I am emigrating to Australia

         A couple of weeks later our Emigration approvals arrive Ben and I are asked to send them our passports for visa approvals. We have a choice, we can travel by boat or by airplane. 

        A boat would take too long, long so we decide to go by plane, even though neither of us had ever flown in one before.

The preparations for our big trip begin. I work in Uetendorf with a building company looking after the electrical switchboards on building sites and maintain the cranes. Maintenance really. I cycle to and from work every day twice. 15 km to and from. It’s winter and the roads are snow covered and frozen. The temperature is below freezing and the cold air bites as I cycle around six in the morning to work in the dark and five in the afternoon back in the dark. Lunchtime is not so bad; sometimes the sun warms the air. All the time while I am riding, I think in a few weeks I’ll be in sunny Queensland in the warmth, that’s what gets me going.

Sometimes I’m lucky and I work in Bern or other places where the company has building sites. On those days, I just cycle to work in the morning and pick up a VW bus to drive to Bern or wherever and don’t come back to the workshop until late in the afternoon.

My boss tells me I’m mad going to Australia. Life isn’t that good over there, he tells me. There are too many men and not enough women he says. A friend of his was glad to come back home after a disappointing time in Australia. You’ll be back too, he says. When you do, you’ll have a job here, he says.

I wake during the night and feel nauseous. I try to think what could I have eaten that makes me feel sick. Shortly after I start vomiting and my guts aches so much that I can’t go back to sleep. In the morning I phone work to tell them I’m sick. Mum and Dad go to work and tell me to phone the doctor if I’m not getting better. I am not getting any better, I can’t keep anything down and by lunch time I phone Dr Olloz who’s medical practice is across the street from us. His receptionist ask f I can come to the surgery, I say yes, get dressed and go across the street. He checks me thoroughly and says it must be some sort of wog and he gives me some black tablets to take immediately. He says if it isn’t getting better by tonight to phone him again.

Dad comes home in the evening, just as I am throwing up again. He calls Dr Olloz who tells him he’s coming over after surgery. When he arrives around seven o’clock he checks me again and says it could be appendicitis. He calls an ambulance I’m carted off to hospital.

By eight o’clock I’m lying in the operating table and they are about to take my appendix out. The surgeon is a Hungarian lady doctor I knew from working in the hospital when we built the new building. Even though I feel rotten, I am having a few jokes with her. She assures me everything would be ok.

When this hospital was built about a year ago, I worked in there, installing the telephone systems. We got to know most of the medical staff. Then when the staff moved in I was contracted by my boss to stay in the hospital for six months to look after the phone system and fix any problems. I had a great time for six months, very little to do other than chat up the nurses and occasionally take the Ambulance for a ride in non-medical emergencies. Driving the Ambulance is done by the maintenance staff of the hospitals in Switzerland assisted by doctors and nurses.

One day, there was nobody available so they ask me to drive to Bern, with a sample taken in the operating theatre to be evaluated by some important medical laboratory there.

I turned on the siren and flashing light and raced the thirty kilometers to Bern to the Insel Hospital, having a great time.

So now, I’m here as a patient, shortly before I go to Australia. To make matters worse, I have cancelled my medical insurance last week. Payment was due and I didn’t think I needed it anymore. So now I will have to pay for the operation and my stay in hospital myself. That is going to make a huge dent in my savings for Australia.

I stay in hospital for a few days walking up and down as soon as I can get out of bed without too much pain. In the TV room down the hall where I spend a great deal of time, I meet a young lady who is doing the same thing, recovering from an operation. We get to like each other and when we leave the hospital we promise to phone each other. 

View from my friend's farm on the Lake of Thun

Her family owns a farm in Faulensee, overlooking Lake of Thun and when I visit her I love the view onto the lake. The property must be worth an absolute fortune. But I’m going to Australia I tell myself. Don’t go falling in love now.

For a few weeks we’re inseparable. I spend a lot of time either at her property or she comes down to Thun, I like her but I don’t love her. One day she tells me she loves me and I can see problems coming up. When I tell her I’m going to Australia in a few weeks she is shattered. She tries hard to talk me out of it but it’s too late. There is no going back on my plans. I tell her that if things don’t work out in Australia, I’ll be back in a couple of years and in the meantime I’ll write to you often. It doesn’t soften her disappointment. 

 

Ben and I are packing; tomorrow we catch a train from Thun to Geneva where we pick up a plane to London and from there to Melbourne and Brisbane. We’re only allowed 20kg in a suitcase and already my suitcase is 28kg heavy and I have to take a bottle of Kirsch (1 kg) to the son of Mrs Pieren. He is a solicitor in Bribane and loves his Kirsch, which he can’t get in Australia. I need to make a decision what to leave behind. The travel instructions from the consulate are quite specific. 20 kg only. If you’re over, you need to ditch some weight at the airport. No one boards with more than 20 kg.