Welcome to Brisbane Australia.

WELCOME TO OUR BLOG YOU ARE INVITED , TO BROWSE AS LONG AS YOU LIKE. Anyhow, here I will publish my own diary and what I see happening in the world, and when I do not have much to say, I will write posts from my life story. 

Anyhow, you can also find this article at, http://oldman-lifeworks.blogspot.com,  

My other sites; http://frankmenchise.com,http://diybrickwork.com,http://manneedsgod.co.uk  

You can see more at this addresses, DIY brickwork  and,  http://diybrickwork.com,   

This article can also be found at this link, Welcome to Brisbane. 

 Every where you go in the world they have something to show you, Brisbane has the Story Bridge and the City Hall, Brisbane City Hall is in George Square, it has a clock that chimes every quarter of an hour, one could say that this is the Big Ben of Brisbane.   

Welcome to our article, Welcome to Brisbane. 

Dear readers, this is another article of my life story. Here I am going to tell you about my first impression of Brisbane city, when I came to Australia.. Let us start from the docks where I have arrived and disembarked; as soon as I disembarked in Brisbane I met with my brother and other friends, so, I let them guide me what to do next, after all they were here before me, so, they knew what we had to do and where we had to go. As we know newcomers arriving from a foreign country have to go through custom to check their belongings, so, we did that and then we were free to go to our destination. 

Anyhow, after the customs cleared us, we left the port in a car and they took me to one of our friends house not far from the port, here the lady of the house had prepared something to eat for everybody and while we were eating and everybody was trying to make me feel welcome, we were also talking about my native town Genzano di Lucania and the people that I had left behind in that town; you see, all those relative or friends that came to pick me up, they were from the same town and I had brought presents and news from their families. I must say here that in those times when transport and news travelled much slower that today, anybody that arrived from overseas was welcome, especially if one brought presents and news from their relative and friends. 

Here we guess that everybody that has migrated or moved away from home for a long period of time knows what being home sick is; therefore, this finding that there is a group of people from your own town, and they are staying in touch with each other is helpful wherever one goes and they make the new comer feel welcome. So, I was welcomed from this group of relative and friends, who soon made me understand among other things that I was welcomed to Brisbane the land of the kangaroos. 

Now, I have to say that at first sights Brisbane did not look as good as Sydney, the port of Brisbane where I disembarked was an old timber dock, and we went through customs in an old and large timber building, but I thought anyhow Brisbane is still a city and our friends live here; so, we went to one of our fried home, it was a unit in a brick building, so that was not bad, after all one has to accept whatever there is available when we go to a different place. 

Anyhow, after having eaten and talked for a couple of hours with our friends, and given them those presents that I had brought, I was driven to my final destination a few kilometers away, where we had to go was on the other side of the river, we went across the Brisbane River on a bridge called the Story Bridge. So, Brisbane has also its own unique landmarks the Story Bridge and City Hall are the most important. 

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Reaching my final destination

My final destination was at my uncle home, where my brother and a few other friends and relatives were also staying. My uncle had been in Australia by now 9 years and somehow very recently had been able to save enough money to put down a deposit to buy a house; the house was a large wooden house. 

Now, for us that were coming from a country where almost everything was masonry or built with bricks and mortar and cement, these houses in Brisbane city make us feel a bit strange at first; but, they were still houses and they still provided a roof on our heads; therefore, even knowing that they were made of timber, I was pleased to have been offered that accommodation. My brother knowing that I was coming had already bought a bed for me, so, I was already set up. You know it is a great help when you go to a new country and find that somebody has already prepared everything for you. I believe that for this reason I have been lucky. 

Let us imagine you reach your destination, as I did when I reached Brisbane city. Now let us say that you don’t have much money to pay for accommodation, you don’t know where to go or what to do next; you don’t know even how to speak the local language, you can end up in deep trouble you know. Therefore, I think that I have been lucky, when I found that I was welcomed. I believe that when we see new arrivals, we should try to understand that they have left their own country, in the hope of finding a better way of living. 

Australian Travel Videos

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At my new address. 

Now, let me talk how I was welcome at my uncle house; we reaching my uncle house and were greeted by the people that were in at that time of the day, since there were people that had gone to work, you see, there were quite a few people living at my uncle house already, and they were all from the same town that I came from, so, we all knew each other already. 

