The last few days have been fun, in a few different ways. Some things have been surprisingly easy, while others have been, let's just say, special. But one observation has remained the same during the last few days. Australians are so friendly and helpful!
Getting Queensland Drivers licenses - Relatively easy, even with a trip to the immigration office for Visa stickers. Fresh off the plane on Friday we decided to see what we would need to get our Queensland drivers licenses. In actuality we aren't required to have them, our Canadian licenses are fine, which seems weird given that we drive on the other side of the road back home, but we needed to get a certain number in order to register our car, and the helpful girl at the transportation office said they would be handy to have. We had most of the required documentation, but needed a few additional things... One being a Visa sticker in our passport, which we could get at the immigration office a few streets over. When told of this, I just pictured endless line ups, and miserable people, but we went to find the immigration office and after about a 10 minute wait and a pleasant chat about Saskatoon and Winnipeg with the guy working there, we had them! So, back to the transportation office we went. 20 minutes longer there, and we were done. It took 90 minutes at most. And we dealt with two of the most friendly ladies I have ever encountered on the other side of a desk. Seriously, they were lovely.
Getting our mobile phones arranged - Given our experience on Friday getting the licenses, we pictured this task being a breeze. We brought our unlocked iPhones with us, so all we needed was a service plan. To Telstra we went! As it turns out, it was quite good that we arranged the drivers licenses, because the staff at Telstra said that having them usually meant that the credit check required to initiate a service plan wouldn't be a problem... But they were actually quite wrong. So, not only would they not set up a service plan on the phones that we brought, but this also meant that we were "locked out" so to speak, from having another credit check for 6 months. And the only thing they could set up for us in the meantime was a restricted home phone service. We are currently in a temporary apartment with a phone, so we don't need one at the moment. And the kicker is that with this restricted home phone service, we would only be able to make local calls. So, we don't have a credit history in Australia because we arrived 24 hours ago from another country, and in being denied credit, the only product you can offer us is something we don't need, and can't even use to call the country we came from? Awesome!
Getting bank accounts set up - Pretty straight forward, but Alan had applied online a few weeks back so everything was all set up for us. There's no money in the Australian bank account we have set up, but it's there and ready, so that is good.
Getting car insurance - Super easy. All done online.
Getting car - Sigh. This has been (and continues to be) a gong show! Went to dealership with bank draft. Saw our shiny new car, touched it. Went to business managers office and gave him bank draft. Big problems ensue. Dealership cannot accept international bank draft, even though it is drawn on an Australian bank. They would have to keep the car until the funds clear, ~4-6 weeks. They suggest we go talk to a branch manager at this Australian bank, and there's a branch just up the road. So, away we go. Talk to branch manager, who is absolutely lovely, despite us opening our accounts just that morning at another bank. And in a very lovely way, she tells us there really isn't anything she can do to help us. Back to the dealership we go, feeling very dejected and sad. Friendly dealership people feel bad for us, and instead of calling a cab, one of the employees drives us home. Try to talk to Canadian bank to see about cancelling draft or other options. This goes surprisingly well given that it's a holiday in Canada and it's past midnight. That's about all I can say about this for now. We still don't have our car. :(
Will keep you posted, and hopefully post some pics of the new wheels very soon!
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