whatup, another arrogant american here. the bulk of this thread is just typical internet chat, stereotyping and categorizing entire countries based on what the people with the loudest mouths say. i'm going to chime in on a few things because they hit close to home for me (pun intended).

my wife and i, as well as most of our friends who were homeowners, lost jobs and our houses over the past 2 years. the people living above their means and overextending themselves to "keep up with the joneses" is the minority. the primary reason for all the defaulting on homes over here is because of people losing their jobs and if they're lucky enough to find another decent job, chances are it won't pay shit compared to what they made before the recession hit. our house went from $210k to $115k, yeah that's approx $100,000 drop in value. the house was new and very nice but right now the value of houses are way under what they should be due to a flood in the market of foreclosed homes. yes there was a bubble and it burst, however homes now in the US aren't at what their actual value should be, they are well under that value. if you have the money, you can get houses in very desirable areas for the insanely low prices.

anyway our situation was that my wife's entire career field is in trouble. around 2 years ago she lost her job due to the company going out of business, that's $80k less a year our household makes but luckily i make just enough to cover our bills on my paycheck alone. so we rely on her unemployment to cover gasoline and food, certainly no money for fun things anymore like going out to eat or going to the movies. we still have internet access because i'm in IT and am on-call in off-hours so my work pays for our internet. we have a couple pets and had to give up a cat cuz we're that tight financially (fyi for cat lovers, it went to a friend not a shelter). my wife has gotten a couple jobs but they only lasted a few months as those companies ended up going under too. it was obvious she had to change career fields but her other career field choice would require her going back to school which we can't afford. so we had to make a choice and decided to leave the house so that we can afford to send her back to school. we were lucky that we were able to do a short sale on the house, it sold for market value which was $115 but we were prepared to let it foreclose if necessary because we needed to do what made sense for the long-term which is for my wife to get her education in a new field and re-enter the workforce in a decent career again so she's not stuck working BS jobs. it was a strategic move to go ahead and lose the house because we never planned to live there forever anyway. we bought it back when the housing market was healthy and planned to sell it after 10 years. now we know we'll never get back how much we bought it for, we don't care to live there anymore anyway, so while it sucks to lose your house and go back to renting, it seemed like the smart thing to do to walk away from it. we'll take a credit hit for a few years but we have to keep our long-term future in mind. i would like to be able to retire before i'm dead, although that might be a pipe dream even after successfully getting out of the house.

so we're renting now. we've been married for some years but were married in a courthouse to make it legal b/c we wanted to save up and have our ceremony in australia. this is something we've been planning for over 9 years. we had $8k saved up and were going to go to AUS next july. my wife's from vietnam but aside from that she's never been to any other countries and i've never been out of the US at all before. my wife's scholarship just ran out and now we're depleting the money we've been saving to go to AUS to pay for her school. i've been bummed about it ever since i found out the scholarship was finished. we have a shit ton in school loans but we're lucky that she'll have her BA in a year so the AUS money we have will be just enough to cover it. that, and my car is paid off now so that's extra money to put towards school too.

so this whole "australia sucks" thread is an attempt at funny but is retarded. i literally spent months planning everything out (wife's too busy with school so i did all the wedding and entire vacation planning myself). after all the reading i did to know when was the best time to go and figure out what we wanted to go, where to go, etc, i learned a lot and was so fuckin excited. now once she's graduated and making money again we'll have to start saving from scratch again. we still plan on doing it, in fact i'm probably more driven than ever to make it happen because of all the hurdles we've had to go through. it's been a hard couple of years.

based on the little bit i know, the only thing that sucks about australia is that vegemite tastes like shit. other than that, the US is sucking pretty fuckin hard right now.

p.s. i had already put down a few thousand dollars to secure the AUS stuff - the wedding date, venue, our room, and decor/services/etc. this was before shit hit the fan. the money you put down is supposed to be non-refundable and says so clearly on the forms you fill out. but after the shit hit the fan and we realized we wouldn't be able to go i didn't expect to get any money back. i thought we were just screwed and didn't know how we'd come up with that extra few thousand dollars to help with the wife's school. i contacted the lady i'd been working with to cancel the date and explained our situation, not asking for money back or expecting it back. because here in the US, when they say non-refundable they mean it, so i nearly shit myself when the lady sympathized for the situation over here and offered to give our deposit back out of the blue. so anyone saying australians suck or this or that can go fuck themselves.

