It's the Final Countdown

We've both been humming or whistling this song over the last two days.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyggY_R3jU8&feature=youtube_gdata_player

We are out of our house and in a hotel until we leave on Wednesday. Our sea container has been packed and our air shipment should be shipping out any day now. I thought it might feel more real once we got to this point, but it still doesn't. I can't really explain why either. It's all just a little surreal.

It does feel a bit like the ball that started to slowly roll down a hill in February, is now more like some sort of missile. There aren't enough hours in the day to do everything we need to do and see all the people we'd like to see. We're into the "lasts" too. Last Friday in Calgary. Last day of work. Last time driving our car. Last sleep in our house. It all makes me a bit emotional (of course!) so I keep telling myself it's only the "last" for a little while. Which helps a little, I suppose.

My last day at work was on Wednesday. It was, let's just say, emotional. No offense to anyone else, but I think I have the best group of coworkers out there. Their generosity and support over the last little while has been amazing. I really hope that when we come back in 2 years, I'll be able to work with them again because they really are the best.

My cake... Thanks Lexi!

The dog has totally picked up on the fact that things are changing, even before they came to pack the house. So the poor guy is a little out of sorts. He climbed into one of our empty suitcases as we were trying to cram all of our stuff into them and he just lay down and looked at us, as if to say "this one is just right for me". It broke my heart a little.

Doesn't it break your heart a little too?

However, we heard back that his rabies blood test came back, and he's good to go (in 4 more months), so now begins more paperwork in order to get his AQIS import permit, and arrange his stay in quarantine. Sigh. Poor little dude.

Anyways, just thought I should update all my faithful readers, or at the very least my only reader. (Hi Mom!) That being said, if you want to leave a comment, go ahead. I would love to know that there are people reading my ramblings, and now that I'm gainlessly unemployed, I have lots of time to respond!

A few of the many boxes destined to float, fly or go in storage. And the dog, who is sad.

Consternation

con·ster·na·tion/ˌkänstərˈnāSHən/

Noun:

Feelings of anxiety or dismay, typically at something unexpected

3 weeks away now. What WHAT? We've been knocking things off the to-do list pretty quickly these days. Cars are sold, house is rented, visas are approved, plane tickets are booked, temporary accommodation in Brisbane has been arranged. There are a few items outstanding on our list... Permanent accommodation in Brisbane is one of them, as well as a car (although we are working on that). We also need to pick up some convertors in order to run our kitchen appliances and other small electrical items. I still need to send in my nursing registration and get the ball rolling on that.

So, obviously I'm turning into an emotional basket case again. Grrrrreat. I was doing okay up until now, but now that we have a confirmed departure date (not "sometime in June or July") and it's only 3 weeks away, it's causing a wee bit of consternation.

A big source of this consternation? The dog.

If you know us, you probably know Jasper. Our fur baby. We had a hell of a time deciding what to do about him. Is it fair to put him on such a long flight if it's only for two years? What if it ends up being longer than two years? Are we being responsible dog owners if we leave him? Or if we bring him for that matter? Will he eat something poisonous and die? This was pretty representative of our thought process...

It always seemed as though anytime we talked about our options to leave him behind he would turn on the sad puppy dog eyes a la Puss in Boots.

Sad face...

See! The resemblance is actually quite uncanny I think...

Plus we were wrestling with the fact that we signed on to take care of this funny little creature for ~14 years, and we've only had him for 2 years. We couldn't fathom leaving him for 2 more years. The other thing is how do you ask someone else to look after him for 2 years and then just expect them to give him back at the end. That's not exactly fair either. And I want to give big kudos to Alan's sister who was willing to look after him for us. Thanks K!

Of course, now that we've decided to bring him, anytime I look at him I see this...

Money! (Google images even found me a dog that looks like Jasper)

It is not cheap to take a pet to Australia. That's all I will say about that. So hopefully he doesn't eat something poisonous or get attacked by a snake upon arriving in Oz. Because if I'm an emotional basket case now, I can't imagine what I'll be like then!

