A year and a half ago, my husband and I arrived in Australia. Thanks to his work, we had the opportunity to move to Sydney and we jumped at the chance!
Initially, we settled in Paddington, a pretty suburb of Sydney, with its famous Victorian houses. With its village atmosphere right in the middle of the city, this neighborhood quickly won us over! Then, with a French friend also living in Sydney, we decided to launch a website for French and French-speaking people, giving access to lots of practical information about the country, and sharing what we’d been through before. That’s how our website www.guide-australie.com came into being.
A year later, the success story continues! Six months after our arrival, I started looking for a job, and quickly found one. I’m a product manager for a software publisher. The atmosphere at work is much more pleasant than what I experienced in France. Pressure and bad stress are almost non-existent, and quality of life improves enormously. Our biggest surprise on arriving in Sydney was the food! We were very pleasantly surprised by the variety and quality of everything you can eat here! You’ll find all the European fruits and vegetables, but also all the more exotic ones from the southern hemisphere!
Sydney, a cosmopolitan city, is a melting pot of cultures, offering an extraordinary choice of dishes from Italy, Greece, Thailand, India, Japan, China, Vietnam, Korea, Lebanon, etc. Sydney offers an extraordinary quality of life. A city with the dimensions of a capital, it combines its dynamic urban rhythm with the strong presence of nature! The beaches and the many vast parks are the focus of numerous festivals and outdoor activities. Above all, we live outdoors!
We didn’t have any real difficulties getting settled here, as everything was much easier, and the atmosphere was always positive – Australians are charming people! There are a few cultural differences, but we often appreciate them! One of the few aspects that can irritate us is the strict observance of the rules, which earned us a few fines for having parked while paying our parking fee, but the car was positioned with its head facing the gutter instead of the other way round, so not respecting the rule, we had to pay an 80 euro fine…
In the end, it all comes down to anecdotes! And we take care not to repeat the experience! For those wishing to settle here, the most complicated part is the initial immigration formalities. You really need to be well-informed, and it has to be run as a project. Unless you come for a year on a working vacation visa for those under 30, or are sponsored by a company to work here, other forms of immigration require a great deal of personal investment. Take your courage in both hands and do it seriously – it’s worth it!
Séverine Chu
