Matt Down Under

There’s not much activity here at the moment. It’s winter in Tasmania and I don’t feel like doing a lot of outdoor activities while it’s cold out there. I’m a summer guy and at the moment I’m simply focusing on working and see how things develop.

Since I joined Ionata in February I’m having a lot more fun at work, we’re a great team and our projects are interesting. At the same time I do some occasional feelance work. I also have a few other projects in the works, I will present one of them soon, it’s something like an online portfolio which is quite handy to have when you’re a web developer or designer.

These days I’m thinking a lot about plans for the next few years. My plan actually is not to make plans, since I probably shouldn’t make longterm plans until I have a permanent visa. I can’t buy a house for example as long as I don’t know if I can stay here, sure. I have this dream that in two years I will apply for permanent residency and if it’s successful, then I will take at least six months off to travel the country and maybe Asia. Only travelling, no work. What I wanted to do last year before my plans were interrupted.

Until then I have time to save money, since my expenses here are low I should be able to save enough so I can take at least half a year off. I’m really looking forward to this.

But the next two years should be exciting too, there are a lot of things that I would like to do in Tasmania. I’d love to see more of the South West, walking the South West Cape track could be interesting. Or exploring the various lakes in Walls of Jerusalem National Park. At the moment I’m also considering buying a bicycle. If I can find one that I can use for mountainbiking day trips in Wellington Park, and also for longer trips where I need to use pannier bags, that would be great.

A few weeks ago one of my mates at the office showed me the website of Adult Education Tasmania. This is pretty interesting for me, you can book all sorts of courses like sports or recreational stuff. I booked a sailing course, I always wanted to go sailing but never had the opportunity. So I booked an introduction to sailing with a qualified teacher from one of the local sailing clubs. You can also book further courses to get a powerboat license for example. I’d rather have a boat than a car at the moment, so this could be useful for the future. Unfortunately a few days ago the course was cancelled due to a lack of enough participants. I need to try again in spring.

I still plan to visit Germany sometime this year, but I still don’t know when, maybe Christmas. Yesterday the financial year in Australia ended and now I’m looking forward to a tax return, since I paid too much tax at my previous job. We’ll see, maybe it’s enough for a trip to Germany, but as soon as I think of having to spend 24 hours in an airplane, all excitement is gone.