Jasper gets to stay in Calgary for what is predicted to be a lovely, hot summer and then he can fly down for his 1 month stay in a 5 star pet resort in Sydney, with private accommodation and it's all-inclusive! Oh who am I kidding... He heads for his month in quarantine before joining us in Brisbane at the end of November. Just in time for their hot, humid summer... Poor guy!

Photo courtesy of As I See It Photography

3 more weeks!

A little levity...

Holy Dooley

We will cease to exist for this day next month.

The countdown is on.

Holy crap, er, no, I mean Holy Dooley (need to retrain my brain for Australia).

I can't write anything more right now. My brain is pretty much consumed with the content outlined above.

Psychologically speaking...

We had our pre-departure psychology session last week.

"What is that?" you might ask.

Well, it's a 4 hour visit with a psychologist. For reals. And it was interesting, but in a good way. Alan and I had joked about this because being the emotional creature that I am*, I was worried that I might cry during the whole thing. And at the end of it, you are given a colour that represents how much support you may need whilst abroad (green, yellow, orange and red). Don't get me wrong, my personal belief is that "Red is Best" but in this case, Red is most certainly NOT best. And so the running joke was that Alan would be green and I would be red, as in "Code Red - She's not going to make it!". Haha. We joke about this, but I was a little concerned about our impending psychoanalysis. And I most certainly did make good on the promise of tears. We talked a lot about me, which was rather strange at first, I kept hoping the focus would shift from me to Alan, and it really didn't. It did foster a lot of awareness for both of us. We talked about culture shock, and dealing with homesickness and the pros and cons of going on this assignment. We talked about our families, and their plans to visit us. We talked about our hobbies, and whether we can pursue them down under (and yes, we can curl!). We talked about me, and what I plan to do, and how I plan to combat loneliness. (Apparently laying in the fetal position on the couch watching movies alone is not an appropriate way to help myself.) We talked about how Alan will have an easier time, given that he has his work and his colleagues and a ready made network, while I don't have that. And my lovely husband surprised the psychologist because he was so aware of this. We also talked about the impact that this could have on our relationship. In that, we will become more independent ourselves, but we will also become more dependent on each other. What I mean by this is that instead of us having our girlfriends and guyfriends to do stuff with, we will have each other. For example, Alan will come to yoga classes with me, and I will go to rugby matches with him.

You know, I was really dreading this part of the process, but in the end I really see the value in it. It validated us, and how we communicate, and it's good to hear someone say that our communication skills are good especially before we embark on this adventure. And we discovered a few things about ourselves, and each other, which is important. For instance, I think that I'm quite a shy person at first, and until I get to know someone, I tend to stay inside my shell, however Alan thought that this wasn't entirely true, and that I'm more outgoing than I give myself credit for.

The funny thing is that I went out to a movie right after we finished. I saw "The 5 Year Engagement" which was eerily applicable to our situation. Quick synopsis, a couple moves from San Fran to Michigan so that she can pursue her education. He quits his job in the culinary hot bed that is San Fran to move to the culinary cool bed that is Michigan, and needless to say, he goes a little mental. Here's a picture of him at rock bottom. Good thing I don't have a pink bunny suit or the ability to grow facial hair...

Visa application has been lodged. The household goods people will be coming soon to survey our house and see if our life fits into a 40 foot shipping container. I'm going to work on my nursing registration this week. We've found a property management company. And we've decided to bring the dog. More on that later.

So long for now!

*I just have to write a little sidebar to this... Yes, I am emotional and I cry (sometimes a lot, and sometimes for no big reason), but when we went to see "Up", the Disney movie, one of us cried, and it wasn't me.

Evaluating vs. Vacationing

What is the difference?

I have no clue.

This was something that I kept asking myself throughout our one week, whirlwind adventure through Brisbane. I didn't even know what I should tell the customs people when they ask the routine question, "What is the purpose of your trip?" It's partly business, but not really, but then it's not quite a vacation either. In the end, it didn't matter, because they didn't even ask.

