Two Jays Away: Still here!

It has been quite a while since we updated our blog. We have made a few changes in the past year: we are now citizens and home owners!

We got our permanent residence approval in July 2014. After waiting one year we were able to apply for citizenship. This involved filling out many forms, scanning lots of documents and studying a booklet to prepare for our test. We applied on-line and were asked to come in for our interviews and tests 10 days later. We had one little glitch as the immigration department had made a "recent and unannounced" (direct quote) change to the identification requirements. Two weeks and a couple of hundred dollars later, we were back in their office and sitting our interviews and tests. The interview was really straightforward and was about proving that we are the people that our I.D. says we are. The test was 20 multiple choice questions, which we both sailed right through. Most of the questions and the process is set up to help people from very different cultures, or for people who don't speak English as a first language. Many of the questions are related to equal rights and freedom of speech, things that we forget are not basics in many countries. Our next step is the indoctrination ceremony, where we make a pledge and get our citizenship certificates. We were invited to one on Australia Day, which we will sadly miss because we will be at the Australian Open. Hopefully the next ceremony is in February or March, and then we can apply for our first Australian passports!

We also bought a home here in Brisbane. After 5 years of renting (almost $900/week) we finally bought a place! We spent more than a year looking for a home, going to at least two open houses every weekend. It was getting very frustrating because we didn't want to just settle for something. We originally wanted a house with a small yard and a pool, but we happened across a unit (apartment) in a small building and absolutely fell in love with it! We have been living in our new place since June and do not wish that we had a pool or a yard. We have ample outdoor space and we love our new neighbourhood. In fact, we have stayed in Brisbane for the entire Christmas holiday for the first time since we moved here, just so that we can spend more time in our place and exploring our suburb.

What a year!