“Haul away your rolling king
Heave away, Haul away
Haul away oh hear me sing
We’re bound for South Australia…”

-The Pogues – “South Australia”

Since we moved to Britain in the autumn of 2004 we’ve been trying to figure out where to go from here. Neither of us are British, so we have no ties to the place, but we’ve toyed with buying a house in staying in England. We’ve flirted with the idea of moving to one of the northern European socialist paradises where crime is virtually non-existent and you get about a year of paid maternity (or paternity) leave. But we’ve always come back to the idea of Australia. Dr. O’C grew up in Adelaide and like every good Australian, has always planned on going back at some point. I’ve never been Down Under but I’ve also never met anyone (outside of some jealous Kiwis) that have anything much bad to say about Australia. I know a few critical things about Adelaide and – it’s on the beach and they have 230 some odd days of sunshine a year. If that sounds a little shallow to you then you’ve never lived in Britain in the winter. For these, among other, reasons I’ve always been a keen advocate of emigrating to Oz.

When the concept of Zach became frighteningly real last winter, the decision was pretty much made. Dr. O’C has always said that she wanted to raise her kids in Australia – to give them the kind of upbringing she had – and deep into my third gloomy British winter I was not going to argue vehemently against her reasoning. The fact is that even as two childless professionals we couldn’t afford to get on the property ladder in the south of England, so adding a mouth to feed and a bum to clothes wasn’t going to improve our standing. Thus, the decision made, we should have been on our way…

Except for one little problem – me, little old American me. Dr. O’C has dual Aussie/Irish citizenship and Zach has American, Irish and Australian (and could have British except his Mum refuses to allow it). But, I’m an American in good standing with an advanced degree and all sorts of skills not to mention being partnered up with an Australian, should be a piece of cake to get an Aussie visa. Well, I’m here to tell you that the Australians don’t mess around when it comes to immigration. My application for a spousal visa was about the size of a middling Stephen King novel and included just about that much information about your underwhelming narrator. One of my favorite parts was the requirement for testimony from several Australian citizens (I’m not using the word xenophobic, but they had to be Australians) to the length and intimacy of our relationship – I would of thought that Zach was ample testimony. I’ll leave to your imagination how we got some good Aussies to attest to that latter stipulation. I also had to sign an “Australian Values” statement that included, among other things, that I would never attempt to quote (using my best Aussie accent) from “Crocodile Dundee” or “A Cry In the Dark“. I had to submit a full medical exam including chest X-rays, HIV and hepatitis B and C blood tests – all negative despite an uncomfortable night or two. I had to submit police background checks from both the Thames Valley Police and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation – both clean, I’m proud to say. Oh, and there was the small matter of the non-refundable filing fee $1390 Australian (about £65o or $1300 US).

And now, everything is submitted and (knocking firmly on wood) there’s not much left standing in the way of our family and the Land Down Under. If I’m being honest, I’m starting to get scared. The move to Oxford a few years ago was no cake walk but I knew what to expect. I had a job in place and I’d had a few days to wander around the city. But this imminent Antipodean migration is something else entirely. One of the things that has always attracted me to Australia is the sheer isolation of the place. Adelaide is over 10,000 miles from our current home in Oxford and nearly the same distance from my parents’ home in Florida. And neither Dr. O’C nor I have jobs lined up and we have a little one in tow. I kind of feel what my ancestors must have felt when they left Italy or the British Isles for North America taking a chance on a better life, sailing into the unknown. Finally, despite myself, I’ve come to really like Oxford and, in the last few weeks since the move has become inevitable, have been noticing just what a wonderful place it is. I had a similar experience when we moved away from the Midwestern U.S. a few years ago. Seems that, for me, I only start to appreciate a place as I’m fixing to leave it.

“And as we wallop round Cape Horn
Heave away, Haul away
You’ll wish to God you’ve never been born
We’re bound for South Australia.”

Image credits:

Australia

Adelaide skyline

 
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