we want to move to australia!!!!!!

There is an australian restaurant franchise in usa and latin america called "The Outback". On the menu there is different specialties for different areas, such as melbourne steak, adelaide chicken etc. If you didn't know Australia you would think that each state has a different style of food.

Plus that the OZ dining experience is about the trash they serve in those places!

I have heard horrified accounts of them from travelling Ozzians - who have been taken there so they "feel at home"!!!!

Australian wines in restaurants overseas are expensive. You can buy a normal lindemans bottle for about $6 at liquorland and overseas it can be $40 and over.

However I've heard that Jacob's Creek wines for export are much better than the mediocre stuff they sell domestically....

yes I have heard that too...
but there is some Australian wine to be had here in France, and for once, it is not too expensive. We bought a bottle of Penfold's Koonuga Hill in Paris a few years ago and it was 15 Euros... it is usually approx. $10 - hideous.

You can poo poo the food in Australia all you want, but I think it is the best cuisine in the world! My man is French and has lived in Australia on and off (for the fabulous immigration reasons... I'll get to that in a minute), and he even claims that the food in Sydney / Australia, in general, is much better quality than in France.

On the immigration issue... I wish you luck, because we had HUGE amounts of problems. We were applying as a defacto couple at first (we did something stupid and told them we refused to get married because it wasn't important to us). Did we get the visa the first time? No. (Australian Immigration in Paris pocketed the hideous sum and told us to go away).
We got married and applied again in Australia and got the damn visa on the same day. Absolutely stupid. After all the stuff they put us through.
The man has a strong IT / mathematics type background, but they didn't take it into account because we applied as a couple.
Be aware of this above point. They do not cross over information.

Congratulations on getting the immigration through. I hope everything works out well.

With the food thing, Australian restaurants are nice and most cities have a lot of them(especially melbourne). The good thing about eating in restaurants in australia is it so so much cheaper than a lot of countries in europe. Also most restaurants here have BYO which means you bring the wine with you, so that saves a lot.

indeed.
It is cheaper - that is also the part that annoys us about France. To get a semi-decent meal, you pay more in Euros: say 30 - 50 Euros and if you paid the same sum in Australia, even with conversion, you would have a feast, depending where you ate of course.

ohhh, how I miss cheap thai, that is still fabulous and fresh and sushi that doesn't cost the money you earned that week.

I know, that is what I think. Asian restaurants in Australia (apart from the flower drum) are usually really cheap but classy and nice at the same time. Even if you order the menu banquet, it might be $20 per person but byo a $10 bottle of wine.

Why are you moving from France? Will you miss it? The good thing about europe though is that you have so many countries close by.

benc....

Haven't seen you about for a while! How goes it with da frogs??

Funny Christmas they have over there - a bit cold. The mangoes wouldn't be ripe, and the beaches, ugghhh!!!! Too cold for swimming!!!!!!!!!!!

piffle...
I have become a bit introverted... I need to work. I become more "sauvage" as the French like to call me if I don't interact with people.

It is hideously cold! FROST! Too cold to snow I am told.
Yes, there are countries near by, and I can earn Euros and all that, but I miss my country all the same.

You leave Australia when you are 20 or whatever vowing you hate it there and you realise it isn't so bad... it is clean, not so much slippery dog poo either

After a bit of travel, Ben, you realize that actually Oz is pretty damn good! Or I did, anyway.

of course it is better... I realised that a good 8 years ago. Working in London will fix you... you come back thinking you could eat off the floor of Town Hall Station it is so clean!

Whoops! I hope our Brit friends didn't read that, Ben! :wink:

What I really appreciated, after a few o/s jaunts was the space, the openness, the sheer freedom ..... & living in an exciting, evolving culture .... So much you take for granted, till you've seen & experienced what you yearned for, elsewhere!

I agree.

Actually, I return far more reconciled to dear old Adelaide, too.

Although fading, sadly, she is a far more cosmopolitan city, even now, thab a city of such size deserves to be.

exactly - the evolving cusine is the best thing in the world (you would think I live for eating... if you are going to eat, you may as well enjoy it. You have to do it afterall).