Tag: reflection

The Hard Part of Living Abroad 

Dear 2006 Me,

You’re about to move to England. Big step but it feels right and you will have the right mix of apprehensiveness and excitement. You don’t realise it yet but this is a pivotal point of your life.

At this point your thinking you’ll be away for at least 2 maybe 5 years as that’s when your visa runs out and by then you’ll be 28 and ready to come home.

This is not the case- 10 years in and you’ll still not be sure when or if you’ll move back.

When you step on the plane you’ll be thinking of the adventures your going to have, the people you’ll meet, the countries you’ll go to and the new life you’ll have. What you won’t be thinking about is what you’ll end up missing out on at home while your away and rightly so in your mind your only going for a couple of years. Not much will happen in that time. Although it’s glaringly obvious, you forget life will go on even if your not there.

You’ll go home almost every year and funnily enough more times than your sister but you can’t be there for every occasion. When your sister gets married, your best friend has a baby, a family member suddenly passes away you’ll be there and reminding yourself that the worlds not that big. But the longer you’re away the more things you start to not be able to be there for like when your grandad is ill and needs to move into a home and your grandma needs support, when your family get together to celebrate anniversaries, significant birthdays, random off the cuff weekend catch ups, meeting friends new partners, engagement parties and town celebrations.

A few weeks ago it was Dad’s 60th birthday and you won’t be there for the party. Yes you saw him a month earlier on an amazing family holiday and celebrated with everyone then but you miss out on being there now. You’ll facetime (FaceTime is amazing just you wait) and talk to everyone and see how much fun they are having together and they will laugh at how rugged up your are when it’s so warm there and then you’ll hang up and smile but that smile will fade into tears. Tears of sadness that your not there, guilt that your not there and longing as you wish to be there and not in your lounge getting ready to put the washing away.

Im not writing this to you to stop you from going or to create any further guilt as you need to go. You need to live your life. But you need to know these things as your going to have to be strong. Really strong. No one will ever tell you about this side of living away (only all the practical points of living abroad) and you do learn how to cope with it even if at times you won’t feel like you can.

You need to make sure you enjoy every moment and every new thing you see as this will shape you and make you into the person you are meant to be. As much as you’re longing to be at home with everyone they will be looking at your Facebook, text messages, Instagram and feeling envious that your having a weekend in Paris or that your off on another girly holiday to somewhere fabulous in Europe. They’ll want to be there for you when you have a bad day, hospital appointments, celebrate the promotion you got or even take you out for dinner when you get engaged (yes you get engaged!). This is just the way it is.

It might sound all doom and gloom but it’s not. It’s amazing – you have so many friends who are your extended family, you fall in love, you see things you never thought you would, you have a great job, mum comes to celebrate your 30th, you even get a pet rabbit and most importantly you have the most amazing family that are there for you regardless of the miles or oceans between.

Home is where the heart is and your fortunate enough to have your heart on both sides of the world.

Be strong and enjoy!

X

oh and look out for a guy that gives you a jar of vegemite on your first date. He’s a keeper and will always make you smile when your missing home

Jealous of my former carefree travelling self

Recently while in New York we used the subway ALOT and let me stress it  was perfectly fine and more importantly the best and cheapest way round the city. However there was only one time when I felt a little unsafe and that was on a completely empty platform with trains coming very few and far between, 2 slightly creepy characters, not in my native city, no one knew where we were and a little unsure as to if we were even on the right platform. Obviously we were fine  but it got me thinking about just how much the world has changed.

In my late teens  I went back packing across Italy and Greece with a friend for a month. It was amazing we travelled all over, ate and drank  our way through the countries, stayed in hostels and campsites, caught trains/planes/ferries and saw places I had only ever dreamed of seeing. But also we did a lot of things I would never dream of doing now (and also would never dream of letting my parents know what I did- Mum look away now!)

So there we were two young impressionable girls with our luggage off on the trip of a lifetime with only a guide book and the wind in our hair.  We only had booked accommodation in Rome for the first night we got there the rest of the trip we were leaving up to chance. Very unlikely I would do that now. I would  have researched the accommodation, checked on Tripadivsor and have a least some idea of the route I would be taking.

We turned up in every location found someone who was touting accommodation and picked where we wanted to stay which was usually the cheapest. Some we were lucky with and some we just felt a bit uneasy but it didn’t stop us. We did this morning , noon and night. When we were in the Greek Islands we would just get off the boat in the middle of the night and follow some random tout back to their hotel/bnb/campsite. At the time we had no dramas with this but I often look back and think what the hell were we thinking!! Anything could have happened to us. We could have been taken anywhere.

We never locked any of our belongings up – but I guess we didn’t have iphones, ipads, fancy cameras, huge amounts of money or anything to special like what I would take away now.

We had two dubious train journeys. One which we shared a sleeper carriage with 3 very disturbing and creepy men. So much so that we didn’t sleep or at least tried to sleep with one eye open. The second was another over night train from Florence to Brindis which required a 4 hour stop at a deserted station in Arrezo at 4am in the morning. This was the only part where we at the time felt unsafe. I even called my parents in Australia just to hear their voices. Obviously I didn’t let on the predicament we were in. They didn’t need to know how reckless we had been!

Imagine not only turning up to a hostel in the middle of the night but then to see your friend riding off in the streets (at 1am!) on the back of an Italian hostel workers moped (said workers helmet was covered in MANY girls autographs) to get croissants.  Whilst she was off cruising the streets I was waiting back in a very empty hostel. 

Whilst I look back on these experiences and think ‘you cray cray’ I also look back and wouldn’t have that trip any other way. The stories, the memories, the adventure. I’m also a bit jealous of my former self. To travel with such a carefree spirit, trusting people, trusting my own judgement,  no fear of harm, not planning or researching to the nth degree it’s exactly what travelling should be.  The saddest part is with the world the way it is I couldn’t do this now. Others might but I couldn’t.

Being in Times Square the day before New Years Eve it was at the back of my mind this is the busiest place this time of the year. Could there be a terrorist ttack, could the wrong person be there, could someone with a vendetta against the world be there and want to hurt people. I felt reassured that there was an abudence of police presence. I felt safer knowing there were. And I felt upset that I had thought about that when I should be taking in the sights, sounds and magic of being there.

It’s sad that this freeness feeling isn’t what it was years ago (now I sound like my grandparents talking about the good old days) but I would love to be that naïve, carefree, wandering traveller. One thing I will never let go is a desire to go out and see the world. Yes everywhere you need to be aware of your safety but the main point is that you still go and still see what this beautiful world has to offer.