DSGamer Down Under (Australia) and back

Okay, so the latest drama is that our cats (already age 14 and 15 and costing us in the thousands to move) are possibly not going to be allowed into corporate housing. The rental market is mad in Sydney, apparently, and because it's so expensive renters can easily turn away people like us without worrying about there being another renter up next. This may be the final straw that forces us to leave our cats behind, sadly. It was already a questionable decision given the cost (approaching $10,000 US, although part of that is covered by the company) and the fact that they're older and may not do well with the movie. As it was we were thinking this was a very selfish choice. But now with the apartment folks telling us they want a $7500 security deposit and reference letters from friends and former landlords I think we might be toast. We'd get good references, but when the cost of getting your pets to you approaches $20,000 and they're older I just don't know... It felt borderline inhumane to put them through this process to begin with. Now I'm really not sure about the cost, something I was willing to foot at one point.

Thoughts, anyone following this thread?

If you're renting an apartment, chances are the community rules may not permit pets. You'd have to rent a free standing house to keep a pet and of course houses are more expensive than apartments.

Is there anyone you know who can adopt them?

Bfgp wrote:

If you're renting an apartment, chances are the community rules may not permit pets. You'd have to rent a free standing house to keep a pet and of course houses are more expensive than apartments.

Is there anyone you know who can adopt them?

Sure. We do. Just wrapping my head around that and feeling guilty about it / sad about it. I don't think we have a choice without spending a person's annual income getting them there.

If it makes you feel better, Jonny Depp and wife snuck their pets on a private jet and are now being prosecuted by the authorities. It's not easy or cheap to relocate so I doubt any of us would pass judgment on you.

Plus the rent market (and property market generally) is crazy here, that having pets will drastically lower your chance of finding a place, especially if the listing agent knows you're from offshore and may be renting on a very temporary basis. Last thing you'd want is to be stuck in a hotel at hotel rates.

Yeah, but I completely understand where Australia's coming from, being the only continent without rabies.

bnpederson wrote:

Yeah, but I completely understand where Australia's coming from, being the only continent without rabies.

Are you saying infecting dingos, tassies, and drop bears with rabies is a "bad" idea?

Bfgp wrote:

If it makes you feel better, Jonny Depp and wife snuck their pets on a private jet and are now being prosecuted by the authorities. It's not easy or cheap to relocate so I doubt any of us would pass judgment on you.

Thanks.

I would advise against bringing an aging cat into an Australian Summer also. Today we have almost 39C, our cats are sitting under the air con and only just managing, and they are 'used to it'. Bringing yours at a time they'd be expecting Winter, and being held in a quarantine facility for a while once they get here... It might be more than a little distressing for them.

If you trust the people you'll be leaving them with to love them like they were their own, then I would say that would be the better option for the cats for sure.

We're not sure where we're leaning yet, but we're delaying a definite decision for now, that's for sure. An update. So I officially have a job as of yesterday. Not adding it on LinkedIn or anything until the Visa clears and I set foot in the building, but so far everything is going well. It's public knowledge now (announced within my wife's company and all friends and family told), so that's cool. Now we just need to finish packing.

DSGamer wrote:

We're not sure where we're leaning yet, but we're delaying a definite decision for now, that's for sure. An update. So I officially have a job as of yesterday. Not adding it on LinkedIn or anything until the Visa clears and I set foot in the building, but so far everything is going well. It's public knowledge now (announced within my wife's company and all friends and family told), so that's cool. Now we just need to finish packing.

Congrats on the gainful employment!

DSGamer wrote:

We're not sure where we're leaning yet, but we're delaying a definite decision for now, that's for sure. An update. So I officially have a job as of yesterday. Not adding it on LinkedIn or anything until the Visa clears and I set foot in the building, but so far everything is going well. It's public knowledge now (announced within my wife's company and all friends and family told), so that's cool. Now we just need to finish packing.

Congrats! I'm so excited for y'all! Mildly jealous, as well.

Fedaykin98 wrote:
DSGamer wrote:

We're not sure where we're leaning yet, but we're delaying a definite decision for now, that's for sure. An update. So I officially have a job as of yesterday. Not adding it on LinkedIn or anything until the Visa clears and I set foot in the building, but so far everything is going well. It's public knowledge now (announced within my wife's company and all friends and family told), so that's cool. Now we just need to finish packing.