So, I reached my final destination in Brisbane city at my uncle house, and greeted those that were there, we unloaded my luggage and we started to talk about the town I came from, Genzano di Lucania, with the people that were present, because they were all from the same town, and they wanted to know as much as they could about their relatives. While we were unloading at the same time I was telling them about the presents that I brought from my own family to my uncle, they were mostly local town produce the largest of them was now a seven liter demijohn of wine, since the ten liter broke on the way, I had also some 6 liter of pure olive oil and a large tray of homemade large biscuits that we make in Genzano when somebody gets married, there were other presents that I was going to give them as soon as I would unpack my own luggage.

Anyhow, evening came and we had dinner and after that I retired to my bedroom, I was ready for a good night sleep on firm ground, after being a whole month on the ship. 

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Brisbane city views.   

Wherever you go there are always interesting things to see, also Brisbane city has got several thing to show the world. I know that most people that come to Australia will say that Brisbane does not look as good as Sydney, but so what, it is still a nice city to live in and has got things that we are proud of; like the Story Bridge, City Hall with its clock tower that strikes the time every quarter of an hour, the city shopping Centre, Parliament House and the botanic gardens next to it, where we can stroll around looking at the garden or the pond, with its ducks and swans or sitting on the lawn on a hot summer day and listening to a band during the weekends.

Now there are more parks in Brisbane and most of them have a playground for children, the most important after the City Botanic Garden is, New Farm Park, this park is well known for the roses that are grown there, so, we call it the park of the roses, it is also a sight to see early in spring when the jacaranda trees are in flower, this park has a large playground for children, it has a kiosk, where you can have a cup tea or buy an ice cream for the kids and a few other things, on hot summer days one can sit under the trees near the Brisbane River and fill almost as if you are at the beach; you see Brisbane River is a very wide river and it is navigable for many miles, so, while we were sitting in the shade of the trees, we can see the traffic of bouts on the river, some of these boats are carrying people that were sightseeing on the river, or going to another pleasure destination.

Another important garden that needs mentioning here is the new Botanic Garden at Toowong Brisbane, near Mt-Coot-Tha forest this is a western suburb on the fringes of Brisbane city, this new botanic garden has been opened because the old botanic garden in the city lost some of its land, as they have built another university there; now apart from seeing what we can see and find in a botanic garden; from this new botanic garden, you can visit also this observatory; 

The Sir Thomas Brisbane Planetarium is a planetarium located on the grounds of Brisbane Botanic Gardens^[1] in the suburb of Toowong, Brisbane, Queensland,Australia. The Planetarium was officially opened on 24 May 1978.

Anyhow, let us go back to talk about the sixties and those wooden houses.

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The wooden houses. 

Living in Brisbane wooden houses, I felt no difference at all to live in it, after all that is the way that most of the local people live in these parts of Australia. It was a four bedroom house, in addition to the four bedrooms there was a lounge room, a large kitchen where there was enough room for a large dining table, there was a bathroom with bathtub and shower that had a gas heated hot water devise that you could light up and have a hot shower, the toilet was downstairs under the house; now all this large house and floor space was set on wooden stumps, I know that those people that have never lived or seen a house on wooden stumps before are saying; what is he talking about a house on wooden stumps. 

I know it sounds strange and feel a bit strange too to live in these houses at the beginning, but anyhow, they are there, and they have a pretty good reason why people built them like that. After all is not even a new idea when we think about it; you see when I was at school I remember that my teacher was saying that a long time ago for safety reasons, some people that lived by the sea would build their house on stilts over shallow water, so that they could defend them easily if they were attacked, but what are the reasons for these houses to be built like that here?

I believe that I have said enough in this article, we will talk about these wooden houses, in our next article, Australia wooden houses, because we want to explain the reasons why these houses in Brisbane were built with timber and they have been built on wooden stumps.

 See you soon in next article, Australian houses in Brisbane. 

To see more click on this link, Welcome to Brisbane. 

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World news diary, April 2022.

WELCOME TO OUR BLOG YOU ARE INVITED , TO BROWSE AS LONG AS YOU LIKE. Anyhow, here I will publish my own diary and what I see happening in the world, and when I do not have much to say, I will write posts from my life story. 

