Progress!

Received my grandfather's birth certificate on Friday, so I can now put the Ancestry Visa application together. Just waiting on my friends address as part of the Visa application, then I can send it off!

Tentative leaving date:  August 9.

A reminder

Just a quick one here, a reminder to my future self in London - you occasionally have lonely worthless nights in Wellington too, so don't sweat it. I think you're awesome.

Where to put all my stuff?!

My last post covered what I want to take, what I'll need over there. I didn't mention all the stuff I like that I'm gonna have to get rid of in some way or another!

I've thought leaving later in life on a wee OE would be more of a positive - professional valued skills, knowing what you actually want, having money. But it comes at a cost - where am I going to put my household worth of stuff?!

 I've been doing a bit of homework, and I think it's going to cost about $300 a month to store my household worth of crap! A student would just sell their warehouse chipboard furniture and be done with it, they've only got a bedroom of stuff!

I am now going to have to analyse my furniture, and decide what is worth hanging on to, so I can have a more reasonably priced storage unit. Almost like gambling - is the cost of storage going to surpass the value of the stuff? Can't know without knowing how long I'll be gone!

Rates look to be a bit cheaper way out the middle of nowhere, like in Kapiti. Worth the extra cost to get it moved out there.

Hopefully the rent will cover this, too. Rent's looking to cover a lot!

What to take with me

I'm still in Wellington at the moment, and this isn't going to get real until I've got the visa and a leaving date lined up, but I can still put a few ideas together.

What to take on the plane with you is a fun thing to think about. You've got 23kg baggage allowance, and 7kg in cabin. That's not much more crap than you can fit in a tramping pack, yet that is going to be the foundation of your new life. Your new hobo life, where triple-reverse undie wearing is the norm.

The parameters of my thinking are:

• I'm going to come back
• Storage units aren't that expensive, so I can keep whatever I want in NZ (price may change that decision)

So, the list! 

• Smartphone, obviously - that's my memory, my to-do list, my calendar, my map. If they've got NFC working over there, it'll be half my wallet too! Maybe I should get another battery for it, I'll be kicking it's ass when I'm over there for a while.
• My business laptop. Again, pretty obvious reasons! 
• NZ Mementos:





http://www.sarahcdesign.co.nz/wordart.html

• My friend, upon moving to Melbourne, got some of this wordblock stuff (ALL THE RAGE) and I can see that being rad. It's tacky as the kitchen floor to have that shit over here, but I can imagine it'll take on a different meaning over there. 
• I particularly like this one:
• 
• Pics of my friends and family. Because Facebook doesn't cut it. I am undecided whether I'd want photo albums, probably not.
• Some of my little nick-knack shit. Like my worlds best larry mug.
• Clothes. I know I'll buy a lot of new clothes over there, so no stress, but I'll have bigger things to worry about than clothes for a while. 
• Suit - get a job!
• A bit of business attire - 2x favourite shirts, and some pants. The shoes are covered with the suit. That's right ladies, I wear the same shoes for everything. 
• Another pair of pants, and a couple of shirts and that for regular wear (on top of what I fly in)

Well that is about it. That is way more boring than I thought it'd be. Terror of packing myth debunked: BLOG OVER.

Decisions

The world's a big place, and my world has always been in Wellington, New Zealand. I grew up and studied in Wellington, and now I work and own a house here - and I love it. I love my family, my friends, my career and my home. I love that I can get to work in 12 minutes but can still see cattle grazing as I eat my breakfast.

But I've got the itch. I want to go live in an old city, a huge city, the place where my ancestors came from. I want to go get pale and drink warm ale. I want to see how awful and filthy and depressing it is, and how amazing and exciting and powerful. 

And I want to challenge myself. I consider myself lucky to have had my family and my oldest friends always so close by in my life, always ready with support, advice and a helping hand. But I'm a lazy guy, and I've tended to take the path of least resistance and familiarity. I haven't actually got around to doing some of the stuff I've always wanted to do. Stuff that requires some stones and a small amount of unpaid planning. I now find myself nearing 29 years of age, still yearning for that Overseas Experience - and this feels like the time for me to do it. My itchy stones have vanquished my laziness.

I'm scared, but also quite excited. 

So, welcome to the blog! Here I will chronicle my experience moving, setting up and living over in London, and my subsequent world travels from that much more convenient world travelling location. Thanks for reading.