Living the expat life
So, I guess I’m officially an expat, or at least have been since late January when we arrived in Australia, and started setting up camp. Between that and work, things have been busy enough that I’ve rarely had time to do much that contributes to the Internet, so I’m trying to catch up.
Two years ago, when Linda and I visited Australia for the first time, we really liked the feel of Sydney. We tended to describe it as Los Angeles in climate, but designed like San Francisco, and populated by stereotypically polite British folk.
So, when things were beginning to get to a point where I could “escape” from Android (not that anyone really ever escapes from a project), I mentioned to my manager that “we may be interested in relocation, and hey, would Sydney be a likely place?” Six months or so later, he said “Ok, looks like we need someone in Sydney, are you game?”
Since then, we’ve done the visa thing (Australia seemed relatively easy, although we had to get medical exams), and we’ve done the packing-up-our-entire-house thing, and we’ve shipped ourselves and a bunch of stuff to Sydney. It’s not easy, particularly when you’re doing it with a six month old daughter.
It’s definitely interesting: not only am I being immersed in the “distributed office” experience, which has its own set of challenges, but we’re learning a lot of interesting things about what it means to have a home, and where you live, and how to get things done in another country.
I plan to get some more content up (and really hope to make it happen) talking about what’s going on. We’ll see.