Medicare

16th June 2014 (MoNdAy) -  ThE MeDiCaRe

Picture taken on 9 August '14, somewhere in Sydney

G'day, mates!! Remember that:

"Nothing is impossible the word itself says I'm possible" 

Today I'll go back to those famous first steps to take once you arrive in Australia. So here we are.


Checklist:

1. a bank account (see my previous post)

2. sim card (see my previous post)
3. health insurance

Every time we travel we need both a travel and health insurance. In Australia the medical system relies on the so-called Medicare.



It provides access to medical and hospital services for all Australian residents and certain categories of visitors to Australia, coming from New Zealand, the UK, the Republic of Ireland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Finland, ITALY, Belgium, Malta, Slovenia and Norway.

The agreements between Australia and those Countries allow:

- Australian residents to get help with the cost of essential medical treatment when visiting these countries 

- residents of  these countries can get some essential medical treatments while visiting Australia.

What you need to do as Italian citizen is to go to the ASL (a kind of Local Health Authority of your town) and ask for the"Accordo di reciprocità tra l'Italia e l'Australia in materia di assistenza sanitaria" (Reciprocal Health Care Agreements).

---- VERY VERY IMPORTANT ----

This agreement lasts for the first six months, after that you need to purchase a private insurance. The supplementary insurance of the months left on your visa has to  be purchased in advance when you are still in your homecountry.

Picture taken on 26 September '14 - CBD, Sydney

In December I discovered that it was much more expensive to buy one there, so I decided to think positive and I was sure I didn't need one :)

But PLS do not do that!

So to sum up, what you have to do is:

- going to the ASL office of your hometown and request the Reciprocal Health Care Agreements

- purchase the remaining six-month insurance

- once in Australia go to FAMILY CARE DPTM, they are almost everywhere in Sydney. I went on 16 June to the Town Hall Arcade (464-480 Kent St.). I've just found the note on my agenda.

There you need:
- your passport and a valid visa
- identification card showing you are enrolled in your country's national health scheme (tessera sanitaria italiana)

If your Medicare application is approved, you will receive an Australian reciprocal health care card in the mail in two weeks' time :)

Follow this link to find your closest medicare in Sydney.

Italy // Roma: The Gianicolo walk - "The Rome that distracts from the bad days"

Today I won't talk about Sydney for once :)

I know it has been a while I'm not updating my blog, but honestly I was not really in the mood and I have decided not to do anything against my mood  any longer ;)

SO.... A MONTH LATER... HERE I AM!

The Gianicolo - view

It's the turn of Rome, the eternal city. This time I'm not alone, I'm with Patrizio, a friend of mine who is here for work... while I'm chilling :)

Why not Sydney today? Simply because my journal is a travel to the hidden selves of all the cities I've visited.

It's about all the places I have been and which chapter of my personal travel they represent.

I believe that everytime we decide to start a journey there is always something we want to demonstrate to ourselves. And it works like this for everyone.

So going back... last March Pat and I had a nice walk to the Gianicolo and - on a cloudy day - it looked funny we both found this sentence quite perfect for us:

"La Roma che distoglie dalle
giornate storte"

"This is the Rome that distracts from the bad days"


Up to the hill we found the Tempietto of Bramante, a hidden treasure.

By walking around it, it's possible to descend a tiny and tight staircase into its base, and see the altar with its traditional upside-down cross, the cross of St. Peter.

You can see the Tempietto anytime by peering through the gate, but of course if you get the chance to walk in it's much better to have a look from the inside.




The Church was built where Peter was thought to have been martyred. The shape is circular, a beloved form in the Renaissance.

A true jewel of the "Eternal city" that does distract from the bad days.




Well, it's still not all for today! But I need to go... see ya!

Lovely Italian food :)

"The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place" - G.B. Shaw (Amaysim, Telstra & Co.)

China - Italy - Australia

Gb ergo sum.


Second thing in a foreign country is a SiM cArD. It's really important to discover which mobile plan suits you most. For me it was Amaysim. My first flatmate Robert suggested me this company and I was pretty happy with that.

My plan was of 45 dollars/month but I 've just had a quick look on their web page and I have seen they have a kind of  "no worries" mobile plan with 5GB and unlimited talk & texts for 39.90 dollars/month.