Anyhow, you can also find this article at, http://oldman-lifeworks.blogspot.com,  

My other sites; http://frankmenchise.com,http://diybrickwork.com,http://manneedsgod.co.uk  

You can see more at this addresses, DIY brickwork  and,  http://diybrickwork.com,   

This article can also be found at this link, My World News Diary of April 2022.

The world can be a better place, if we believe in God. You see, there are many problems in the world these days, I believe that at Easter to find some peace, we should pray God and our Lord Jesus Christ, in the hope that they would help us find a solution, from the problems that we have in the world. 

Welcome to our article, My World News Diary of April 2022.

Dear readers, this month is April 2022, but we are living still in the same old world with all its problems. Anyhow, in this article we will be talking about Easter, the Australian elections, some happenings in the world and the war in Ukraine. These days between the Covid19 and the war in Ukraine the world looks unstable, and the only thing that brings stability is the Easter religious service that brings some stability and hope to share with the believers. You see, we should listen to the message that Easter brings, and to the way Our Lord Jesus Christ wants us to live, but people do not care about what other people needs, that is why there are problems and wars in the world.   

Anyhow, I need to say that people today are not strong believers, like they were in the past, but most of us still believe in God, so, we go to church, and if cannot we follow the church services on TV, anyhow what is important here is that we still believe in God, we believe that Our Lord Jesus Christ has opened the way back to God, and through him we could gain eternal life, which is helpful to believe, since in this world there are many problems.

Some of these problems are manmade, so, it would be helpful, if we learn how to avoid them, but how we can avoid the COVID19 pandemic, and how we can avoid the problems that this war in Ukraine is causing, is hard to know. Then there are our personal problems to be solved. Here some people may find it easy to cope, other may not. Some of us may have health problems, in some families health problems never seem to end, no matter what they do, they cannot find the right balance, so, the only thing we can do is to pray, hoping that God hears our prayers and helps us. So, believing in God and Jesus Christ gives us hope for the future, may God hear our prayer and help us according to his will.

Now that we have talked about a few things and our religious beliefs, let us talk about the coming Australian elections.

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Talking about the Australian election and who is going to win.  

This photo above, shown the two leaders of the major political parties in Australia, both have some good and some not so good policies, depending who you are what you do and what you would like to see in your party leader. Anyhow, they go around debating this and that, and we are waiting to see, who is going to win the 21st. of May 2022.  

The Australian election. 

In Australia this year, the federal election will be held the 21^st of May 2022, so, we are waiting to know what the politician will promise us, to get our vote. The election was called the 10^th of April, and now they are off and running. At the beginning the polls were saying the Labor Party, was tipped to win the election, but today after only ten days running, the race is more even, and it seems that there will be a hung parliament, if that happens the smaller parties will have the balance of power, and it will be hard to do anything, but now is still early to say.

Anyhow, because the government has spent a lot of money during the pandemic, they must be careful with spending more money, so, they are not promising much, they are staying within the budget outlines, that was published a couple of weeks ago, the opposition has not found much to criticize it, except for minor issues.

The other day the prime minister, Scot Morrison and the opposition leader Anthony Albanese have had the first debate, and they say that there was no real winner. Some people say that this election is not very popular for the major parties, and the minor parties are going to do well, and may end up holding the balance of power, apart from that, there is not much else to say.  

But there are odd things that pop up, that may or may not affect the election. Defense Minister Peter Dutton has warned Australia needs to prepare for war in light of the looming threat from China and global insecurity spurred by Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine.

Anyhow, the opposition is saying that the prime minister Scot Morrison has not been good enough with Solomon Islands government, he has failed to secure their friendship properly, and now China has stepped in and have secured their friendship and is going to have some naval base or something like that. Which is no good for Australia and the western world, but who knows what will happen next.

Anyhow, the election campaign continues, while they are blaming each other about this or that. Well, this is what we can expect to see at election time, but it is still to soon to say what will happen, and who is going to win.  

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Other happenings in the world.  

Today most of the world seems to relax a bit from the COVID19 pandemic, most of us start thinking that the worst is over, so we could go back to normal living. But as most time happens there is something else to worry about. Mr President Putin has chosen confrontation with Ukraine and the west, instead of discussions and freedom of the Ukrainian people, he has gone so far that now he is going to stop supplying gas to Poland and other countries, because they are not able to pay their gas in Rubles.

