Trip Preparation

Once the approval process at Fairfield had run its course and the leave was granted, the real work began. Could we, in fact, afford to up-root and move to the other side of the world and avoid penury. The answer to this question was, by no means, obvious.
     We were four living at our home in Fairfield. Our son, Daniel, by now 21 years of age, was gainfully employed at Trader Joe's. Should we invite him to come with us or should he stay home and continue to work? There were multiple factors to be considered which we will not document here. In the end we decided that an interruption in his routine and employment to spend a year in Melbourne would not have been in his best interest, so he was going to stay behind. We then had to secure lodgings for him for the year. In a town as rich as Fairfield, this is a very difficult task. Living in the house was out of the question. To make the project financially possible without unnecessary trauma, we would certainly need to rent the house and use the income to help underwrite the cost-of-living in Melbourne. It was clear that Dan would be unable to stay in the house.
     Would the house rental be enough and what if we could not rent it? Our financial situation was of major concern. The rule for sabbaticals at Fairfield holds that a leave of half a year receives a full year's pay and a leave of a full year receive half a year's pay. I have never felt, as an experimentalist, that a half year sabbatical project would be productive enough to warrant taking one. So going on half salary seemed inevitable. Prof. Bieske offered a supplement to help some, but only if his grant was funded. At the time of my application it was not yet known if he had obtained that funding. What would not become known until much later was that the promised support could not be in the form of cash. The Australian government puts severe restrictions on how grant money can be used to support visiting scientists or any foreign guest for that matter.
     As if that were not enough, Edite would have to either quit her nursing job outright or try to garner a leave-of-absence for the year. This represented yet a further loss of income. One possible solution here would be for her to get a job in Australia as a nurse. Nice idea, but we were unsure of the visa restrictions on her or whether she could transfer her license without additional training. It was clear that we needed more information about how much we should expect to pay to live in Melbourne.
     The answer to that question came to us via an old friend, Jack Fackler who spends a good deal of his retirement working Australian Hams on his ham radio. During the course of his hamming activities he became acquainted with an Australian radio amateur by the name of Keith. Keith, who during his younger days spent first some time with the United Nations peace keeping forces and later a year traveling around the North American continent collecting lifelong memories of Canadians and Americans, is currently a police superintendent for the Victorian Police. As such his knowledge of life in Melbourne is extensive and his communications skills outstanding. He was quick to respond to my email asking for information of the cost of living in the Melbourne area. His response discussed housing prices, car prices, food prices (he even offered to price out a grocery list if we provided one for him), and the like. This was just the sort of information that we needed to decide if the project was possible.
     We weighed all of the information that we had available, trying to project how we would do if the worst case became the real case. After due consideration of all the facts we had, we came to the decision that the project was, at least, a feasible if not potentially expensive. How could we not undertake it? It was an opportunity of a lifetime. So the project was a go.
     Once the big decision was made, what remained was merely to implement the plan (and modify it to conform with reality.) This turned out to be a daunting task. We had the house to consider as well as Fi's education in Australia and Dan's lodgings in Fairfield. Then there were all of the utilities, cars and obligations to deal with. The extrication of one from fifteen years of active life in the town and region was a larger task than I had anticipated. This is probably a good thing. If I had a full understanding of what it would take to accomplish the move, I probably would have opted not to undertake it. We would certainly have missed out on the experiences we have already enjoyed.
     The preparation of the house for rental was, by far, the most difficult part of the preparation for our departure. We had actually started early in anticipation of a positive decision on going. We reasoned that if we decided not to go, the house would not suffer from being tidied up. To be honest, the house barely saw much cosmetic maintained over the course of the previous seven years. Major items were dealt with, of course, such as outdoor painting and the correction of structural flaws, but the sheen had come off the house, and it needed to be restored if it was going to be attractive enough for someone to rent it. Virtually every room in the house was done over. Structural work in the bath off the master bedroom was the biggest job. The room was gutted of all but the tub. New toilet, sink, cabinets, light fixtures and floor were installed ... by me! We could not afford to pay a builder to do the job at Fairfield prices. The town had been (and still is) undergoing a boom in both new building and old renovations, so it was a builder's market. Our deadline was firm, and we could not afford to have the builder tell us, "I am not going to be able to meet my initial time estimate." So I chose to do it myself.
