Since my Return to the States - What's Next?

Don't worry, I'm not the one who got married!

By late September I found myself back at my parents' house in Ohio for the first time in nearly two years.  So what next?

My initial plan was to stay at home for a couple of months.  When winter came round I'd be leaving again, this time for Australia.  The Australian government has a special work visa for citizens of certain countries under the age of 30; it's meant to provide young adults short term jobs to fund their travel in Australia.  While traveling around SE Asia I met many backpackers who had already been Down Under this way - aptly named the Australian Work Holiday Visa - as well as others who were on their way. (check it out here - use the government site, not the businesses who want to charge you extra to process it)

Who wouldn't want a chance to beat the winter up north, travel
Australia, and earn money to pay for the trip?

The visa is quite easy to apply for - as long as you are a citizen of
a qualifying country, have a valid passport and high school diploma,
you should be fine.  Lots of companies make money by charging extra
fees to process it when you can just apply directly to the government,
which charges you a hefty sum anyway - about $400.
The companies do offer other services, such as travel info, job
placement, help setting up a bank account, etc.

Australia, unlike most of SE Asia, is an expensive travel destination.  Just take hostels as a comparison.  Hostels throughout SE Asia (aside from Singapore) can be found for less than $10, even less than $5 in some areas.  In Australia the hostels are often at least $25 or $30 a night.  Food, transport, and entertainment are more expensive too.  It makes sense considering Australia is a developed country with high standards of living.

Luckily wages in Australia are also high; the minimum wage for adults is around $16 an hour!  So if you can find work, which I've been told is pretty easy to do (can't comment firsthand yet), the prices aren't too bad.

Travel here is expensive, but earning local wages will certainly help!

So I had my plan set - sort of.  I hadn't yet booked my flight, applied for the visa, and or had any idea what I would do once I arrived in Australia - but hey, it was a start.

In the meantime I took an online TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) class, which might help me find work and/or increase my pay if I ended up teaching English again (after Australia).  It was all online with no classroom instruction; not the best kind of certification, but better than nothing.  A friend of mine who teaches in Korea got a similar certificate which bumped up his monthly pay - not by a huge amount, but more than enough to pay for the cost of his certification.  Since I found a course on sale for less than $200 I figured it was worth a shot.

During the fall I also visited my Aunt and Uncle in Cincinnati, drove my sister to and from Kent State a few times, visited a friend in Cleveland, and updated my blog.  My uncle has Xavier basketball season tickets, so I caught their game against Tennessee.  One thing that I really missed about home was the chance to play and watch basketball, my favorite sport, which I didn't do at all in Korea.  My uncle's second row seats weren't bad either!

Xavier's home arena, the Cintas Center.  My uncle's seats are behind  
the basket on the right. I never remember to take pictures!

At the end of October I went down to Cincinnati again, this time with my whole family, to see my cousin's wedding.  Well actually we were in the wedding - my sisters were her maids of honor and I was a groomsman.  My cousin and her new husband live in L.A. but both are from Ohio, which is why the wedding was in Cincinnati.  I didn't know any of the other groomsmen, but thankfully I already knew my cousin's fiancee, David, who is a great guy.  After the reception the wedding party ventured out of the hotel to a club downtown.  That might not have been what the parents wanted us to do - and I may have had a bit (or bunch) too much to drink - but the night was a blast.

This was one large wedding party (a few of the guys were ushers, but still)!

Dancing with my sister after the reception...
parts of the night are a blur.

In late October I also applied for the visa, which was supposed to be processed within 10 business days.  Crazy short I know.  Well it wasn't that easy for me.  Since I had lived in South Korea recently the Australian government needed a chest x-ray to confirm I didn't have TB.  There are only select clinics where I could go for the x-ray, none of which were in Ohio!  Luckily there was one near Cincinnati, just across the Ohio River in Kentucky.  So only two weeks after the wedding I had to make another trip down there for my x-ray.

Figuring this all out, scheduling an appointment, and sending in the results from the clinic took awhile.  By the time I was cleared for the visa it was already early December.  Thanks to my new credit cards I would be booking the flight with airline miles.  To complicate things even more one of the bonuses had failed to post.  I had been exchanging messages with a customer representative - most likely a new one every time, since they never seemed to be on the same page - trying to get the miles.  With Christmas approaching and the number of award flights paltry over the holidays, I decided to put my flight on hold.  I could have more family time - my sisters would be back from school - and book my trip in January.

Ah, if I'd left before Christmas I would have missed this corny family photo!

Surprisingly the American Airlines award chat was also pretty barren in January (maybe because it was the height of tourist season Down Under?).  I was feeling antsy but had to wait it out until I got a flight.  Better than paying for it!  Finally I found one to Sydney, first with a stopover in Hawaii, leaving Columbus on the 31st of January.  Only three more days to go!