I am officially Australian now 
My long time dream to become part of this country has finally came true. It was made official on 11th of December 2008 after approximately two months I have lodged the application.
The citizenship ceremony was held in Melbourne CBD, near the office of Department of Immigration, in the place called Royal Australasian College of Surgeons. I think the reason for that was the fact that the building is quite beautiful and has several halls suitable for this type of formal ceremonies:
Royal Australasian College of Surgeons
The were not many people attending ceremony together with me. I would say around 15 people with additional 30 friends and family. When I arrived there, lady at the entrance found my name on the attendees list, and gave me my citizenship certificate and Australian citizenship pledge card.
I was a bit surprised that the ceremony was not exactly what I have expected:
I thought a representative of Aboriginal community will be present at the ceremony, and will be giving us our certificates one by one as we go on stage. Also, I thought that us, new citizens of Australia will be given a little tree to plant (I got this impression from several people that I know that already got Australian citizenship).
Well, a representative of Aboriginal community was not there, and we were not given a little tree to plant. Instead, some lady with sleepy face from Department of Immigration was present to conduct the ceremony.
Honestly speaking, not having an Aboriginal person there and a little tree were just some minor details. What was really important, the fact that I was becoming Australian and at the end of the day I did not really care whether my new Government gave me a tree or not
The conducting ceremony lady got on a small stage and began by explaining us our duties and privileges as Australian citizens. Following that, she invited us to say the Australian citizenship pledge. We all stood up, and started reading from our cards.
After that, the lady has congratulated us for becoming Australian citizens and we were free to take pictures (if we wanted to). The little stage had Australian flag on it, and a picture of the Queen. We were also offered tea and cookies .
I attended the ceremony with my girlfriend and my uncle, and after taking few pictures we went home.
Australian Citizenship Certificate
The above is a thumbnail of my citizenship certificate, just click on it if you want to see the larger picture. The link will open in the new window.
loading...
Related posts:
- Australian Citizenship – The lodgement
Finally the moment that I have been anticipating for has come – today I have lodged my application to become Australian citizen. Wooo... - Australian Citizenship – At last!
It was just a day… Like any other day… I was coming back from work as usual, taking 6:02pm train from Flinders train...