      Meanwhile, Edite, bless her heart, took on the task of sequentially painting most all of the other rooms in the house with only a small amount of help from me. She filled holes in walls from picture hooks and "accidents", removed door and window hardware and replaced them again after the new paint dried. New curtains were made or purchased and many other small but laborious tasks were done. It became a bit of an obsession with her. I was really looking forward to the day when we had finished the work and could lock the door behind us and flee the country.
     Fiona's education was another prime concern. She was just finishing her freshman year at the local high school, and we wanted assurances from the school administration that being educated in Australia would not hold her back when she returned. Particularly, we wanted to know what courses she should take to "keep up." Then there was the matter of finding a suitable school in Australia. This was much more difficult than we ever thought possible.
     Once again, Keith came to the rescue. His eldest daughter, Kristel, had spent a year at the Suffield Academy in the Connecticut River community of the same name. She is now employed by an Australian import firm that deals with toy merchandise imported from the US. As such she occasionally travels to the US on business. During one of those trips we met up with her in Suffield to learn anything we could about what to expect during our stay. She was a fountain of information, all very helpful, and we left her with a much better idea of the total "scene" in Melbourne including the educational scene.
     As a result of the meeting with Kristel, our focus shifted to deciding whether to educate Fi privately or publicly. Private education is expensive (and not in our budget for the project) but offered plenty of choices. On the other hand the quality of the free public education varied widely, according to reports from several sources. The favored public school to attend was called University High School and was rumored to have a very competitive enrollment. Other concerns included worrying about how far she would have to travel to and from school each day and how she would get there. We came to the realization that to know which school Fi should attend, we would have to know where we were going to be living. How could we know that?! It seemed like a catch-22. Additionally, our attempts to contact the various schools in the area were met with, at first, no response followed by nebulous answers and indications that the school was "full". It was not very encouraging. Fortunately, very close to our departure date, we received an email from one nearby school indicating that there was a place for Emily in an accelerated class. We at least knew there would be some place for her to attend.
     Since knowing where Fi was to attend school was linked to where we were going to be living, it seemed important to work on that problem. Here, Keith had advised us that housing might cost around $1350 per month. This was encouraging news at first, but would this be for a furnished or unfurnished place? We consulted my academic host, Prof. Bieske, and he recommended we consider a furnished apartment that he had found for past visitors. We recognized the wisdom in this approach. It would allow us to arrive to a stable living environment and then, if necessary, mount a search for better accommodations should these prove to be inadequate.
     Lodging for Dan seemed a bit simpler. We could always default to having him move to Pennsylvania and live with his grandmother. While not the best option, it would provide him with the necessities of life and keep him on a steady course of work and growth. If we knew that he could find suitable employment in Australia, we probably would have invited him to join us. However, since we were still unsure of Edite's employment options, we concluded that staying behind was more prudent. We then proceeded to test the patience of our friends and neighbors by mounting an appeal characterized by a quiet desperation asking if they would mind harboring Dan for the coming year. As the list of negative replies mounted so did our desperation. We were about to give up and move to the default plan when a good friend decided to extend an invitation for Dan to stay with them until Christmas. This was wonderful. She lived much closer to his work venue than we did, so he could walk to work. Best of all, he could still stay in Fairfield. Things began to feel as if they were falling into place.
     By this point most of the major items were either settled or in some stage of development. I instructed my boat partner, Evan, on how to winterize our boat. I reduced the car insurance to fire and theft only as they would be sitting comfortably in the garage for the year. I finished out, slightly early, my work as a citizen member of the Fairfield Conservation Commission passing on responsibility to the vice chair. These are but a meager few items from the list that needed attention prior to departure.
