casperoo1

Big Mac in Aus...is about $6 (AUD)

Can you answer a qs for me.....how many inches (or centimetres) is a 700C frame?

Cheers

Chris

casperoo1

Big Mac in Aus...is about $5-6 (AUD)

Can you answer a qs for me.....how many inches (or centimetres) is a 700C frame?

Cheers

Chris

Johnny_Monkey

According to this a Big Mac is US$2.55 in Oz (A$3.25) and US$3.10 in the USA.

https://www.oanda.com/products/bigmac/bigmac.shtml

Johnny_Monkey

I think you'll find that 700C is the size of the wheels (which is a standard size for most road bikes). If the frame says 700C it just means it uses that size wheels.

Someone here will correct me if I'm wrong.

Brian

Plenty of people in New York state own homes. The city is a slightly different story. I follow that market, only because I have a subscription to New York Magazine. For a crappy loft in the city, you need at least $600k. I don't think you can own anything nice for less than a million right now. And that's still an apartment or brownstone, not a house.

Gasoline in the US is $2.20/gallon where I live right now. When I left, petrol was $1.32/litre, which is $5/gallon. Which brings me to the next quote:

The exchange rate only matters if you're on holiday, or bringing loads of cash like I did. For your purchasing parity test, you need to compare the dollars you earn to the dollars I earn. How long do you have to work to buy a Big Mac, vs how long I have to work to buy a Big Mac? The burger is the constant here. When we compare something like, oh, Ultegra wheels, it gets even more skewed. Over here, it may only take me 16-20 hours of labor to buy the wheelset. I'm guessing you might have to put in a bit more time, given the ridiculous prices there...

Brian

There's a first time for everything.

Johnny_Monkey

I paid about US$2.80 a gallon when I was there a year ago when it was selling for about A$1.25 a litre in Perth.

At the moment petrol is about US$2.40 per gallon in Philly and A$1.17 per litre in Perth. The current exchange rate is about A$1.00 to US$0.785 meaning the price per litre in Perth is about US$0.92 and the price per gallon in Perth is about US$3.50.

If you live in Melbourne or Sydney you don't tend to use a car as much (assuming you live within 10-15km of the CBD). I lived in Sydney for 18 months before I bought a car and even then I would catch the metro if I was going into the city as it was more convenient than driving.

The cars are slightly smaller in Oz as well. Not too many Dodge Rams about anyway.

Johnny_Monkey

I see you fixed the thread title as well.

531Aussie

hmmmm, I see

531Aussie

A Big Mac down here is about $3.25

Brian

Indeed.

Aljan

I want to give you another perspective other than comparisons, and dollars and cents.

I have spent a lot of time in the US. I've been able to do this because my partner is American. I had no decision to make about whether it was practical to go to the US, I had to. And I am so glad that I did.

I had never left Australia so my journey to the US was more than a trip to be with my partner. I remember flying into LA and seeing an island just off the coast. I realised that I was really on the other side of this planet. I made my way to Indiana before I was able to leave an airport, but when I did I was amazed at how many American flags I saw flying. It was early 2003, post 9/11, and just before America entered Iraq, and I had never seen anything like this before. Those flying American flags will live in my memory forever.

The people of the Midwest are the most friendly people I have ever met. My entire time that first trip, and subsequent trips since have been the best days of my life. Our visa issues mean that we are still in limbo but I wouldn't trade this experience for any amount of money.

You sound like you can make a dollar anywhere, so money will never be a problem. If you want to say when you get old that once I lived in Australia then come. If you don't care about that then don't.

Brian

If you have a good look at Oz, you'll notice an island at the bottom. That's the map of Tassie. All blokes want to spend a bit of time down there.

Grasschopper

Wow this thread has kept going.

As an update we still don't know much about this oppertunity but it looks like if she is offered a position they will not only buy our home here they will buy us a home in Aus and they will give us 3 pairs of round trip tickets back to the US per year as well as 4 weeks of vacation (up from 2 I believe). Apparently it is a VERY good package. She should hear more next week when she goes to her quarterly company meeting for 2 days.

Johnny_Monkey

4 weeks leave is the law in Oz (+10 days or so public holidays).

Do you know where you'll be based?

Johnny_Monkey

Americans have a thing about flags. So do Aussies IMO, but nowhere near as bad.

poopypants

Hi Grasschopper,

Not sure if you're still reading this thread but I have just done the same move and thought I'd throw my two cents in.

I spent the last 7 years living in the Bay Area and then Connecticut and my wife and I just relocated to Brisbane and bought a house and have been here since November.