I believe that if this is not resolved for good soon, then the western world has got to find an alternative supply. Now, since using coal, petrol and gas can cause global warming, this happening can accelerate the transitional time to clean energy, like solar power or wind power. This must be done soon or later, so, this may become the right time to start moving faster. Anyhow, we will see what is going to happen.

Other news

In France they had a presidential election, and Macron has won a second term. So, everything will remain the same.  

In the Pacific, China is trying to expand its military presence in the Pacific.

In Europe they are all affected from the war in Ukraine, and Russia threatening to turn off their gas supply.

In America president Biden says that they will supply Ukraine with whatever is needed to stop Russia taking over. Meanwhile, people are dying on both sides.  

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Talking about the war in Ukraine. 

Here I am only saying that this is a useless war that could have been avoided. So, let me explain how I understand it and my views. The reasons for Russia to invade Ukraine, is about some Russian speaking people that live in Ukraine, and because they are a minority, they feel mistreated from the government, so, they group themselves together and start fighting the government. Now, because they are Russian speaking people, President Putin believes that they want to be Russian, so, he wants to occupy Ukraine to help them, but what about the rest of the population that do not want to be Russian. 

Here I could say more, but I am cutting it short. 

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Anyhow, the war is still going on, with losses on both sides, see one of the following descriptions. (And I quote)>

The UK defence secretary, Ben Wallace, estimated those losses on Monday as a quarter of Russia’s pre-invasion strength, with more than 2,000 armoured vehicles knocked out, including at least 530 tanks, as well as 60 aircraft.

Anyhow, I believe that I have said most of what I have heard happen, in this April diary, and my views is that this useless war could have been avoided, if they had asked the people to vote, on which side they wanted to be, and both sides accept the outcome. 

To see more click on this link of Hub Pages, My World News Diary of April 2022. 

See you next time in our post, Welcome to Brisbane.    

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Migrating to Australia.

WELCOME TO OUR BLOG YOU ARE INVITED , TO BROWSE AS LONG AS YOU LIKE. Anyhow, here I will publish my own diary and what I see happening in the world, and when I do not have much to say, I will write posts from my life story. 

Anyhow, you can also find this article at, http://oldman-lifeworks.blogspot.com,  

My other sites; http://frankmenchise.com,http://diybrickwork.com,http://manneedsgod.co.uk  

You can see more at this addresses, DIY brickwork  and,  http://diybrickwork.com,   

This article can also be found at this link, Going to Australia. 

We can call this article from Italy to Australia, on the way to Australia, we the emigrant that had never been there, we were thinking about Australia the far away land that soon would be our home, and I would say to myself, Australia here I come dreaming for a better way of life for myself and those that would follow after me. 

Welcome to our article, Going to Australia. 

Dear readers, this blog has been shortened, if you want to see the original article in Hub Pages is here Going to Australia. Anyhow, this is the story of my life, here we are going to tell you how I felt and what I did on the ship during my voyage to Australia. Then my working in the building industry, as a bricklayer building houses. Because I have learned this trade, I am going to write articles about DIY brickwork, for those that are interested in building something. Anyhow, let us go back to my trip on the ship to Australia.

While I was on this ship called the Sydney, in my heart I was already saying: Hello Australia, here I come with my dreams in my heart of finding a better life for myself. Anyhow, I was thinking about myself saying, I know that I am dreaming these dreams that may not happen, but I am young and there is no harm in dreaming to find a better life.

So, as I have said in our last article, we left Port Said to go straight to Australia and while we were on the ship crossing the Indian Ocean we the passenger that were migrating to Australia started to think about what we had left behind in Italy, and at the same time we were eager to see what Australia was like, on the ship we made some acquaintances and everyone had some story to tell, most of us were talking about the reasons why we were migrating to Australia and what we wanted to achieve in Australia. We were also talking about, if we had anybody that we knew in Australia and other things, but really, we didn't know a thing about what we could do in Australia, most of us did not have any job qualification, so, we were hoping to do whatever job came our way, if there was enough money to earn a living. 

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Happenings on the way to Australia

During the fortnight that the ship took to cross the Indian Ocean, every one of us was wondering in his own way about the future in Australia and what we knew about Australia; in my own case at some stage of this crossing I started wondering how hard it would be to live in the driest continent on earth, as I had learned at school that Australia is dry compared to other continents. So, what would the water supply be like in Australia, and what about the westerly wind, I remember that my teacher had said that these winds last up to three months, so, I was asking myself, is it going to be just as bad and as cold as the winter times winds of Italy, who knows? You see, to cross this stretch of water of the Indian Ocean was taking too long and therefore, it was becoming even boring to go out on deck just to see the sea water and the sky above. 

