I thought I'd share my experience with everyone here; hopefully it's helpful to someone at some point. I arrived in Melbourne a few days ago.
I...I thought I'd share my experience with everyone here; hopefully it's helpful to someone at some point. I arrived in Melbourne a few days ago.
I should mention that my wife and 4 year old son are back in India; they will join me when I'm settled here (i.e. I have an apartment rented that is suitable for a 4 year-old and I also have a job). No rush on that.
I had been very busy with work prior to moving (and travelled quite a bit), which left me very little time to prepare. My weight limit being 30kg, I packed what I considered necessary (mostly clothing) and not easily replaceable in 2 suitcases (I wanted to avoid stuffing everything in one suitcase). I weighed everything before leaving and the 2 stuicases were exactly 30.0kg - sure enough, at the airport they weighed 30.3, which was acceptable, but it's best to leave room for a small margin or error.
I did not leave work earlier because I have plenty of vacation days left (close to 80) and technically I am on vacation now. This vacation is a buffer for me (if things go wrong here, I go back to my job) so I wanted to start my vacation as late as possible. (Too little time to get ready, but you can't have everything.)
I did not look for a job before leaving becuase I wanted to be here first and have a local phone number on my CV.
I did arrange accommodation via AirBNB for 26 nights. I rented a room, though I really intended to have a place all to myslef and misread the AirBNB post. Still - a private bedroom with my own bathroom and access to kitchen (in South Yarra). I'm ok with this. The guy I'm renting from is very nice and helpful. Having someone to occasionally interact with and ask questions is very helpful. In the end it's been working out ok. I think I prefer this to living by myself and nobody to ask anything.
(continued in the next post) Show more - at india