Snapshots

Wow – it’s been way too long since I last wrote about my adventures down under. So much has happened since I came back from my ‘winter travels’ that I’m not sure how else to catch up on the many tales to tell, but to give snapshots of the past 4 months. So here it goes:

July in Eire.

How do I begin with this tale?

Once upon a time…
In a land not so far from here…
There once was a girl who met a boy…

Really, no matter how I start this tale, the fact that the 10 days I spent in Ireland was a romantic fairy tale will be utterly blatant. But I do need to first lay some background tracks to give points of the story relevance.

When I moved to Australia, I was single. Free as a bird, ready to soar through countries and spaces unknown without a care in the world. I arrived in the Auckland airport, chatting to a girl I recognised from the LA airport, who was on my same flight. From behind our module of seats came a bright eyed, blonde North American who introduced herself as Rebecca. She had overheard me say I was moving to Australia without a job and without anywhere to live – so of course her ears perked!

Fast forward 2 months – Rebecca and I are moving into an apartment together in South Yarra (a suburb SE of the CBD) and are tied to the hip. I clung to her as my ‘first friend in Australia’ and she had been here for a year at that point – so was more than willing to show me around the town so to speak. On one particular weekend, we headed to a local pub to watch the rugby match. Clearly I had no interested in rugby, or even knew what was going on during the match, but it was an excuse to get out of the house and meet some new people. A friend of hers from work came for a bit, and then she informed me that another friend from work, Ryan, was also coming with a couple of his Irish mates.

Well, I’m always up for meeting new people, especially Irish boys with fantastic accents – so when they traipsed through the door, acting as suave as can be, I also played it cool, despite my giddiness inside. They introduced themselves, and just like any other time you are introduced to people – you shake their hand, try to remember their name, but 2 seconds later, you’ve already forgotten (especially when they have a name like Paedar, pronounced ‘Pah-dur’ which is ‘Peter’ in Irish.) Well there was name that did stick out, and of course it did, because it was Dave. How many David’s can I meet?! I mean – really! I shook off the thought and continued on through the night, not paying much attention.

Fast forward a couple of weeks – Bec and I went ice skating – and who else was there, none other than the Irish boys again. All I heard as I entered the skating rink was ‘Dave, Dave – looks who’s here!”

Forward another couple of weeks – Bec and I decided to throw a ‘North America’ party – and we of course had to host it at the Irish’s house, because the place was so big.

Now all the way to July 2012. Sitting on a plane, taking off to Dublin. Dave finally admits to me that he was planting seeds all along the way. Waiting patiently for the seed to take root and grow into a full blown love tree that I couldn’t shake. We like to reminisce about that first night we met – I thinking, oh great, another David. He was thinking, ‘Hey lads, Bec invited us to go out with her and her new friend Bethany from America. She sounds hot.’

He then had used his best friend Dave and his fiancé Sorcha to invite me to their wedding in Dublin so he could ask me as his date. I would just HAVE to go back with him then to meet the family!

So there we were – touching down in Dublin after a painfully long couple of flights. Meeting his mom and literally 20 minutes later, Dave rushing off to the bachelor party, leaving me with the family for the weekend while he was off with the boys. But of course I didn’t mind – his mom, Sorcha and I had a ball! The rest of the week’s time was spent shopping, visiting the grandparents, helping Sorcha with final touches of wedding planning, rehearsal dinner, wedding, day-after-the-wedding garden party (very Ralph Laurenesque).

Time flew entirely way too fast. It was just enough time to give me a taste of life in Ireland, and I have to admit – I’ve got the bug pretty bad! Every person was just brilliant. They were incredibly friendly, thoughtful and fun people. (I went for a run along the beach one morning – and stopped to have a chat with a lady for about 20 minutes about why I was in Ireland!)

So – it appears that I need/want to make my way back very soon - I mean, I became a socialite (known as Pocahontas because of my dark hair and skin)! So, here’s to planning my next trip back soon, which will hopefully be just as beautiful weather and romanticised as the last time (here’s to wishful thinking!).

August’s Winter Blues.