     And then there was the travel issue. This is a bit of a story. One of the requirements for anyone traveling to Australia and planning to stay more than three months is to obtain the proper visa. In my case, no one really knew what the proper visa was or they would not say. Even my host did not know. It didn't help that he was not in the country during this preparation period. He was reduced to giving me names of a few administrator types at the University of Melbourne who might know. However, when asked they gave me equally evasive answers to the question. In fact, no one really knew what visa a visiting academic planning to stay for more than three months should have.
     After reading the different class of visa that Australia offered, I chose a 419 class visa figuring that if it was wrong someone would be quick to correct me. This class of visa is called a temporary resident visa carries with it the right for spouse to work and child to be educated for free in government schools. Interestingly, it precludes me from earning a salary.
     The application process called for filling out an application of some fourteen pages and appending a whole host of documents to it. This included the original letter of invitation from my host, a letter of leave from Fairfield University, a letter stating that I had my own insurance, birth certificates for all family members on the application, marriage certificate and passports. This package plus the application fee needed to be bundled up and sent with the means also enclosed to mail back the passports and certificates. This was all accomplished on the first day of July, 2005.
     So how long do I wait? For this class of visa there was no direction either in the accompanying documentation or on the government website. What was clearly stated was that no would-be traveler should make any travel plans until they had the visa in their possession. I decided not to be the pushy American and waited...for six weeks. An envelope arrived on the fifteenth of July after being stuck in transit due to an address transcription error originating at the point of mailing by one of the shipping firms employees. Inside were the passports and certificates I mentioned earlier. What was missing was any letter indicating that I had received entry approval or the visas.
     I waited the full six weeks while beginning to get nervous that I hadn't any tickets or reservations to fly and the departure date was creeping up on us. My first attempt to contact anyone in Washington at the embassy was met with utter failure. The line was constantly busy. The next day I managed to get someone who instructed me to send an email to the single address on the website. This was beginning to feel like another of those run-arounds, but I sent one anyway. The next day I received a terse email from my "case officer" informing me that their records show that my visa was issued on July 11. How could that be? Then it hit me like a ton of bricks: the bloody visas were in the passports. A quick check confirmed that. I guess it was too much to expect that a small pre-printed note placed discretely in the return package directing the receiver to look in the passports might be included. I sent a quick reply to my case officer thanking her and making that suggestion. I expect I gave her material for her next cocktail hour.
      After that fiasco we set the date of September 26 for departure. This would accommodate one last trip for Edite who wanted to accompany her book club gals on a trip to Block Island. Knowing how much fun they have and how much fun I might have had if some of the guys did the same thing, I readily agreed to the postponement. Besides, there was still plenty to organize before we actually left.
     Meanwhile the house was being shown on an irregular basis. We were unfortunate enough to pick a time to undertake this project when the house rental market was flooded with perspective properties. In one week alone there were 165 house on the market to rent. We were forced to lower the rental price a number of times to try and stay competitive. At the time of departure we still had not rented the house. As this was a cornerstone of our financial picture for the year, we were not happy. It was looking like it was going to be a tight year.
     The other major task that started out slowly and grew in intensity was the enormous job of packing. While we were intending to rent the house furnished, there was still a good deal of "junk" that needed to be "hidden" from the renting public. We chose to store all of it above the garage. We left most of the dishes and nick-nacks where they were, but the more valuable items needed to be stored. In all we packed in excess of 150 boxes and moved them into the "ballroom" as we called the room above the garage. Sports equipment, tools and boxes of clothes and videos were stuffed into this room. The amazing thing is, it was finished on the day that we left. Is it always this way?
     With little further trauma the departure date approached. We enlisted the services of Evan, my boat partner, to drive us to Newark Airport. On Monday, September 26 we left Fairfield behind and headed for Los Angles on route through Sydney to Melbourne. The adventure had begun.