Well, it is not as easy as I thought to keep two blogs about “down under” up to date. That is why my German blog ^[1] will probably get priority over this one – meaning that I will probably report in smaller doses here.

After my family and friends said good-bye to us at the Frankfurt airport last Thursday, our first aim was Singapore, where we arrived approximately 13 hours after take-off in Frankfurt. After 2 hours waiting time at the Singapore airport, it took us another 6.5 hours to arrive at Tullamarine airport in Melbourne, Australia.

Everything went quite smoothly – we had only 74 kg luggage altogether, which gave us an emergency reserve of 6 kg (since we ordered our tickets with the IOM ^[2], we had 40 kg + 7 kg hand luggage each).

I was a little concerned about my hand luggage, which slightly exceeded the allowed 7 kg, but no one really bothered. This is different to the Australians: when I left from Melbourne to Germany before, they actually weighed my hand luggage.

Also, customs/quarantine was much easier than the last times. Since I was now a migrant and no tourist anymore, I just had to declare my wooden guitars (which stayed intact, thank God) and our shoes (which were thoroughly cleaned, anyway) – and that was it. No X-ray, no further inspection.

Well, I didn’t have anything else to declare, anyway, but Australian customs/quarantine are known to be very strict, so even if you are on the safe side, you always feel a little awkward. But I think that is exactly the image that they want you to have, so that you don’t even think about trying something unlawful.

The Australian government names 7 things you should do first if you are an immigrant ^[3]:

1. Apply for a tax file number (TFN),
2. register with Medicare (= health insurance),
3. open a bank account,
4. register with Centrelink,
5. register for English classes (no need to),
6. enrol your children in school (no need to) and
7. apply for a Driver’s licence.

I already registered with Medicare yesterday, which only took about 10 minutes. That seems unbelievably quick for a German who is used to wait for days until the membership is approved.

Centrelink was no great help, I have to get in contact with immigration about how to get my work documents translated. Next thing on my schedule is to apply for a TFN online.

The jetlag still has a hold on me. I hope that is gonna be over in a couple of days.

Think we’ll go for a walk soon, since we have a terrific 30 degrees here.