First impressions

My first impression of Sydney was dullness. I just can’t explain why. We stayed in a hotel some 03 minutes walk from Darling Harbour. We had to wait until our room would be ready. It was a wet rainy grey day in May, and we decided to spend some hours there-Darling Harbour. I was already having second thoughts about the whole idea. The jet lag was huge: 13 hours ahead. And I was feeling it. I used to have this nightmare, for many years, that I travelled on a plane to the other end of the world, and the plane would need to be upside down in order for us to get there. In the middle of the journy, we would fly over the Andes and had to have an emergency landing. On some wide road. And actually this was the real fun about it all, because I was not very sure(in my dream)that I wanted to be on the other side of the world.

We quickly discovered that Australians hate to serve. Services Industry(Hospitality mostly)is some sort of misery that they do with heroic efforts. By the end of some years spending there, I always felt embarrassed to ask the waiter for anything. Just did not want to bother them. And we also discovered the same applied for real estate agents when we needed to rent a place for ourselves. Visits were held on Saturdays, on a 30 minutes window. Should you arrive on the 24th minute, the agent was already packing and leaving. And it was the only day to see flats. We could only schedule time wise, rather than interest wise, because we tried to have the full day packed with visits.

As for the Visa available for people like us- we went for a gay friendly visa agent. For one hour he explained to us what could be done(nothing that my partner hadn’t read about it before on the internet) and he charged us a symbolic fee of AU$150.00 for the meeting. Sweet. Also said, that should we wanted to apply, we would collect all the documents, pay him AU$5,000.00, leave the country and await his further instructions. Sweeter.

So I said to Gus: for this money, why don’t we go to the big guys? The big guys, at that time were Price Waterhouse-yes, the great Accountancy firm discovered that collecting fees/documents for Visas is simpler and more rewarding than rating Enron and affiliates. The appointment was brilliant: they don’t charge for the first visit. Now, that’s a real courtesy and how I believe business is done.

Tell you later.