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Last edited by Dj Dizzy on Dec-16-2011 at 19:50

quote:

Originally posted by Meat187 It's called good taste. You might have heard of it. Back to voting, do you really think compulsory voting is a good idea?

yes, i do. maybe not in countries like the US, but here i certainly support it.

quote:

Originally posted by Dj Dizzy because here in the US, when they say non-refundable they mean it, so i nearly shit myself when the lady sympathized for the situation over here and offered to give our deposit back out of the blue. so anyone saying australians suck or this or that can go fuck themselves.

That's not always the case, but I am glad she was willing to work with you. I don't think that has much to do with her being Australian so much is it her being a good salesperson, fully knowing that when you can afford it, you'll probably be inclined to book at her establishment again.

But I do agree with your eventual point that Australians are awesome.

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quote:

Originally posted by Halcyon+On+On But I do agree with your eventual point that Australians are awesome.

quote:

Originally posted by Halcyon+On+On That's not always the case, but I am glad she was willing to work with you. I don't think that has much to do with her being Australian so much is it her being a good salesperson, fully knowing that when you can afford it, you'll probably be inclined to book at her establishment again. But I do agree with your eventual point that Australians are awesome.

haha yeah it sounds like you got the jist of my incredibly long and entirely too personal rant

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Why choose Australia to get married?

Just askin, coz i'd rather get married in Europe

To be honest, I think this thread is positive for Australia and not detrimental. I see it as more of a friendly joke, but we all know we have it pretty damn good over here.

PKC, the one that struck me the most there was the Metric System. I mean for fucks sake, even the Poms are behind with that

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quote:

Originally posted by Dj Dizzy whatup, another arrogant american here. the bulk of this thread is just typical internet chat, stereotyping and categorizing entire countries based on what the people with the loudest mouths say. i'm going to chime in on a few things because they hit close to home for me (pun intended). my wife and i, as well as most of our friends who were homeowners, lost jobs and our houses over the past 2 years. the people living above their means and overextending themselves to "keep up with the joneses" is the minority. the primary reason for all the defaulting on homes over here is because of people losing their jobs and if they're lucky enough to find another decent job, chances are it won't pay shit compared to what they made before the recession hit. our house went from $210k to $115k, yeah that's approx $100,000 drop in value. the house was new and very nice but right now the value of houses are way under what they should be due to a flood in the market of foreclosed homes. yes there was a bubble and it burst, however homes now in the US aren't at what their actual value should be, they are well under that value. if you have the money, you can get houses in very desirable areas for the insanely low prices. anyway our situation was that my wife's entire career field is in trouble. around 2 years ago she lost her job due to the company going out of business, that's $80k less a year our household makes but luckily i make just enough to cover our bills on my paycheck alone. so we rely on her unemployment to cover gasoline and food, certainly no money for fun things anymore like going out to eat or going to the movies. we still have internet access because i'm in IT and am on-call in off-hours so my work pays for our internet. we have a couple pets and had to give up a cat cuz we're that tight financially (fyi for cat lovers, it went to a friend not a shelter). my wife has gotten a couple jobs but they only lasted a few months as those companies ended up going under too. it was obvious she had to change career fields but her other career field choice would require her going back to school which we can't afford. so we had to make a choice and decided to leave the house so that we can afford to send her back to school. we were lucky that we were able to do a short sale on the house, it sold for market value which was $115 but we were prepared to let it foreclose if necessary because we needed to do what made sense for the long-term which is for my wife to get her education in a new field and re-enter the workforce in a decent career again so she's not stuck working BS jobs. it was a strategic move to go ahead and lose the house because we never planned to live there forever anyway. we bought it back when the housing market was healthy and planned to sell it after 10 years. now we know we'll never get back how much we bought it for, we don't care to live there anymore anyway, so while it sucks to lose your house and go back to renting, it seemed like the smart thing to do to walk away from it. we'll take a credit hit for a few years but we have to keep our long-term future in mind. i would like to be able to retire before i'm dead, although that might be a pipe dream even after successfully getting out of the house. so we're renting now. we've been married for some years but were married in a courthouse to make it legal b/c we wanted to save up and have our ceremony in australia. this is something we've been planning for over 9 years. we had $8k saved up and were going to go to AUS next july. my wife's from vietnam but aside from that she's never been to any other countries and i've never been out of the US at all before. my wife's scholarship just ran out and now we're depleting the money we've been saving to go to AUS to pay for her school. i've been bummed about it ever since i found out the scholarship was finished. we have a shit ton in school loans but we're lucky that she'll have her BA in a year so the AUS money we have will be just enough to cover it. that, and my car is paid off now so that's extra money to put towards school too. so this whole "australia sucks" thread is an attempt at funny but is retarded. i literally spent months planning everything out (wife's too busy with school so i did all the wedding and entire vacation planning myself). after all the reading i did to know when was the best time to go and figure out what we wanted to go, where to go, etc, i learned a lot and was so fuckin excited. now once she's graduated and making money again we'll have to start saving from scratch again. we still plan on doing it, in fact i'm probably more driven than ever to make it happen because of all the hurdles we've had to go through. it's been a hard couple of years. based on the little bit i know, the only thing that sucks about australia is that vegemite tastes like shit. other than that, the US is sucking pretty fuckin hard right now. p.s. i had already put down a few thousand dollars to secure the AUS stuff - the wedding date, venue, our room, and decor/services/etc. this was before shit hit the fan. the money you put down is supposed to be non-refundable and says so clearly on the forms you fill out. but after the shit hit the fan and we realized we wouldn't be able to go i didn't expect to get any money back. i thought we were just screwed and didn't know how we'd come up with that extra few thousand dollars to help with the wife's school. i contacted the lady i'd been working with to cancel the date and explained our situation, not asking for money back or expecting it back. because here in the US, when they say non-refundable they mean it, so i nearly shit myself when the lady sympathized for the situation over here and offered to give our deposit back out of the blue. so anyone saying australians suck or this or that can go fuck themselves.

;_;

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quote:

Originally posted by narcism Why choose Australia to get married? Just askin, coz i'd rather get married in Europe

yeah no problem, we considered europe too so i could see that. europa would be a close 2nd but we'd like to check out parts of europe that isn't too touristy, just go out and explore but that'd probably require learning more languages or at least enough to "get by." so that's one reason but the main reason is b/c australia has some pretty exotic rainforesty areas in far north queensland that'd be a lot of fun but we fly through the bigger cities as a hub so why not check those out too? we never get to see any nature of any kind outside of urban parks like cleveland metroparks and piedmont park in atlanta. so we'd definitely scratch that "explore nature" itch and take in 2 of australian cities too. we were going to fly from atlanta to melbourne, check out melbourne and its nightlife, but then fly to far north queensland where the ceremony and most of our trip will be. rent an SUV with unlimited kilometers and check out the natural parks like the daintree rain forest, the lava tubes further inland, great barrier reef, etc. fly out through sydney and check out that city for a couple nights too.

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Last edited by Dj Dizzy on Dec-17-2011 at 14:34

Yeah, sign me up for Europa, too. Be sure to bring your coat though.

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quote:

Originally posted by Dj Dizzy rent an SUV with unlimited kilometers and check out the natural parks like the daintree rain forest, the lava tubes further inland, great barrier reef, etc.

Daintree is fucking gorgeous, and so is the barrier reef. Look into doing a 2-3 day boat cruise around the Whitsunday Islands as well, you'll never forget it. Whitehaven beach

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