Where to begin?

It all starts off with an idea. "Hey, let's go to Australia for a year and travel, work, and generally just have a good time." Slowly you begin to amass the proper documentation: visas, passports, health insurance, immunizations...the works. As the months go on and you get closer and closer to your lease expiring, you quickly realize that life moves very slowly at the start of a journey and terrifyingly fast towards the end. Getting ready to move to Australia is as much of a journy as the adventure itself. Slowly, but surely, we are making headway.

We are both living a meta existence right now. Living with parents, without jobs, we are basically vagrants. Procrastination, our old friend, has reared his ugly head once more and we are both scrambling to get the last few travel details finalized, such as: visiting friends and family, procuring international drivers licenses, finalizing bank details, calling credit card companies, playing hockey games, packing, packing, packing...

The packing part isn't as ominous as it sounds. We learned quickly on our first trip to France that packing everything you own is not advisable. Not that you want to underpack either, I mean, who forgets to bring more than one pair of shorts to Nice? Probably the same person that forgets to bring a swimsuit to Australia! I am looking at you, Andrea! :P

It is easy to move to another country, but it is also very difficult. If you are not prepared for all the little things that need doing, you will quickly be swarmed by the enormity of the thing. The emotions are running a little high, and the nightmares of giant spiders haunt me nightly, but in just a few short days we will be in glorious Hong Kong eating hot pot and dim sum, and then on to Australia, where the shrimps and the barbies will greet us with open arms.

Chris