Time to move to Melbourne

The first day I went to the city center I was with Chris, a couchsurfer I hosted in Milan last year. He's from Melbourne so he surely knew the best spots in town! There is nothing better than hanging out with locals when you're hungry and don't know which shop you want to crash in. Melbourne is quite an expensive city. A normal lunch ranges from 15 to 25 dollars per meal. But we got a large baguette for a modest $6.00. And, of course, there was a drink included with the deal! I'm loving these sunny days!

Read the ad on the tram at Swanson and Flinters Street.

City view from South Yarra.

A crowded street in Melbourne CBD.

A beautiful bar is just beneath the bridge!

New Year's eve rooftop party!

On NYE I had the best party ever. On a roof top, with loud music all night long, a fantastic drinking fountain with punch, and then saw a spectacular sunrise at the beach, in St. Kilda. I met the organizer through CouchSurfing (as usual) and got the invitation to her beautiful rooftop. I was really fun big time! Thanks!

Tall buildings in CBD

Palm trees welcome you to Melbourne city

My iPhone couldn't capture the fireworks very well,
but it's been really awesome entering 2012 from
the New Continent!

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.

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.