This is my little series on the big move back to Australia. Perhaps I will look back in the future and laugh... or cry!
Part 1: Finding a Moving Company
Past 2: A Slight Travel Panic
Part 3: Comparing Crypto Tax Accounting platforms (Cointracking vs Rotki)
Part 4: A Week in Involuntary Stasis
Part 5: The Last Harvest
Part 6: Letting Go...
Part 7: Putting the name out there!
Part 8: Prohibited Materials:
Part 9: Liquidity Freeze!
Part 10: NOOOOO, Steam Deck Delay!
Part 11: A Father's Guilt
Part 12: Middle of the Night Interviews
Part 13: Poopyitdy Poopydity Poop Poop.... Corona Variant Omicron!
As the time draws closer and closer for the big Move back to Australia, there are going to be many things that I'm experiencing for the last time... and many things that give me a little twinge of sadness, in that I know that these are things that have shaped and defined our lives here in the Netherlands.... and these are the things that we will be leaving behind. f course, they will be replaced by other things... but I can't help but to feel a bit of sadness for the things that I will miss about living here. Of course, there will be more than a few things that I will have forgotten to include...
Friends
My wife and I tend to be pretty private people... we don't have large array of friends, but the ones that we do make are pretty close. Over our time here (now just over 15 years), we have seen colleagues and friends move away, return and well... just be around. All of us tend to have found our way here due to work (mostly musicians), which means that generally, all of us are far from our extended families. So, we have formed our own extended "family" networks here in our adopted homelands.
In most cases, moving away for other friends has meant that they have moved to another European land, which means that it is more than likely that we would run into each other during jobs or visits... however, in our case, we are going to the other side of the planet. The chances that we would ever meet anyone by chance or design starts to trend to zero... the farewells, well... they are almost certainly the last farewells.
Biking
For the first years that I lived in the Netherlands, I was hesitant to bike places. I never was much of a cyclist in Australia... and so, the concept of using the bike wasn't something that was that appealing to me... however, after trying it out... it turns out that the biking infrastructure, driver training and the general flatness of the landscape makes for an incredibly place for cyclists to get around.
... in fact, over short distances, you tend to be faster with the bike instead of by public transport or the car! And over medium distances (5-15 km), the electric bikes have completely changed and removed our dependence on the car! So, cheaper, faster (potentially) and healthier... biking has been a great option for moving around! Plus, I can listen to my podcasts instead of having Spotify being hijacked by the kid's music choices!
Primary Schooling
Whenever I describe the primary schooling here to people in other countries... well, they are pretty astounded by the freedom and the wealth of schooling choices... and all at an incredibly low price! There are million different types of schooling systems and philosophies here, and they are all funded equally (by student numbers) by the government as long as they hit certain learning benchmarks. That means that there are no public/private schools (except for the snotty expat international schools)... and so, our kids go to a great Montessori school for about 500 euros per year! In Australia that would start at around 10,000 dollars!... each... honestly, the Anglo system of schooling and funding is completely messed up.
Plus, the kids have half days on Wednesday... to just go and do other activities... and they don't have to wear uniforms! They also give the kids the respect and self-determination to learn and grow... well, this will be sorely be missed by us adults and also the kids.
Easy travel
Ease of travel through the whole of Europe... by car, fast train or plane. I can easily work in a different country... travel away for a weekend for a holiday... and all very cheaply and quickly. Europeans don't really understand the size/distance scale difference when the are thinking about Australia. Much of that is due to their innate "common-sense" (remember, common sense is nothing more than a past collection of assumptions and prejudices nothing more)... and the warped maps that they grew up with.
Australia is big... and the population centres are very spread out. Hilariously, one of my wife's friends keeps suggesting some piano jobs that she has found in Australia.... and my wife just takes it onboard and doesn't say anything. However, just recently, she had to admit that she didn't apply for the jobs when the friend had asked.... the reason, it would be a two DAY drive away! They had a good laugh about it anyway...
Lots of groups ensembles
On the professional front, I seem to (at least in the short term) be integrating back into the Australian music work scene relatively easily... I was surprised! However, what I will miss is the sheer diversity of groups and ensembles that exist in Europe... there are seriously hundreds of very capable groups and musicians and all this diversity leads to some serious intermingling of ideas and competition, which just leads to a constant flux of creativity and skill. Of course, that is possible in smaller scenes as well... but the tendency is to gravitate into a clump...
Bubble of silence
Dutch is not my native language... in fact, I'm terrible at languages. That means that if I want to understand Dutch, I really have to concentrate. One very happy bonus of this is the fact that I seem to carry around my little sphere on incomprehension with me when I head out into public. I don't hear the inane conversations... the mindless blather that forms the background noise of normal city life. It is seriously relaxing not to hear and understand everything!
Crypto Reporting
Dutch crypto tax reporting is just a single end of year snapshot which is taxed at a single flat rate. It has made my tracking and accounting sooooo easy. Just manual updates occasionally... no need to track prices, just amounts and then a single snapshot with prices at the end of the year, which is easy to do with Cointracking. I'm really going to really really really miss that!
Fast internet
Moving to Europe with fast internet at really cheap prices has me really spoilt. I'm really going to miss the blazing fast speeds and the uncapped data... sigh, and no amount of marketing in Australia about "fast broadband" and redefining the definition of fast is actually going to make it fast and affordable. I'm a nerd at heart, and so I thnk I'm going to notice the first few months of sluggishly slow internet speeds.... and over quota data limits.
I can also be found cross-posting at:
Hive
Steem
Publish0x
Handy Crypto Tools
Ledger Nano S/X: Keep your crypto safe and offline with the leading hardware wallet provider. Not your keys, not your crypto!
Binance: My first choice of centralised exchange, featuring a wide variety of crypto and savings products.
Kucoin: My second choice in exchanges, many tokens listed here that you can't get on Binance!
FTX: Regulated US-based exchange with some pretty interesting and useful discounts on trading and withdrawal fees for FTT holders. Decent fiat on-ramp as well!
MXC: Listings of lots of interesting tokens that are usually only available on DEXs. Avoid high gas prices!
Huobi: One of the largest exchanges in the world, some very interesting listings and early access sales through Primelist.
Gate.io: If you are after some of the weirdest and strangest tokens, this is one of the easiest off-chain places to get them!
Coinbase: If you need a regulated and safe environment to trade, this is the first exchange for most newcomers!
Crypto.com: Mixed feelings, but they have the BEST looking VISA debit card in existence! Seriously, it is beautiful!
CoinList: Access to early investor and crowdsale of vetted and reserached projects.
Cointracking: Automated or manual tracking of crypto for accounting and taxation reports.
Stoic: A USD maximisation bot trading on Binance using long-term long strategies, powered by the AI/human system of Cindicator.
StakeDAO: Decentralised pooled staking of PoS assets.
Poloniex: One of the older regulated exchanges that has come into new ownership. I used to use it quite a lot, but have since stopped.
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