There is something else that I found out on the Indian Ocean, which was not good news for me. You see, in those times when you went overseas from these small towns like Genzano my native town, anyone that had relatives wanted to send a present or something to their relatives, or at least their greetings or something like that, and if you went to a relative house to stay when you arrived in Australia, you could not go there without bringing presents, from your family and their families, so, you can imagine how loaded we were with your own presents and friends presents. 

Anyhow, here I need to talk about border security, instead of talking about my journey to Australia, but you see, I was coming from a country town and most presents were not bought at the shop, they could be food or something that could not be allowed to go through customs in Australia; anyhow, on the ship I had plenty of time to work it out, as I was talking to people that had been in Australia before, so, I was able to avoid the worse.

Among other things on the ship I had two demijohns of local wine, which I was sure that would be very much appreciated from the people that I was going to stay with in Australia, for people that don’t know what a demijohn is I will explain, A demijohn is a large round glass container dressed with something like woven straw, in my case I had two of them one was ten litres, and the other seven litres. Then  I had some small wild onions, which could never go past customs, so, I dumped them in the Indian Ocean. I had also some local homemade large and beautiful biscuits and other stuff. Anyhow, let me talk about the two demijohn of local wine, these two demijohns were in my cabin and there wasn’t any way to restrain them properly, so, when the sea was rough they were sliding across the cabin floor until one of them broke that is why my passenger friends remind me about the good lost wine.

These are some of the happenings during my journey to Australia. Anyhow, after a fortnight we reached the continent of Australia and docked at Fremantle in Western Australia. Hurray, we have made it to Australia. 

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Australia positive first impressions. 

The first impression that I had of Australia was positive, from what we saw near Port Fremantle. I have to say that it was not much what I saw, but it was enough to make a good impression on me. Strange as it may seem the very first time that I set foot in Australia I saw an emu, I don’t know why or how but somebody took us to this place where there was this emu and another animal that I don’t recall what it was. Anyhow because we stopped in Fremantle for a while, I was able to go down twice, and the second time guess what I saw, I saw that here in Australia they build single houses on a block of land, and they grow a nice green lawn around the houses by watering the lawn with the town water, in fact these little houses look so pretty that they seem like dolls houses. No bad for a country that is supposed to be the driest continent on earth, and it was great as my first impression. And seeing that they water the lawns with town water my fear of water restriction disappeared.

But anyhow, Fremantle was only the first port in Australia, but I had to disembark in Brisbane, so there were a couple more ports to go past and another week on this ship before the end of my journey. Anyhow, we left Port Fremantle to cross the Great Australian Bight, which took us a few days to navigate, during this crossing I was thinking, how vast is Australia compared to the European countries, since it takes days to navigate from one port to the next? Anyhow, next stop was Melbourne, in port Melbourne there wasn’t much to see or say as I had already seen Port Fremantle and Melbourne was very much the same, the only thing was that by now most of the people that I had become friendly with, were disembarking in Melbourne. Anyhow, we left Melbourne and next stop was Sydney, where I was going to meet people that I was bringing presents from their families, so, I knew already that Sydney was a very important city of Australia, therefore, I was eager to see what it was like.

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My next stop is Sydney. 

Anyhow, we docked in Sydney a short walking distance from the harbor bridge, and soon we were aware that people were there on the dock waiting for us, so, I looked to see if my family friends were there to greet me and collect their presents; and sure enough they were there on the dock waving at me and I knew that I could take their present to them. But what should I do to take them, because in Australia everything that comes in has got to go through the custom to be checked out? This procedure was something new to me, although I had heard people talk about it on the ship. Anyhow, I got their large parcel and took it down the ship under the direction of some people that directed all people carrying anything to a large building on the dock, and here I learned for the first time that the custom can look at everything you bring in Australia and if they find anything forbidden you can get in trouble. Anyhow, there was nothing forbidden to enter Australia, as the people that had made the parcel knew what would be allowed in. After that I delivered the parcel to my waiting friends.