Basically, the best deals are usually from smaller mobile companies which use the big telco companies networks (Amaysim and Yatango Mobile use for instance the Optus Network). The best deal depends on your calls, texting, data use and how long you want your credit to last.

We can split the users according three types:

- heavy
- medium
- light

Getting ready for work @Gladiatori

For heavy users the Amaysim Mobile Unlimited ist the best pick, that is 5GB and unlimited talk & texts for 39.90 dollars/month.

For medium users there is unlimited calls & texts + 1Gb Mobile data for 24.90 dollars/month always of Amaysim and

for light users the best offer is from Telstra with 200 dollars calls & 200Mb Data for 12.50 dollars/month.


When I started with Amaysim, the activation was really quick. Everything can be easily requested online and once done you receive the sim card by post. You get the bill monthly and it goes directly away from your bank account. That's why the first step is to open one (see my previous post).

Once again it's all for today :) I wish to all of you a good night and sweet dreams :)

"How beautiful the world would be if there were a procedure for moving through labyrinths" - U. Eco

Chapter 2, part 1 - Newtown (#Gawaa #SteertArt)

---- First draft, 15th May '15 ----


Today we are in another verly lively suburb of Sydney, Newtown.

ARTISTIC

VINTAGE

RECYCLING

GRAFFITI

URBAN

STREET

ART

MULTICULTURAL

VIBE

UNKNOWN

INSTALLATIONS

ALTERNATIVE

These are just few of the words that pop into my mind while thinking of Newtown.

Actually, I discovered this area quite at the end of my stay in Sydney (it was in May), accidently from a bus. It was so full of lights, people, sounds, traffic and I had simply realized...

I didn't know all that :) 

I went back a week after to explore the place and take some notes for my journal. So here I am :)

"ThAnk YoU tO the South WeSt GoBi deSEerT wINd aNd itS bLuE Sky, My BiRThPlaCe", #Gawaa

Newtown - Sydney, #toomanythingstodonotenoughtime, Gawaa

This poster, "too many things to do, not enough time", belongs to the so-called Goddard Street Gallery, which is a sort of open-air art gallery.

It has been realized by a Mongolian ARTIST, Gawaa, who moved to Brisbane and then to Sydney a while ago.

His work is mainly based on experience as a Mongolian living in Western Society and he creates that by RECYCLING materials he gets from the STREETS.

This is not the only artist active in the area and unfortunately I was not able to collect info for all the GRAFFITI I saw there, but I've recently found a very interesting page on facebook which gives a clearer picture of the suburb.


"Good shoes take you good places"

Just a few steps later on the main street I met a "shoes pole". It's a massive INSTALLATION completely covered by shoes, which for me was really impressive.

UNKNOWN artist, at least to me. If any of you knows something more about it, just please let me know. I'd really appreciate that.

Newtown will surprise you from every point of view. It's a mix of everything ALTERNATIVE you can imagine. It's the home and hangout of a huge population of students, artists, musicians, backpackers, local and foreign, giving the area a MULTICULTURAL taste.

I'll come back soon with another chapter, aware of the fact it will not be enough for NEWTOWN :)

Good VIBES to all of you :)
VaL

Newtown - Sydney, Goddard Street Gallery

Newtown - Sydney

Newtown - Sydney

"The rhythm of their day is entirely different; I am foreign." (The first steps in a foreign city)

13th June 2014 (fRiDaY) - tHe ArRiVaL

Goji Berries

First day in Sydney, the amazing city. 

Landed very early in the morning
It was about 7am
Picked up by a friend of mine (Dima, who hosted me for my first week there)
Rich breakfast with him
Hearing for the first time talking about goji berries (??)
Looking through the windows of my friend's flat in Zetland
Buying my first MyBus Ticket (see my previous post)
Catching the bus to get to Central Station and an endless series of meaningful moments.

"Life's all about moments of impact and how they change our lives forever"


ThE mOmEnT I oPeNeD mY bAnK aCcOuNt

"When you believe you can." - Commonwealth Bank of Australia

So we arrived in Central Station and I entered the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. Yellow and gray logo, it looked a bit sad as company colours, but I was told it was good. And the Commonwealth Bank actually was a good pick. The part I liked more was that I could "play" a bit with my accounts and set goals of savings and getting somehow "rewarded".

