Week 540 · Ballarat · Port Melbourne · Sovereign Hill
Ballarat &
Settling back into Melbourne — it is late fall/early winter here now. Our new rental is in Port Melbourne, about a 3-minute bike ride to the beach. It's not beach weather and it's dark at 5pm. I have gone down a couple of times late at night when I get a notice of potential aurora — but nothing yet.
We live about a 10-minute walk from a couple of high streets — a longer walk than you'd expect given we don't have a car. There are also some pubs/restaurants closer by in the neighbourhood which are a bit upscale for pubs. I have found a bus that is better than the tram, so my door-to-door commute is about 20–25 minutes again. Pretty quiet area — except our neighbour randomly puts a mannequin on their deck that has a Michael Myers mask. Scared Sharon one time as she thought it was someone just staring at people. I didn't believe they looked like Michael Myers — but then a couple of days later I saw it.
I had a work trip to Ballarat — it is where gold was discovered in Victoria and one of the first gold discoveries in Australia. Unbelievably similar to a western USA gold rush town. They had a replica town (a less commercial version of Silver Dollar City) called Sovereign Hill. In addition to being the home of the gold find, Sovereign Hill was the site of a famous rebellion because of anger over mining licences — it was the start of the breakaway from England. We did the real gold mine tour and took a mining train car out, and speakers blared "Fire in the Hole." Most of my co-workers had visited when they were in middle school — it was an annual school trip for Year 8 in Victoria. The light show has improved quite a bit.
I encountered a communication situation at work which reminded me of my time in South Korea — I was tapped on the shoulder by a co-worker and asked to walk with them. I was then informed that I had been randomly selected for a drug and alcohol test. No worries, and I was led to a conference room and handed off to the medical technician. After I provided my information, I stood up and asked for a cup — and she said to sit down. The test is done here in the conference room and I cannot leave. After about 10 seconds, she looks at me and says "it is a mouth swab test." I did the mouth swab and departed with no more words exchanged.
On the administrative side, I started working through the Australia temporary resident vortex. To get a medical card and access my online tax account, I needed a couple of forms of ID — and the only readily obtainable one was a drivers licence at the Victorian DMV. I needed 4 forms of ID to get a drivers licence, one of which was proof of address. My AirBnB long-term invoice was rejected and they suggested I open a bank account.
I'm pretty burnt at this point as we are paying Australian taxes but have no access to the benefits. As we walk out, the next office is a bank — coincidentally one that Sharon recognises as she had met the CEO via her US contacts for a coffee a couple of weeks earlier. I go in and advise I need a drivers licence so I need to open a bank account. The bank teller says that is not their policy — they were about community and not transactional. Sharon does a little name dropping and next thing we know Mr and Mrs Cantrell are the newest Bank Australia members. We take the handwritten bank account form back to the DMV and they process with no problem. We get our drivers licence a couple of weeks later as provisional — because we are taking medicine and need a doctor clearance to drive. At that point I didn't care — got what I needed for my medical and tax situation, and got us into the F1 for free on local day.
"Sharon does a little name dropping and next thing we know Mr and Mrs Cantrell are the newest Bank Australia members."
