Moving to a New Country

I don’t know exactly WHEN Pabs and I decided to move to Australia, but I feel like we’d been planning on it since forever. I always knew I wanted to live in another country, and Australia was always on the top of my list. I don’t know precisely what it was about Australia that called my attention.

we still haven’t seen any kangaroos though 😞

we still haven’t seen any kangaroos though 😞

Maybe it was cuz every Australian I ever met was incredibly friendly. Or maybe it was cuz so many Chileans moved to Australia with the Work and Holiday visa (which was apparently not too hard to obtain). Maybe it was the beaches, the kangaroos and the great lifestyle that called my attention.

I don’t know WHAT it was, but in 2015, I decided it was happening: I’d move to Australia. If you’re friends with me, you’ll know how looong this process was. I feel like I’ve been talking about moving to Australia for years and people must have been like “really? you said you were leaving last year but you’re still here so…”  😂

Pablo was just as excited as I to move to Australia, so we got the wheels rolling. We joined the Work and Holiday Australia-Chile facebook group and we started figuring out what paperwork we needed for our visas.

(This facebook group was SO HELPFUL and I highly recommend you join it if you’re a Chilean moving to Australia. If you’re not Chilean, look for a group on Facebook with your nationality on it, there’s loooots of groups and there’s always lots of people willing to help you with your doubts – believe me, you’ll have many doubts).

I got all my paperwork sorted out and sent it. Pabs took a while longer cuz he needed to do the TOEFL to prove he spoke english well enough (and he got a really high score btw, proud of youuuu), but he procrastinated doing it for a few months. So when he finally sent out all his papers.. he received an email saying the quota of applications had been reached and he’d have to wait until July 2016 to know if he would get the visa 😨

Pablo freaked out. We had already purchased our tickets for the end of August 2016 (on a whim when we found them at a cheap price, without our visas yet approved) so we needed his visa before then. Pablo had a great job in Santiago and he had planned on quitting in June so that he would stop working at the end of July. But he didn’t want to quit without having the visa, so he was in quite a pickle.

For months, the uncertainty was killing us. All we could do was wait until the beginning of July to know if we’d leave. I already knew I was leaving, with or without him (sorry Pabs), but he was pretty stuck, trying to think of maybe changing our tickets to December, or maybe to next year. To which I replied “FUCK THAT, we’re leaving. You’re gonna get the visa. Everything’s gonna be fine!”

And guess what!? He obviously got the Visa 😊 

saying goodbye to our first home together was kind of hard – this place watched us both grow into independent adults and i’m so thankful for the year and a half I spent there

saying goodbye to our first home together was kind of hard – this place watched us both grow into independent adults and i’m so thankful for the year and a half I spent there

It was a stressing couple of months, and dealing the uncertainty was terrible, but as soon as he knew he got the visa, he quit his job (though had to keep working there for a few weeks) and we started getting our shit together.

Getting our visas was the first step, but moving out of our place was the next challenge. We started packing everything to move to my mom’s house during the month of August.

Isn’t it crazy how you think you don’t own enough shit, you’re always thinking about what you can purchase next, and when the time comes to pack up your life to leave, you realize you have SO MUCH UNNECESSARY SHIT!? Ugh. Figuring out what we’d pack to take to Australia, what we’d take to give my mom for her to sell, what we’d take for her to keep for us, what we’d leave in the apartment, what we’d throw away.. It was pretty overwhelming. And I had to do most of it on my own cuz Pabs was working.

goooodbye Santiago, goodbye majestic mountains

goooodbye Santiago, goodbye majestic mountains

August felt like the longest month ever, with our flight around the corner. We had a shitload of goodbye parties and lunches and dinners and it all didn’t feel real until the week before. I realized that by the time i’d get back to Santiago (in 2 or more years), my sister would no longer be a teenager. Some of my friends might be married. My mom might not live in the same house. A lot of things will change in the next few years, but OH WELL. Guess I just won’t be around to see it all happen, but that’s ok.

