Transferring savings from one country to another is delicate

I finally decided to close my American banking account since I haven't used it for some time, and especially because I don't live in California anymore.
I will miss having a totally free of charge double-account, which I not only opened for free, I also received $40 to go from the bank. I will also miss the $280 reward they gave me after one year of "fidelity".
Today the AUD-EUR rate is pretty bad, then I wanted to keep my Euros for some more time, this might be tricky but I will come back to this a bit later.
The USD-AUD rate was instead pretty good, then it was the right time to transfer my savings from American dollars, onto my brand new Australian account.
To do that, I had to go through a number of security features to let me transfer the sum from one account to another. Such things like passwords, security codes sent via mobile, credit card check, and even stored image recognition.
Well, that was apparently not enough as it appeared that moving savings from USA to Australia, perhaps operated by an Italian, turns on security procedures and sends off an alert: I had then my account and credit card blocked, as well as the transfer canceled because reckoned fraud.
I appreciated their attempt to protect my savings. It was not big deal though, I only had to call my bank and state that the transfer was actually operated by me, not someone else.

It is funny if we consider the 19-hours difference, when I called it was 3pm in California, and I said: "Hi, I am calling from the future to save my money, here it is 10am of tomorrow!".

World record in finding a job in Australia

I read on forums that it is quite easy to get a job in the new continent. It is true and I can confirm it: I actually got a job in Melbourne, along with an awesome office in CBD, on the plane while still flying to Australia!
If you knew me personally you'd know that I am quite a talkative person. This time I happened to sit right next to my prospective employer, the president of an international association with headquarters in the US and in Australia.
We had like 7 hours to get to know each other in a sort of informal and friendly way. But, during the time of our conversation, he didn't know that he was going to look for someone to design his company's new website, as well as I didn't know that I was going to work as a freelance web designer.
It's as simple as that, believe it or not.


A beach walk after work.



Job hunt

I was in Melbourne CBD (central business district), wandering around and spending some time at the Victoria State's public library, applying to jobs through seek.com.au and linkedin.com, surfing its free Wi-Fi. I picked up the phone a couple times and was quite surprised by how quickly the recruiters get back to their applicants.
Then in the course of just a few hours, I already set a couple interviews for the day after onwards. I so love keeping myself busy!

Getting ready for some job interviews today!

A couple hours later, I was just walking on Collins Street, holding in my hands a delicious box of sushi and nighiri, and ended up on the 15th floor of a magnificent tall building.
A company for which I have applied for a job position a couple months ago, and done some homework while still in Italy, Thoughtworks, has a great office here, really. Once entered the hall through the main door, I immediately felt warmly welcomed. As I had to wait for my appointment, I've been offered a drink. There was a huge kitchen, and the fridge was full filled with any kind of sodas and fresh drinks. I then sat on a comfy sofa with a fresh Hoegarden beer and enjoyed the view of the city from their tall windows. What a wondrous place to work, I thought.

Getting there

Since I didn't want to spend 24 hours on a plane wandering from airport to airport to fly to Australia, I decided to plan some stage and stop by some friends here and there.
In France I was welcomed by Joan and Aurelie, some of the good friends I met during my studies in Scotland of a few years back. They brought me to Amiens, in the north of the country, and we had an authentic French dinner, accompanied by a large stream of Champagne.

Le Louvre, Paris

The following day I was on a train to Paris to meet up with couchsurfer Dan, who hosted me at his place for a couple days and made me feel like a prince. Thanks mate!
We had a blast one night and partied like a rock star. I also managed to meet with friends from Czech Republic who happened to be there for holiday. Even though Paris is said to be quite an expensive city, and it really is, we found a bar place where pints were sold for just EUR 2.50 each, such a deal! That night we had fun until late (I should rather say until early morning) and I eventually arrived at Orly airport just in time to catch the flight to Kuala Lumpur! If I were one additional minute late I would have lost it.
Malaysia was connected by this almost never-ending 13-hours flight. First thing I did as soon as landed was getting into a taxi and leaped on the bed.

