Matt Down Under
Ruby developer, founder of choc media, bushwalker, MacGyver fan and hobby photographer, German citizen and Australian Permanent Resident.
In 2008 I moved from Germany to Australia, the best decision of my life. On this blog you can find stories and photos about hiking in Tasmania and on the mainland, travelling, and life in Australia — my journey from Working Holiday to Permanent Residency.
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16 posts tagged Society
How I got an Australian driver’s license
A few weeks ago I was thinking about getting an Australian driver’s license. I have a German driver’s license and an international one which I got before I left Germany. The German one isn’t accepted in Australia, but with the international one I could potentially drive a car. However this is only for visitors, residents are urged to apply for an Australian license, which turned out to be quite easy.
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Australia votes
In two weeks Australia will hold the 2010 Federal Election. As I am not an Australian citizen (yet), I’m not eligible to vote. Nevertheless, as a person living here and interested in national and world politics and as someone who’s job it is to be up-to-date about everything related to online, I’m consuming a lot of news every day, and I’m following the political campaigns closely. Here’s my take on which party to vote for.
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Climbing the Opera House
When I read through some news websites today I was surprised to find a heated discussion about the Uluru, or Ayers Rock. The reason is a draft management plan which was released for the Uluru - Kata Tjuta National Park. In this management plan it is suggested to ban climbing Uluru, and this is what causes all the controversy.
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I made it!
Yesterday my new visa was granted.
Suddenly everything went so fast. I few weeks ago I finalised the required medial documents and since I hadn’t heard anything from the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) I already started to be worried. It would have been a nightmare if the documents would have gone lost in transit.
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10 good reasons for being in Australia
About retrospection, fubar companies and flash-hiking
There’s quite a lot to tell. The last few weeks were probably the most crazy ones I had since I based myself here. Hopefully you don’t mind that I put this all into one big post.
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Honey Mustard Simmer Sauce
What makes it interesting to live in a foreign country are the differences to your home country. Like if you go to a supermarket you can discover a lot of food that you’ve never seen before, or maybe you just never noticed it because the packaging looked less appealing in the supermarkets of your home country.
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Australia vs Germany - today: Education.
In the last few weeks I was involved in a discussion (1, 2) about the educational system in Germany. A German friend of mine was blogging about the outcome of a recent research study which showed that the introduction of university fees in Germany a couple of years ago (until then fees were not permitted by law) prevented thousands of young people - especially from not-so-wealthy families - from starting studies at a university. How surprising.
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The next milestone
I’m back in Launceston, but only for the weekend. Right now I am sitting on the UTAS campus and wait for the last part of my IELTS English test, which is part of my visa application. I just finished the listening, reading and writing parts and now I have about two hours until the speaking part begins.
So far I have a very good feeling, I didn’t have any problems except the short time on the last part where you need to write two short essays to given topics.
I should have some credit for the speaking part by now, I don’t need to score the best possible grades anyway.
The only annoying thing is that it will take about two weeks until I get the results… :(