In Sydney I had good time with my family friends and exchanged all the news that we had, besides going to a restaurant to eat and then went to see Sydney Harbor Bridge together, as it worked out, they had to leave early because they came to meet me from another town, so, I was left on my own in Sydney looking at the tall building around the harbor and walking around, where I saw the site of the future Sydney Opera House, at that time construction had stopped and there was plenty of still bars stacked on the site, so, I guessed that this was going to be some large and important building, I also visited a garden nearby, and by the time we left, I knew that those sights of Sydney harbor and everything else could even last a lifetime, they are very impressive to anyone that is lucky enough to see them.

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My long journey ends at Brisbane.  

We left Sydney and next stop was Brisbane my destination; I was looking for this journey to end, because to stay on a ship for a month is a long time. And to tell you the truth I wanted to see my relatives and see how they were doing, so that I could have a better idea, if my coming to Australia was a good thing for me. You see, one can never be sure what it is going to be like and whether your decision was the right decision until you are there and see it for yourself. Of course, what I had seen already in Australia seemed well, but that does not mean much until one finds out what sort of living an unqualified manual worker can earn and other things. Of course, I knew that whatever job I had to do I was going to work hard, because that is the only way to earn your living for yourself and whoever was going to give you a job. On reflection I must say that to migrate to a country that you have never been before is a hard thing to do, so, lucky are those people that do not need to migrate. Now I want to tell you about the end of my journey at Brisbane.

We reached Brisbane and docked at this merchants’ dock to disembark, thanks God I had reached Brisbane my destination and was eager to see my brother and other relative and friends.

We disembarked and I went through customs with all my belongings and presents that I was bringing to my relative and friends. And here is when I got caught and learned something that all travelers should know; anyone of us that goes to a different country should make sure that what they take into that country is allowed; anyhow, I was caught because I had bought a small toy at Port Said that toy could contain forbidden substance and it had to be treated to enter Australia, so, it cost me a fair amount of money. The demijohn of wine and all other stuff that I had with me was all right; after all I had dumped my wild anions in the Indian Ocean, when I found that they were not allowed. After going through customs, I was free to go with my brother and friends. The friends of course were there not only to welcome me to Australia, but to collect their presents that their families had sent them and to hear news of their families and their native town. I believe that I have said enough in this article. So, see you soon in my next article where I am going to talk about my first impressions, and Welcome to Brisbane. 

To see the original article and pictures click on this link, Going to Australia. 

See you in our next blog. My diary of April 2022. 

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Goodbye to my country.

WELCOME TO OUR BLOG YOU ARE INVITED , TO BROWSE AS LONG AS YOU LIKE. Anyhow, here I will publish my own diary and what I see happening in the world, and when I do not have much to say, I will write posts from my life story. 

Anyhow, you can also find this article at, http://oldman-lifeworks.blogspot.com,  

My other sites; http://frankmenchise.com,http://diybrickwork.com,http://manneedsgod.co.uk  

You can see more at this addresses, DIY brickwork  and,  http://diybrickwork.com,   

This article can also be found at this link, Goodbye to my country. 

Italy is a beautiful country in many ways, but even there sometimes it is hard to earn a living, this is what has happened to me when I was young, so, I let Italy and migrated to Australia, and this is the story of my life that I am writing here. 

Welcome to our article, Goodbye to my country. 

Dear readers, in this article, we will talk about when I left Italy to emigrate to Australia; so, I said, ‘Goodbye to my country. Anyhow, I hope that my following articles are helpful, especially those hubs about housing and building work, and how to own a house, etc. Anyhow, we will start from the time when I left Italy. 

We know that during our life, we must make decisions, because of what is happening around us, one of these decisions I had to make when I was young and decided to migrate to Australia. Here we need to say that to migrate from one country to another was a very serious decision, so, one had to make sure that one really needed to move from where you were. This was not easy to do, because the generations before us stayed all their life in the towns were they were born, only a few ventured to migrate, because moving from one country to another was dangerous and also took a very long time, so, for me and for all those that wanted to migrate was not an easy decision to make, but in the end everyone has to make his own decisions, so, after thinking it over, I decided to migrate to Australia, since my brother was already in Australia and he said that it was good. So, I said goodbye to my country and migrated to Australia.

Today to understand the reasons why I migrated to Australia in the sixties, you need to read those articles I have written, especially the one called, Farming today compared to the old way, where you can compare how hard it was in those days to earn a living in the farms.