What do I mean by "getting rewarded"? Simply it means that you own a saving account which allows you to move money in and out of your linked CommBank transaction account and at the same time you receive interests calculated daily and paid monthly. So basically you don't have any fee to pay but you receive some extra money every month. Let's say about 20 $/month.

For more details as usual I link you to the following page.

I guess that another useful piece of information you may need is to know how much money to bring with you for the beginning and the expenses you have to face on regular basis.

I arrived there with $4500 (about 3000 €), enough to live for a couple of months. And here below you find a list of expenses:

Pic taken on my first day in Australia
Opera House, 13th June '14

That scarf on the picture got damaged a few
months later in the zip of my bag... sad story ;)

- 230 $/week -- room rental
- 40 $/week -- public transportation
- 50 $/month -- mobile
- 30 $/week -- shopping food

Total per week is about $ 350.

Than it depends on how much you can afford and of course you can find cheaper options or better deals.

That was mine.

If you need more details about expenses in Sydney, just leave a comment and I'll do my best to help you.

See you later :)
VaL

Chapter 1, part 2 - ChinaTown (Street Art)

Me as #citytraveller

Good evening there! Cold day spent under the blanket, trying to nip my cold in the bud, but it doesn't seem to work that much :)

I wanted to talk about a new chapter of this amazing city, but first I feel like giving a few more curiosities and pics on this area of Sydney.

Here you have a view on how the Paddy's markets look like from the inside. Basically it's a huge warehouse with many stands offering mostly Australian souvenirs, but as I said in my previous post, you can also find all sorts of things.

Paddy's Markets 

Such as maneki-neko (the welcoming cat we usually see in the Chinese restaurants, even though it belongs to the Japanese tradition), katana, bags of all kinds, t-shirts, hi-techs tools and so on.

A stand @ Paddy's Markets

"In Between Two Worlds" by Jason Wing

Strolling the streets I ended up in a small lane full of angels. At that time I didn't know what it was and I was not even that much interested in that. It was a hidden world. It reminded me of another installation I saw a year before on a picture of a friend of mine. I didn't know it was in Sydney but I was already somehow captured.

"In BetweenTwo Worlds" by Jason Wing

Only recently I have discovered it was created by Jason Wing, who was born to Aboriginal and Chinese parents. This laneway art is titled "In Between Two Worlds", it' s a reflection of the unique ancestry of the artist by making references
to both Chinese and Aboriginal motifs.

It consists of three main components:
- wall murals
- floor murals
- and 30 suspended illuminated "spirit" figures.

It was a project commissioned by the Council of Sydney in order to create high quality public places in the City.

For further details click here.

Well, that's all for now about ChinaTown. I hope to come back soon for more updatings.

Cheers!

Chapter 1, part 1 - ChinaTown (Dixon Street & Co.)

It takes really a while to stop and talk about this amazing city. You can't believe how much I miss it and how many times a day I think about going back there again. Who knows...

Artist @ China Town

I'm closing my eyes right now, trying to remember when was the first time my feet were walking across ChinaTown. I'm quite sure it was to buy something very cheap :) Because if you need sheets, pillows, adaptator for your mobile, laptop and so on... there... is the place to be. I can't really bet on the quality, but for the first times, it's definitely where you can find all you need.


Okay, now I remember... actually my first steps there were on my very first day in Sydney with my friend Dima, who was so kind to walk me there to have lunch and to arrange the first things such as my bank account and my phone number. Oh... dear... I was so tired with the jetlag that I couldn't really understand where I was. I remember on that day I ate noodles served in a very strange soup inside the court of a shopping mall and I was asking myself "What the f**k I'm doing here?". I never replied to that answer, because that was not the point of my travelling so far and now that I'm writing about that I'm smiling and I guess this was the point :)

To have an idea this is the Paifang in ChinaTown - Sydney

It was in Dixon Street, a pedestrian street mall with many Chinese restaurants, and with a Paifang at each end. At the eastern end of Chinatown there is a sculpture made from a dead tree trunk, the Golden Water Mouth, created by the artist Lin Li in 1999 to bring good fortune to the Chinese community.

At the southern side of Chinatown, next to Hay Street, a large complex called Market City has been built. It contains the famous Paddy's Markets, a Wednesday-to-Sunday produce and flea market where you can really find all you need.

A lady working @ Paddy's Markets

If you are planning for a year, sow rice; if you are planning for a decade, plant trees; if you are planning for a lifetime, educate people. - Chinese proverb