A decent amount of water has flown through river Thames since my last update. Actually, it doesn’t matter that much what’s flowing in Thames right now because I left the UK for good. I am now living in Sydney, Australia so that’s quite a jump to the other side of the world!

It’s been a long process and the thought of leaving the UK started brewing in our heads straight away when I was made redundant from my job in July 2020. Why leave the UK? Well, mostly because of the effects of Brexit, Boris Johnson’s government and the way how they’ve dealt with the pandemic.

After considering our options we came to a conclusion that an English speaking country is probably the best option for both of us, so we decided to go with Australia. My wife is Australian so that seemed logical and I’ve always wanted to live in a hot climate. Many twists and turns and tons of paperwork later, we lodged a visa application in December 2020. A little bit more paperwork and a health inspection was required before I finally received my visa grant letter in April 2021, after only 4 months of waiting.

6 months later, we were fully engaged in packing mode and getting the last things sorted out in the UK, including a big farewell party. It went much better than we had hoped for. It was so lovely to see so many friends attending!

I’ve moved between countries 3 times previously so it’s not that big deal, but the pandemic and the distance makes things more complicated. You can’t just drive in a van over the border and fly back later to pick up the things you forgot. In late November, we said “Farewell!” to some of our belongings in London and “See you next year!” to the rest before a moving company carried them away to wait for a shipping container in a warehouse somewhere. On this day, they are still stuck there, waiting for a free container so I’m not expecting to get reunited with my vinyl records before Easter.

After emptying the flat, we spent a long weekend at an airport hotel, just chilling out before boarding a Cathay Pacific flight from London Heathrow to Hong Kong. After a quick shower and a lunch in the lounge, we continued the journey to Sydney. Pandemic makes intercontinental travel very challenging. It is more expensive and there’s a lot of mandatory Covid testing and temperature measurements involved with the risk of ending up in a 3-week quarantine in Hong Kong at your own expense. I’m glad everything went fine without any problems! After nearly 24 hours of travelling we finally arrived in Australia, where a Border Force officer greeted me with “Hah! Kimi Räikkönen!” when he saw my Finnish passport.

When you move to a new country, there’s usually a lot of bureaucracy involved when you try to learn how the local system works and get access to a local phone number, bank account and so on. I only have experience from 3 countries but Australia has definitely been easier than the UK or Germany. We already got phone numbers and a bank account on the day after arriving in the country! Getting jobs and finding a flat took a bit longer, but we were very lucky with those as well.

Sometimes things just click without any effort!