Petronas towers view from the hotel room, Kuala Lumpur

The hotel room was quite superb. Its windows were facing directly the Petronas twin towers. I think I slept for a straight 12-hours that day. When I woke up, couchsurfer Shaz brought me to have a very typical and local breakfast a few kilometers away from the city. His father used to drive the Malaysian prime minister with his car. I was indeed really surprised when he showed up with that long Proton Executive with any kind of possible amenities in it. Wow.

Batu Caves, Malaysia

We had a nice chat and he showed me around the city, I really spent my time as a holiday that week. Shaz has also told me of a place where you get a Thai oil massage by the blind people.
Blind masseuses are said to be particularly good at the job, because their sense of touch is much more finely developed than those with no visual impairment. I definitely had to try that. And it was amazing indeed: a one-and-a-half-hour deep tissue massage and reflexology, for something like EUR 15. Feel a lot better!
I love the places that only locals know, where you get the best food, the most valuable experiences and inexpensive bargains.

So far so good, after 11 days of traveling, I finally touched base in Melbourne, Australia!

Here it follows with some other pictures I took with my phone.

Loading the luggage

I've always liked to solve problems to kill the time. Take a big problem, break it into smaller ones, and solve them separately. Easy.
Applying that to my life, going to Australia was a very long journey. There was a crazily cheap flight departing from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, landing in Melbourne, Australia: I bought it.
Ok, so now the next goal was getting to KL. Then I got this other flight, leaving from Paris, France, and getting right into the Malaysian capital city. Thanks to the AirAsia connection, I've got it for a price around EUR 270. Perfect! How easy then it was to hit Paris with a EUR 9 Ryanair flight taking off from Italy!
So now the problem was reduced to arriving to Bergamo at the Orio al Serio airport from my hometown. I've also saved nearly 40% of the cheapest fare.
See? Divide and Conquer!

Why Australia?

Recently, I have been asked a few times why I chose to move to Australia. I don't have an exact answer, but let's make a couple steps back to last June.
It was one of the first warm and sunny days of an early summer, it was a great Sunday and I was biking and wandering around Milan with a friend.
While taking a picture of the Duomo with my iPhone, I also gave a look at the "Milano CS Group", and saw the post of a couch-surfer who proposed a meeting at Park Sempione. I decided to join him and that is how I met Luca Panzarella, startupper and internet creative; and I got impressed by his definition of "location independent".

Duomo - Milan, Italy

Last August I took some days off for a short journey around Europe. I would have never thought it was going to be such a stimulating experience.
I was surfing a couch in Brussels, Belgium, and met Bert who inspired me with his job. He works as a lawyer and is not required to be at the office: he can work from anywhere, he just needs a computer connected to the internet.
Afterwards, I was surfing at Daniel's, in the heart of Amsterdam, in the Netherlands. He started a promising project for a magazine in literature, with a dutch version of kick-starter and raised half of the desired funds in just one week.
A few days after, in Copenhagen, Denmark, I randomly met up with an old friend who embarked on his own start-up, Evertale, and told me more about it at his new office.

Chilling in Ørstedsparken - Copenhagen, Danmark

Once back to work in Milan, despite the fact that my team and me started developing a new project and took lots of resources also from my free time, I went for a beer at the Irish pub just beneath my place. That night I met Mathieu from Canada. A software engineer, location independent, world traveller, and a couch-surfer like me as well.
He started his own company of web design and mobile developing, Avant-Garde, with collaborators from all around the world, and he is constantly attending IT conferences here and there to meet new people and perhaps future business partners.

This post doesn't quite explain why I quit my job and am now heading to Australia with a one-way ticket, but it tells a little bit of what is swirling through my head at the moment. I am looking for a brand new exciting experience and am seeking for seeing things from another point of view.