Nothing But Blue Skies From Now On

Here goes: Australia, take three. My first trip here was about vacation, exploration and new experiences. My second was a slice of life Down Under. This time, it’s all on me to make this the most exciting, adventurous and memorable year of my life!

To bring you up to speed, I decided shortly after I returned from my trip in August that I wanted to find a way to move here as soon as possible. What drove that decision, you ask? I think it was the fact that I simply didn’t want to leave at the end of my trip. And it wasn’t because I had a stressful job I had to go back to or I lacked friends or a good social life in Austin. Quite the opposite, really. I had a world of opportunity as far as my next career move, a beautiful house, amazing friends and family and the cutest little dog in the world all waiting to welcome me back. But, there was a nagging voice in the back of my head telling me that I had to find a way to move to Australia, and this was the time in my life to do it. It felt like a now or never situation, so I chose now!

January 11 arrived quickly, and I packed my bags, said a very tearful goodbye to my family, friends and Bailey, and hopped a plane to Brisbane. My timing, as always, was impeccable. If you’ve been following the world news, you know that Queensland has suffered some catastrophic flooding, and Brisbane got the brunt of it at about the exact time that I arrived there. The city seems to be completely crippled, and people are still digging out of it and trying to salvage what they can from their flooded homes. It’s very troubling to see, but I have to say that I got lucky and had no issue getting from the Brisbane airport to my new home on the Gold Coast. Power outages kept the train from running, but I got on a bus as a back-up and arrived in Main Beach without incident.

So here I am! I live less than a block from the beach, walking distance to shops, restaurants and bars and have had a chance to catch up with fun friends down here. I can already tell it’s going to be an amazing year, as soon as I figure out how I’m going to support myself, that is. I swear, the job search starts tomorrow :)

A view of my building from the beach