When I first arrived in Brisbane, I had decided that by being a lifelong Calgarian (a rare breed), Alan would probably have a better sense of evaluating this potential new city than me. After all, he had already moved from Winnipeg to Calgary, and orientated himself to a new city. I, on the other hand, have spent my life in Calgary. And until I moved out, I lived in the same room in my parents house my whole life.  Whoa! So, I was feeling a little bit overwhelmed by the prospect of coming to an decision to move to this new place, based entirely on a week of evalucationing. As it turns out, they aren't too different. In the end we did a bit of both, we did tourist things, and we did decidedly untourist things.

I held a koala.

Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary in Brisbane

We looked at cars.

The actual car dealership we went to.

We went to the Gold Coast.

Surfer's Paradise

And we went to a real estate open house, although it's called an inspection there.

(Can't find a picture to illustrate this)

There were so many moments when I just couldn't quite believe that we were actually in Australia, a zillion kilometers from home. Well, 12533.32 km to be exact (according to somewhere on the internet). To me, this was a good thing. Obviously we were far from home, but the fact that it didn't feel that foreign or unfamiliar was quite comforting (you can call me a xenophobe, I'm okay with that). There was one moment in particular when I was sitting in our hotel room, waiting for Alan to get back from the airport. When I stood on the balcony, I could hear bagpipes. It was a little surreal, and very cool.

Maybe we did it wrong, but it seemed that evaluating is kind of like intense vacationing. You want to see as much as you can from a tourist perspective, but on the other side of the equation you're also looking at potential suburbs to live in, and how long it took on the CityCat (Brisbane's public transit ferry system) to get from point A to point B during rush hour. A strange combination, really.

Reflections on Business Class travel

There's a lot to catch up on. Holy! Might have to split this up into a few posts.

First off, let's talk about traveling in Business Class. I think I'm ruined for all future travel in economy class. I'm what you might call a "nervous flyer". I like to get to the airport early, get through security quickly (blegh), find my gate, and am the first one in line when they announce that boarding has started. I come by it honestly, and I'm going to share a little travel anecdote here, but it relates, I promise!

Whenever we traveled as a family, my Dad would ensure we were at the airport in plenty of time. Which is fine, and we could usually entertain ourselves by playing on moving sidewalks, people watching and reading. It became slightly more problematic when we traveled with our diabetic dog in the days of overbooking flights. We arrived in Toronto for our flight home to Calgary, probably 3 or 4 hours prior to departure (family, feel free to correct me). We checked in, headed to the gate, and waited. And waited. And waited some more. Finally, there were actual warm bodies at the gate and the pre-departure preparations were in full swing. The gate agents looked a little harried, and concerned. And then the announcements began...

"This flight has been overbooked. We are looking for people to give up their seats, and take the next flight home"

And then they got progressively more enticing... I think the first step was an offer of a $25 food voucher, which then increased in value. And the next step was flight vouchers, again they got progressively more valuable. And the cherry on top was an upgrade to first class. By this time, my parents had approached the counter, with our five tickets and a challenge.

"You can have our five seats on the plane, but you need to get our diabetic dog off the plane so that we can feed her and give her some insulin."

Challenge accepted. Dog fed, watered, walked and insulin-ed. We had a further five hours to wait, but had $150 each in flight vouchers, plus $50 or $75 each in food vouchers, and first class seats to show for it. So, that was my first taste of the mysterious first class cabin. It was great! I'm sure the people who paid for their seats were really pleased to share the cabin with us, but boy was it fun!

I completely understand the appeal of first class or business class. Once you arrive at the airport, you check in at your own counter, there's an express lane through security, executive lounge access, and priority boarding. And then, while the rest of the unwashed masses (lol, I joke) are boarding into economy (yuck), we are sipping champagne, with our feet up on our ottoman (which conveniently doubles as a guest seat), perusing our gourmet menu and investigating the in flight amenities goodie bag. I mean, come on! I was totally born to fly business class! But the perks don't stop there, folks! Not only are you first off the plane, but you're also in possession of an express pass through customs, and your luggage is the first to reach the carousel. I have pictures to share of all of this, but haven't gotten them off the phone yet... The people in business class are also interesting. It's good for people watching. One guy in particular was memorable, he had a satin blazer, sparkley red belt, and red reptile print leather boots. And bling galore.

Next up...

Evaluation visit vs. holiday. What's the difference?