After the most hectic week ever, we finally boarded our flight to Australia. Luckily it was a direct flight, only 14 hours, and I slept for the first few hours, then stayed awake for the rest, in order to prevent jetlag. Pabs slept most of the time. Guess who was jetlagged for the next two weeks? NOT MEEEE! 😂

Apartment Hunting

We were lucky enough to have family in Sydney. We stayed at my cousin’s house in Roseville for the first week while we looked for apartments.

 
My cousin and his beautiful wife have been so helpful – don’t know how we’d have done it without them

My cousin and his beautiful wife have been so helpful – don’t know how we’d have done it without them

 

We searched on gumtree & flatmatefinders, and we found a great flatshare in an apartment in Zetland. The prices in Sydney for rent are really high, and you gotta pay per week. Gonna be super open about what i’m paying right now, just to give you an idea of what people usually pay… Pablo and I pay AU$430 a week, aka $215 each a week. It’s an expensive apartment and we probably could have found something cheaper, but we really liked the area and just decided to go for it.

we live on a 14th floor, so the view basically pays the rent haha

we live on a 14th floor, so the view basically pays the rent haha

we have beers at sunset at least twice a week cuz how could you not want a beer when you got these sunsets!?

we have beers at sunset at least twice a week cuz how could you not want a beer when you got these sunsets!?

Job Hunting

The rent is expensive in Sydney for a reason.. you get paid well. If you’re here on a working holiday visa, you try to find jobs that’ll pay anywhere from $15 to $25 an hour. I had never worked as a waitress before, but I decided to look for jobs in that field. I looked for jobs in gumtree, and sent my CV to lots of companies. Some replied, some offered jobs, and I even turned down a few.

The only picture I could find of us both in our work uniforms 😜

The only picture I could find of us both in our work uniforms 😜

(Some good sites for job searching: gumtreeseeksidekicker -obsessed with sidekicker at the moment.

Being really into healthy living, I decided I wanted to work in something in that area. I looked for the healthiest food places in Sydney and I found THR1VE. I applied online during my first week in Sydney and I was working there by my second week. Not bad 😄I was really lucky to find a job so soon, but if I hadn’t, I would have just walked around handing my CV to any restaurant I could find (but more on that later).

Pablo, on the other hand, has a looot of experience working. He hasn’t stopped working ever since he turned 18 (aka 6 years ago). But he wanted to try something different, so he went for construction jobs. He started out with one construction agency that paid him around $22 an hour (not bad, right?), but soon he found another company that paid him $25  an hour (plus $17 a day for transportation).

He ended up finding an office job a week after finding this (really well paid) construction job, and he took it. He’s making less money right now, but he’s learning a lot, and how many people on a work and holiday visa can say they found an office job in their first few months in Sydney?

Meeting people

We’ve found out that life in Sydney is all about the contacts you make. Which is why it’s important to get out there and meet new people. Pablo got both of his jobs in construction thanks to mutual friends. I got my second job thanks to sidekicker, in which I got contacted by a lady who loves what I do with my fitness/healthy living instagram and asked for some help on some of her projects.

I recently joined a site called Meetup, in which you select your interests and it shows you meetups happening in your area according to what you might be interested in.. really cool!

I’ve also been reaching out to people on Instagram and Facebook and asking them if they’d like to meet for coffee or drinks. People are usually super friendly and say yes right away! I’ve gotten to make lots of friendships based on what started as instagram acquaintances. Preeeetty cool. Don’t be scared of reaching out to people and asking them to hang out. I’m getting more and more extroverted as the days pass and it’s been really liberating :)

Some advice…

If you’re thinking of moving to a new country, I say… GO FOR IT :)

There are plenty of countries that offer Work and Holiday Visas, and/or Student Visas. It’s a great opportunity to get to experience new cultures, work in jobs you never thought you’d ever work on, and save a lot of money!

Join Facebook groups, read blogs of people who have done what you’re planning on doing, and start making checklists of what you need to do in order to get your Visa and move to a new country.

It will be challenging. There will be days where you miss your home, your family, your friends. But slowly, you’ll start making a new home for yourself. And there will always be room for new friends.

We’ve only been here for two months, and we’re extremely happy with our decision to move here. There’s days where we miss Chile but life in Sydney is AMAZING and we’re incredibly happy to get the chance to learn and grow in this incredible city.