Funnily enough my wife (who is American) is in Pharma too, she was working for Pfizer and then BMS in CT before we left and is currently working for a US CRO here called Quintiles. Coming from the US with big pharma experience has put her ahead of most people since it is hard to find anyone down here with that sort of experience. THe hardest part was that the industry was a lot smaller, but once you're in, with US experience you are golden. She is making a touch more Aussie dollars than she was making US dollars.

There are hardly any career opportunities for her in QLD and she spends most of the week in Sydney. There are opportunities in Sydney, Melbourne and strangely Adelaide ... so this will give you an idea of where you will probably be living. ( all fantastic cities )

Firstly, as someone else said, the experience of living in another country is amazing, it opens up your perspective on a lot of things. Being from somewhere different makes you a bit different so you find that it's easy to make friends. You definitely have a few WTF moments but they are always fun and you get tons of good stories out of it ... if you wanted to hAve the living overseas experience, there are no two places closer in lifestyle, standard of living that Australia and America. We did a 4 month stint across Europe, India and Thailand on the way back here and it is remarkable how similar our two countries are.

Things are more expensive here ... but with your work experience you may both be able to command a higher salary, it worked that way for us. What do you work in?

When I left Australia, computers and tvs ... well electronics in general were crazy expensive compared to America, since I've been home I've noticed that the difference is much much less than it used to be. Computers are about the same, tvs are getting close.

The tax system changed while I was away, a GST has been introduced but income tax has eased off a bit.

We just bought a house ( bad timing as it looks like we got in at the end of a boom ) in Brisbane, 8km from the city that is 4 br 3 bath and it was 500K ... if it had been in Hartford, CT it would be 380-400 for the same size house in a similar area. Had it been the bay area it would be $800, NY state, some place like Albany probably 300 ... so like someone else said, it's apples and oranges.

Someone earlier complained about Mexican and it's true, you don't get real Mexican in Australia ... but the Thai and Indian is much better.

Having tickets home every year is an incredible bonus and would definitely make it MUCH easier. I found with how things were growing here in Australia that when I came back after 2 or 3 years, it had changed so much that it didn't quite feel like home anymore and would have been easier if I could get back for at least a week every year.

Some stuff is great here, beaches are much nicer and you can't own beachfront so you never have to pay to get onto one, where as in CT even the ugliest beach cost 10 bucks to park and 7 to get onto a beach where it was too cold to swim anyway...

but then other stuff does your head in, it is a police state here in Qld and police will give you a ticket for speeding, even if it's only marginally above the limit, on a straight road that's had no accident on it.

Riding I enjoy both places. I was worried that Brisbane wouldn't be as bike friendly as the states but I've found people to be quite good so far.

For schooling I think it's much of a muchness. For my visa they had to compare my qualifications against the equivalent in America and they found them to be the same ... although it's easier to move between the two countries with the new visa since the FTA.

I totally think you should do it, I figured, when I moved to the states, that I always have a p*ss off clause, if I didn't like it I could always p*ss off home and it's no loss, but it turned out to be the most amazing experience of my life. Even if the cost of living was heaps different, I would do it all again. You've got nothing to lose.

Damian

62vette

Good luck with your missus working for Quintiles. A friend of mine just took a redundancy from them from a senior position. It was a big relief to get out of there, but that was just their experience with recent senior management changes in Oz.

Quintiles is a little different from other pharma companies in that they pretty much only run drug trials in NZ and Oz, and don't market any drugs in the region.

Brian

Plenty of drugs in Newcastle...

62vette

Not the FDA tested and approved variety though

rambler1au

Theres really only one place to live in australia and thats western australia. It beats the rat races in the eastern states hands down, in fact theyre breaking their necks to get here.
Luckily were still in the Commonwealth so theyre allowed in.
Sydney = drugs
melbourne = organised crime
adelaide= BORING
perth = yahoo!!!!!!!!

Sorry I forgot Hobart (doesnt everyone) and where the hell is Brisbane?

Johnny_Monkey

Problem with Perth is that it's too far away from anything and the shops aren't open on Sundays or after 6pm during the week. Very quiet too. Nice place to ride bikes though.

Sydney is the best place to live IMO but I wouldn't ride there.

The other thing about Perth is that due to the property boom there it's very difficult to get accommodation at the moment.

rambler1au

Yes property is expensive nowadays and if I had known I would have bought a couple of houses in a trendy suburb and retired. But theres plenty of accomodation still

Anyway sigh, the shops not being open on sunday is a good thing as I try and ride on sunday and being far away from everything is great except you need to jump on a plane to get anywhere else in the world.

Nevertheless without insulting anyone this time its a great place to ride a bike cos its flat, golf is cheap and so the high powered jobs are in Sydney who cares.

Johnny_Monkey

Been a bit hot lately though.

531Aussie

any problems with "indigenous" gangs is there?

Or is that just some media rubbish I saw?