Anyhow, today the same decision is easier to make, because people move from one country to another easily; but it was not so a while ago. In fact, if we go back a hundred years or so, most people used to live in their own native town all their lives, and a few of them never even saw another town even when they were close bye, then life was very different, and people accepted that they would die in the same town that they were born. Today life is different, and we find it easier to move from one town to another and from one country to another and this is what I have done in my lifetime, I moved from Italy to Australia.  

Anyhow, there are times in our lives when we have to say goodbye to the dearest things in our lives and move to another country. When people move to another country it has become necessary for them to do so; perhaps where they are and what they are doing has no future in it, so, they are looking for a better life in the future. For this reason, I decided to leave my family farm in my native country of Italy to migrate to Australia.

Now, to explain why, and keep my life story in a chronological way, I am going to write about my last time working in the farm, and then when I had to leave the farm, first to go in the army to serve my country and then leaving Italy altogether to come to Australia, and also my voyage in a ship called the Sydney that in those times was taking passengers to Australia, I will be telling you what impression Australia made on me when I arrived. Of course, there is a lot to tell if I try to tell you everything in details. So, let me explain my position why I left Italy.

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Explaining my position. 

Let me explain, the reasons of leaving Genzano di Lucania my native town and not wanting to return to work in the farm. There were many issues and most of all was that it was very hard to earn a living, even when we had average harvests; and then, the ways of working in the farms was changing and there was less need of man hours work, because the tractor and other machines were coming in, so, either we had to buy these machines or we had to move out of farming, for us to buy those machines was out of reach, as our farm was not big enough; and the last year that I worked in the farm we had a very poor harvest, in fact we made so little wheat that it could not cover the cost of buying the seeds we had sown.

All these facts put together made me see that I was wasting my time to work in the farms as my forbears had done for hundreds of years before me, so, I took the opportunity to migrate to Australia.

But before I could migrate to Australia I was called to serve in the army, you see in Italy all able males over 21 must serve in the army, so, I went to serve in the army as prescribed by the Italian laws. I served in the army and when the army let me go, I migrated to Australia.

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 Leaving Italy for Australia. 

Goodbye Italy, I am leaving for Australia.

I remember that my mother with a friend came with me to Naples to farewell me when I left Italy. I suppose it was hard for my mother to let me go away from the family farm, but it had to be done, because we had debits we owed too much money, so, we the young and strong members of the family had to find a way how to pay our debits, to find a way how to pay your debits sometimes you had to borrow more money, as it was in my case, because I had to pay my fare myself and that was a lot of money. Anyhow, one of the options was to migrate make enough money to pay our debits and then return home to live a better life. Well at least that was as my mother wanted it to be, but it did not work that way for us for many reasons. Anyhow it was the year 1961 when I left Italy and embarked on the ship Sydney for Australia. I have to say that when you leave a place that you know well for a place where you have never been it seems an adventure, starting with walking up to the ship deck for the first time and looking at all those things that you have never seen before. 

In those times voyages that took a long time, like going to Australia would worry people, so, old folks like my mother were worried, because the voyage from Italy to Australia would take one month by ship and in those times, it was the only way available to come to Australia.

Anyhow, we are in Naples with my mother and her friend, who had a couple of sons in Australia already, we went on the ship and after visiting the ship, my mother and her fried went back on the dock, they stayed on the dock waiting to say goodbye. Anyhow, I embarked on the ship and this ship is going to take me to Australia a faraway land, I wonder how it is going to turn out, because I have never been to sea before, I also cannot swim and this worries me a bit but not so much, because I know that most of the other passengers cannot swim as well, so, we are all in the same boat, so to speak and also in reality, because we are all in the same ship. Anyhow, I am on this ship liner Called the Sydney and the ship is about to depart from Naples; the ship makes this low strange sound a couple of times, and we see that it is slowly moving away from the sore. We all look for our relatives and friends and wave goodbye until they become so small in the distance that we could not recognize them.

And after that many thoughts came to our minds and we were saying within ourselves; goodbye mother, Goodbye my friends, goodbye Italy, goodbye Genzano my native town, who knows when I will see you again; and thus, the journey begins to unfold. We left Naples in the late afternoon, and next morning we were docked in Messina. While we were docked in Messina we were allowed to come ashore and walk around if we wanted to, of course as I was a young man I wanted to see as much as I could, so I walked the streets of Messina, which seemed to me a nice clean Sicilian town. Then we went back to the ship as we were told and we left Italy for good; Goodbye Italy, who knows when I will see you again?

