"A journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step." -Laozi
I don't have an extensive bucket list. While some things on it are not unusual, other things are going to be a little more difficult to accomplish, especially now that I have a husband to consider. Some things on my bucket list that I have already crossed off are: Going "behind the ropes," and touching Stonehenge; driving across the United States on both the Northern and Southern routes; having sex on a train in Europe (no more detail than that, sorry); and going to Australia, not once, but three times.
Australia is featured in several further wishes on my bucket list. One item is to travel to Australia with DH to show him a place I have come to really love. A really fantastic trip, at least 3 weeks, and a month would be even better. I have been to most of the major cities, except Perth and Hobart. I have seen, felt, touched, smelled, and tasted so many amazing and beautiful things in Australia, to describe it all would require innumerable posts.
Another item I have yet to cross off is living in a foreign country for two years, minimum. But truly, I want to emigrate to a foreign company permanently. And while I do have a back up country (New Zealand), when I say I want to emigrate to another country, what I really mean is I want to settle in Australia, Melbourne ideally.
We started the process for applying for my husband's work visa, once. He had plenty of points. But when we checked out the health requirements, his epilepsy clearly was an insurmountable obstacle to a visa, at least while his seizures are so poorly controlled. They don't want to put the burden of assured multiple hospitalizations onto their health care system.
But if DH's neurosurgery in 2011 were to either stop his seizures entirely, or allow them to be controlled with medication, that obstacle would be gone. And while we pretty much emptied our savings during DH's recent period of unemployment, we agreed to create a special account, and to put a minimum amount into it every month, for the dreamed of fantastic trip to Australia. Our goal is to make it a trip for my 50th birthday, which is just under 3 years away.
But my (not very) secret agenda doesn't stop there. Unless DH were to have a job already lined up, with an offer letter from the company in hand, he has only 5 more years before he is too old to get a visa (45 is the cut-off. Yes I robbed the cradle). As an accompanying spouse my age wouldn't matter. If this trip is as fantabulous as all my other trips to Australia have been, DH will see why I love that country so much, and why I want to live there, and I hope be equally excited at the prospect. It would be a tight schedule, but I have it all planned out. Heh.
To fulfill this fantasy, we would have to start the application process as soon as we got back from our vacation. I know, I know, "unlikely" is probably an optimistic assessment of our going forward with an application. But you never know.
But first, the great vacation. We plan to open an Australia-dedicated savings account in January. DH will have his surgery in 2011, and that will answer the question of whether or not we can ever permanently settle in another country. And even if the surgery isn't as successful as we hope, we will be going to Australia in late 2013, or early 2014. I know it seems far away. Hence my opening quotation by the Chinese philosopher, Laozi (Lao tsu). I am already excited.
So both my medium and long term goals involve Australia. And whatever the end result, the first step to pursuing those items on my bucket list, will be the first deposit into our Australia savings account.
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