Congrats! I'm so excited for y'all! Mildly jealous, as well. :D

Thank you. We haven't done anything yet. Just got the opportunity. Now we actually have to go do well at our jobs and figure out how to live as expats.

Still waiting for our visas to get completed. This part sucks. I have a job where they're excited to get paperwork started and get me in their system. We've scheduled most of the farewell tour to say goodbye to friends and family. We've tentatively scheduled the day to move our stuff into storage. But we can't yet purchase our final tickets to actually move to Australia. Hoping that wraps up this week.

Would you like to look at another Australian spider while you wait? If yes, click this link. https://twitter.com/abcnews/status/6...

Mermaidpirate wrote:

Would you like to look at another Australian spider while you wait? If yes, click this link. https://twitter.com/abcnews/status/6...

Thanks.

And I was already in a great headspace with the viral picture of the giant goanna.

I wish I could "tag" people in these forums that are expats. We're about 4 days away from moving out of our condo. Things are progressing well, minus the fact that I might need surgery before we leave.

I was wondering if anyone knew if I needed to do anything special to make sure that Steam, the PSN store, Nintendo e-Shop continue to allow me to purchase from the US store. I am planning on buying a few games (Fire Emblem Fates, for example) this way when I get to Australia.

I mentioned this earlier:

Mr GT Chris wrote:

For the Kindle store, if you continue to buy books while in Australia, Amazon will intermittently email you, asking if you want your account to be transferred to the Asia/Oceania store (hell no). You can ignore these but after a year or so they will contact you telling you that your account will be forcibly transferred by a certain due date. At this point you need to contact them (I think there are details in the email) and send them a scan of your passport. That will get them permanently off your back.

Steam will block purchase of content not available in Australia. You will also be charged according to local pricing (which will suck). PSN should have no such issues and work as before. I'd like to say that the e-Shop will be the same but I don't have any personal experience there.

Mr GT Chris wrote:

I mentioned this earlier:

Mr GT Chris wrote:

For the Kindle store, if you continue to buy books while in Australia, Amazon will intermittently email you, asking if you want your account to be transferred to the Asia/Oceania store (hell no). You can ignore these but after a year or so they will contact you telling you that your account will be forcibly transferred by a certain due date. At this point you need to contact them (I think there are details in the email) and send them a scan of your passport. That will get them permanently off your back.

Steam will block purchase of content not available in Australia. You will also be charged according to local pricing (which will suck). PSN should have no such issues and work as before. I'd like to say that the e-Shop will be the same but I don't have any personal experience there.

Thanks. I forgot that. It's been a long time. That's a bummer about Steam. Although that won't matter to me as much as PSN and e-Shop. The games I'm most looking forward to are the above mentioned Nintendo games and Persona 5.

Mr GT Chris wrote:

I mentioned this earlier:

Mr GT Chris wrote:

For the Kindle store, if you continue to buy books while in Australia, Amazon will intermittently email you, asking if you want your account to be transferred to the Asia/Oceania store (hell no). You can ignore these but after a year or so they will contact you telling you that your account will be forcibly transferred by a certain due date. At this point you need to contact them (I think there are details in the email) and send them a scan of your passport. That will get them permanently off your back.

Steam will block purchase of content not available in Australia. You will also be charged according to local pricing (which will suck). PSN should have no such issues and work as before. I'd like to say that the e-Shop will be the same but I don't have any personal experience there.

What about receiving gifts on Steam? Asking for a friend.

Gifts definitely allow you to access pricing from other regions. I don't know if there are any issues with gifting stuff that is barred from sale. Humble Bundle etc. always don't even let me purchase the keys

DSGamer wrote:

Thanks. I forgot that. It's been a long time. That's a bummer about Steam. Although that won't matter to me as much as PSN and e-Shop. The games I'm most looking forward to are the above mentioned Nintendo games and Persona 5.

.

I've been using PSN in the US since I bought a PS3 slim. Apart from needing to enter a US address, it's been smooth sailing!