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The real journey begins. 

The real journey outside Italy begins

Next evening, we were in Port Said Egypt. Here again we were allowed to go ashore, and here for the first time we met with real foreigners who talked a different language, you see, until then I and most of the other passengers who were also migrating to Australia had never been outside Italy. In Port Said I saw for the first time that the people of this world are not all the same, in fact I am going to describe to you the way as I have seen it at that time. We came down the ship and we were walking by instinct in small groups, or it was one of the ship crew that took a group to show us the way, and to see how things were done down there. 

There were a few very young and poor people that wanted to shine your shoes for a small coin, there were others that would sell you anything, in fact they sold to a few of us a piece of well reaped wood for a piece of chocolate, there were a few shops open that you could buy a bargain if you knew how to bargain, because they would ask a high price and who knew how to bargain could reduce that price to one third of the original price, or something like that.

On reflection today I would say that Egypt was a strange place, you see the people that we talked to, knew a bit of Italian and they would tell us that we were robbing them by calling us (mariul or mariooo) which in the dialect of southern Italy can be translated as robber or thief; but while they were telling us that we were bobbing them, they were indeed robbing us, right, left and center. But today I understand what they were doing, they were just trying to live their life, they were so poor that what they were doing was the only way for them to survive, may God forgive them if they hurt us by robbing some of us bad.

Anyhow, then we went back to the ship and next day we were navigating in the Suez Chanel, the Suez Channel offer one of the most strange sights, because, while you are in a ship in this man made channel that mankind should be proud to have made, and while you are in this strip of water slowly navigating towards the Red See, on both sides is desert land, what a sight this is?

After navigating the Suez Channel, we went through the Red Sea and next stop was the port of Aden Yemen. By now I and the others were aware that here things would be different from the normal way, but anyhow there was not much to see or report. Because I did not venture too far away from the port, what I can remember of Aden is that there were a few shops near the port, but what I remember most is that the air seemed to have a strange smell like Sulphur that day, so, even today I wonder why it was so, and, does the air in Aden smell like that all the time? If that is so, then different lands have different smells. I wonder if somebody else has had the same experience as I have.

Then the time came when we left Aden to go straight to Australia, this time it would take about a fortnight navigating no stop the Indian Ocean, a fortnight in the middle of the sea with no land in sight, this was going to be another hard take for the people that had never been to sea like myself, but anyhow we had taken that decision to go to Australia, so, let us go and see what Australia is like.

When we left Aden I had already set foot on three continents during my life, so, within my heart I was saying goodbye to them all, starting from my native town of Genzano di Lucania, Goodbye Genzano my native town, goodbye Italy my country of origin, goodbye Port Said Egypt Africa, with your poor people that try to rob all passenger that set foot on their land just to survive, and goodbye Aden Yemen Asia with you strange air smelling of Sulphur. Next stop will be Australia that very far away land, which we all think it would be like the Promised Land.

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Navigating the Indian Ocean. 

Navigating the Indian Ocean from Aden to Fremantle Australia, took us a fortnight; I should say that it was all right considering the circumstances that most of us had never been at sea before. You see, in those days’ people travelled by ship or any other kind of transport only when it was necessary, and even though the ship was not a luxury cruiser like the cruisers of today it was good enough for us who were passengers who wanted to move from Italy to Australia. The ship had embarked over 2000 passengers, and we all had a proper bed to sleep in, there was plenty of good wholesome food and meals that were served regularly, we all had a place to sit at the tables, which were attached to the floor, but if the ship moved too much, we had to mind the dishes and the drinks. Anyhow, at other times we would go around the ship with some of these acquaintances that we have met on the ship, or just sit in our own cabin. We had also an English class that we could attend, so, we could learn a few words of English and be able to say at least the most Basic English words, in the hope that we could say something and make other people understand what we needed when we reached Australia. There was something else that we learned at these English classes, and it was the convict song I believe and it went thus: Oh my darling, oh my darling, oh my darling Clementine, you are lost and gone forever, oh my darling Clementine. How appropriate it was in our cases.

Perhaps I am saying too much about my personal story and it is becoming boring, so, I am cutting it short. See you in our next article,  Going to Australia. 

To see more click on this link, Goodbye to my country. 

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