourselves a storage unit for the month. In addition to self-storage, they also offer a service where you can ship directly to the storage facility and they can accept the parcel on your behalf. It’s the best option for now and better than nothing.
Of course international moves are a ton of work, that is to be expected. But we did anticipate more ease in a few areas, so it has been very disheartening running into all the roadblocks we have. We’re thankful for the sunshine and warm weather as summer is approaching. We are also blessed with our health and of course, each other. It’s hard sometimes not to just book a flight home and forget we even tried. You feel ridiculous for coming here when things aren’t going your way. You feel embarrassed that you’re working so hard and it isn’t coming together as you’ve hoped. I know we need to be patient and give the whole move time to settle. It’s sort of like when you move a house plant from one pot to another. The plant kind of looks like shit for a while, you’re worried you might have killed it with the shock of moving. The leaves go yellow and wilted and you’re convinced the transplant was too much stress. But eventually the new container gives the plant the necessary space it needs to grow and become happy and healthy once again in it’s new environment. It takes a lot of care, time and resilience but it usually works out in the end.
So here’s to hoping and praying that it starts coming together for us.
With love,
Alex & Michael