Clock sent me an eShop gift code when I first got a Wii. It told me the code was "not valid for my region", so if it's a worse case scenario, and you're actually blocked from making the purchase due to the mismatch of ISP, DNS, Internet gobbledygook, then you could still get someone in the US to hook you up that way also. Don't rule out physical media sent from the US as well if you're into that sort of thing

What about a using an Internet proxy?

m0nk3yboy wrote:

Clock sent me an eShop gift code when I first got a Wii. It told me the code was "not valid for my region", so if it's a worse case scenario, and you're actually blocked from making the purchase due to the mismatch of ISP, DNS, Internet gobbledygook, then you could still get someone in the US to hook you up that way also. Don't rule out physical media sent from the US as well if you're into that sort of thing ;)

I'm not into that sort of thing, although I would be tempted with Fire Emblem if they still had physical manuals with the games. But yes, that's a good worst case scenario. My in-laws are willing to ship Amazon purchases to us, so we already have that figured out.

Fedaykin98 wrote:

What about a using an Internet proxy?

My wife thinks we'll need something like that for Netflix. I'm not sold yet that we'll need one, but I'm just starting to research that. It's an interesting thought for games. We'll see.

A general update: We're still waiting for the visa, which is fine. There was a bit of a snafu with my wife's company not actually getting it submitted yet because they had to straighten out sponsorship. We can still enter on our old tourist visas, though. The biggest hangup to scheduling final flights right now is that my doctor thinks I have a hernia. I had a CT scan yesterday and it looks like it might be confirmed. I'm waiting for my surgeon to call me to see if this is something worth doing before I leave.

For streaming media you either will need a proxy or live with what the services offer their Australian customers. Of course, there's aways talk that they might start blocking proxies...

DSGamer wrote:
Fedaykin98 wrote:

I am jealous of the awesome adventure you are embarking on! One of my best friends (you probably met him at the PAX 07 meetup, but he's not a Goodjer) did a similar thing with leaving the PNW for Germany, and he's still there years later. I know it has been a fantastic, enriching experience for him.

The company I'm interviewing with wants me to stay longer if they hire me so you never know. Life is weird. A little over a year ago I started the worst two week period of time of my entire life. Now this is happening. And yeah, it could last longer. You're right.

This delivered a morning smile. I hope it's a blast, and really happy you found a light.

Mr GT Chris wrote:

For streaming media you either will need a proxy or live with what the services offer their Australian customers. Of course, there's aways talk that they might start blocking proxies...

f*ck me dead, don't rely on that!?!?

I can 'live' with our Netflix, because I know no better. Coming from the land of plenty, you'll find our sun baked offering half hearted at best.

Check out http://flixusa.com.au/ to see if that is something you could use to get around the problem, especially with their free trial.

Tomorrow we move out of our condo. The first night we got there I laid on the floor positive I was going to end up on another bender of insomnia after the year I had last year. It was too bright in the condo, the city too close. The hardwood floors were hard on my feet which were still in a great deal of pain after an entire year of muscle spasms and nerve pain. I was really anxious.

Instead this became a home and a peaceful place where a lot of growth and healing has taken place. While my wife worked hard at her job, the job that will soon take us to Australia, I tried to help us get healthier by learning how to cook and making meals for us. Many nights we'd sit on the couch and watch TV or catch up on our days, a cat nestled in beside each of us.

I'll miss this a lot and it hit my wife really hard last night that she realized she was basically saying goodbye to the cats. There's so much uncertainty about getting them to Australia. It's probably not even a good idea. It likely won't hit me until I'm there. For now I'm fixated on the change in general. This was the place we needed to be for the time we were here. Hoping Australia is the same thing.

Good luck, man! I'm still jealous of this adventure you're embarking on!

Yeah, good luck DS! Portland will still be here, go have new adventures:) Sad about the cats, that's tough, I know.

I Hope You Like Heatwaves.

Well, the worst of it is skipping Sydney, I think. Have a safe trip!

We're having a late Summer here in the West. Temps haven't been that high so far, mainly high twenties to mid thirties.

Usually we would have had mid-thirties to low forties leading into Chrimbo... March is going to be a STINKER!