My new favourite hangout

I'd been hearing heaps of good things about Wiggley's waterhole for a few months when finally last Tuesday, I made it there. Katie chose it for her birthday party which was a good enough reason to explore this hidden jewel. The strange thing is that it'd taken me so long when it's only about 10 km far from Alice City.

It's a great easy bike ride (although it was a bit of an adventure on my new skinny tyres) but if you happen to own a 4WD, you can get there even your home cinema.

There's still enough water there and I love that you can jump of a cliff - although you've gotta know exactly where to land otherwise you might end up with slightly flat feet...

It's by far the closest waterhole around. And since it's not 2WD friendly and you can't find it in Lonely Planet, it's not that busy. I guess I'll go for a swim soon (it's been around 42 deg for a week!)!

Enjoy the pictures!

A piece of Holland in Alice Springs

Hey hola, here I am again, with yet another fabulous news:

I found stroopwafels in Alice!

A miracle! Last friday, I finally made it to an organic food shop (the only one in Metropalice) called Afghan Traders to buy some locally roasted coffee and there it was - a pack of stroopwafels... Well it's not all that perfect - it's aussie made which means it's far from that heavenly taste and texture of the original ones and it's bloody expensive - $3,50 for a pack of 4 (I miss you Holland!). But hey, I'm in Alice Springs!

It reminded me of the good old days at TU Delft, when stroopwafels were my staple food - I ate at least 2 packs (of 10) every week and I remember I ate them even in a shower (hope you're reading this, Andrew!). A student's life...

Lucky number: 457

I've got quite a news (in MY world anyway) for you guys today:

I've got a new visa!

It's a "Temporary Business (Long Stay) - Standard Business Sponsorship (Subclass 457)" one.

So I can live and work in Australia from now on up to 4 years. Unfortunately, Australian government doesn't make it easy for us immigrants at all, so there are a few restrictions connected to this type of visa. The most important one is that the visa is tied to my new employer Bindi Inc., which simply means that as long as I work for them, I have the visa. Problem will arise when I start longing for a change (which can easily happen quite soon) but what a heck, such things always work out!

So if anyone happens to start thinking of moving to Australia one day, don't hesitate and contact me, I can give you some (wise) advice (for example: don't forget your international driver's license!).

As for my new job, it's not 100% clear yet what I'm going to do (and it will surely change with time too) but it will mostly be web design stuff. There are some ambitious business plans on the table, so I'm quite excited about it!

That'll be all for today, stay tuned for the next one!

The Silver Bullet

Hello hello, just when you all thought I'd definitively given up on writing my blog, here comes a new post! Don't be afraid though, it's just a short update on my Australian life.

As most of you know, I'm still in the middle of Australia, in Alice Springs (i'll write about how it happened and how come I'm still here in one of the next posts). One of the characteristics of Alice Springs is that it has the worst real estate market in the world. It's ironic - a place in the middle of the desert (lots of space, not many people) and there's not enough houses! Since april when I arrived, I've already moved 6 times!

But the last one was really worth it. I moved to the coolest house ever - a train carriage called Silver Bullet! How awesome is that! It's right at my workplace, so I don't have to get up early, in the middle of an industrial area, so it's deadly calm at night and most importantly, I don't have to share it with anyone! It's all mine! After all the time I spent CouchSurfing and house sharing, I really really enjoy having my own space (especially after I finally admitted that I'm really anal about kitchen). So I'm very happy beetle now. Basically the only thing I wish it had is rails, so I could start the engine and move to Darwin or to Adelaide whenever I get sick of Alice.

Apart from new house, I'm also finishing a fairly big website project and I'm hopefully near to the end of a process of obtaining a new visa (457 Employer Sponsored Visa), damn I hate bureaucracy! I've got many projects and missions planned and if I get the visa, I'll probably stick around for quite a while.

Enjoy the pics!

Kitchen

Kitchen

Living room

Bedroom

Backyard

Doorstep

Toilet and shower

Bindi car park

Of nose-picking and golden Czech hands

As many of you might already know, I've been hanging around Alice Springs for last three months. You might as well have wondered what happened to my blogging - well, I can assure you I haven't been just picking my nose all that time! Instead, I've been fairly busy with web design and here's my first Australian HTML baby:

http://www.bindiinc.com

Bindi Inc. is a not-for-profit organization that looks after mentally disabled people. They've been around for 30 years waiting for the right Czech mate to build they first website! Well, I appreciate that. As our wise ancestors used to say: "zlaté české ručičky" ("golden Czech hands"). So don't wait any minute and check it out! And don't forget to let me know what you think about it!

As for my blogging, there are dozens of things sitting at the back of my head I want to write about, just have to make myself do it. I promise, I'll do my best!

My first car

Hello hello everybody!!! Just wanted to let you know that I've finally bought my very very first car in my entire life!!! Buying a car was a struggle for somebody who wants the best for as little money as possible and knows nothing about cars at all... but I managed. It's Toyota Lexcen 1993. Check it out!

As for my travels since Tasmania, I spent awesome days in Wilsons Promontory Park, had great time in Sydney (it's a huge but pretty city) as well as in Byron Bay. I'll write about it all little bit more in detail later. I've successfully picked up my mum in Brisbane, spent a night in a shitty hostel and now we're heading up north along the east coast. We're slowly getting used to each other ;-)

So that was just a quick update but stay tuned, there is more coming soon!

Got my visa extended!

Just to keep you updated, I got my tourist visa extended till 8/9/2010!!! Woohoo! So I'll probably stay here in Australia till then.

Just in case you ever get into the same situation, here is a little advice:

If you are on eVisitor visa (electronic tourist visa for 3 months) and want to extend it, you can do it online (you extend it with another type of tourist visa - Tourist (e676) Visa) BUT you only get 3 more months! Be careful with that because the extension costs 250,- AUD. So if you then decide to extend it again, you'll have to pay 250,- again (my case).

If you KNOW you want to stay longer than 6 months in total (up to one year), download form 601, fill it in, print out your bank account status, you can also write down your travel itinerary (to increase chance your visa will be granted), go to nearest immigration office and lodge the application. They'll check whether you have enough funds for your travels (should be at least 1000,- AUD per month) and you don't intend to work and you'll most likely get the visa granted straight away.

If you KNOW already at home that you want to stay more than 3 months, it's probably better to apply for Tourist (e676) Visa instead of eVisitor first. You'll avoid all the extending hassle later on.