Well, I must admit – once I came back from all my travels to the US, KL, Singapore, Ireland, I returned to Melbourne and it was STILL cold, wintery weather. I was hoping that I had been travelling long enough that I wouldn’t have endure cold and rain, but alas – this proved to be one of the longest winters ever in Melbourne. I think I just came off of a high from travelling and I sunk into a depression. Not much was going on social wise. Work was ho-hum. And it seemed to rain about every day of that month.

I was pretty much ready to say adios to Melbourne, when Dave surprised me with a spur of the moment idea to go to Sydney to see Dave and Sorcha the first weekend of September...

September in Sydney.

So that brings me to September. We flew up to Sydney for the weekend – and there’s never a doubt that a trip visiting our dear friends Dave and Sorch won’t be a brilliant time. We had an awesome dinner and night out on the Friday and on the Saturday, we took the ferry to Manly beach where we hung out along the water all day long. The worst part about trips like that, is that we have to say our good-byes and head back to work.

Not a bother though, because a couple of weekends later, I was heading back to Sydney to compete in the Tough Mudder competition! There was  team of 8 of us – and through the thick and thin of 20 kilometers of running, mountain trails, obstacles, mud, mud and even more mud, we stuck together as a team and finished 5 hours later!! The day after the race, we hung out at the beach, went to see the Opera house, and sat around the Botannical gardens (getting stuck at the airport with a threat to have to sleep in the airport for the night was only a side issue).

I could feel spring in the air – the warmth was in the air and the number of activities was increasing. I had come out of my seasonal depression, and all of a sudden, my email inbox seemed to be flooded with invites to different things going on for the next few months. Finally!!

October, Frocktober.  

One event in particular that I was excited to participate in, was Frocktober. Now, to explain, dresses in Australia are called Frocks. The idea of Frocktober started alongside an event called Movember.

Frocktober – to raise money for the Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation, individuals, groups, etc can pledge to wear a frock every single day of October and their friends and family can make a donation on their behalf. Many groups arrange Frock parties (where even boys dress up to get the big bucks donated!) There are a few of us girls taking on the challenge at work –and so far, so good. I guess I didn’t realise how many dresses I owned until I had to start wearing on every day. Some of them are a stretch to wear into the office (not really ‘corporate wear’) but I’ve gotten away with it – and have a couple more weeks to go!

Movember – Same concept, except boys have to grow Moustaches for the whole month of November – to raise money for Testicular cancer. Really, offices just start to look like one big 80’s dad party, but it’s pretty amazing.

Let’s see, what else has been going on this month? Oh – I finished my first 10k race since my broken ankle. Ran it in 48min 23 sec – which isn’t too shabby considering! I was very proud of myself.

Works been going great, all the friends are tip-top shape, the sun is finally shining – I really have every reason to rejoice at life at the moment!

Some big events (ie. My 25^th birthday, the Colour Run, Thanksgiving, etc) are coming up next month – so many activities to look forward to!

So – hopefully this snap shot has helped to catch up wear I’ve been the last 4 months. So while the US is heading into Fall, Winter, I am in Spring, heading into Summer and couldn’t be more happy.

So until next time – sending everyone a bit of hot hot Australian sun and big hugs and kisses.

Singapore

What a place! I was exhausted from 2 weeks of classroom training and running around Malaysia. The last thing I wanted to do was more walking, but I sucked it up (because, well, there’s not too many times you get a flight to another country paid for) so I needed to take advantage. I landed about dinner time Friday night and was exhausted and hungry.

First things first though, I needed to drop my luggage to the hostel. With zero clue as to where I was or how to tell the taxi driver how to get to where I needed to go, I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best. After what felt like an hour, weaving around the dark but busy city, we finally arrived on the street where the hostel was supposed to be located. The driver slowed down to a crawl, trying to spot the building numbers. Thankfully he spoke English and could understand that we were looking for a Hostel. He eventually gave the ‘ah-ha!’ and pulled up to the curb in front of a red door, tucked away in a dark alcove. Kindly, after I paid him and was pulling my luggage out of the back seat, he threw in casually (and quickly lost ALL thankfulness that he spoke English), “Oh, you’re staying right by the dead bodies!” Absolutely appalled by the statement, I frantically scanned my surroundings, trying not to panic, and that’s when I spotted what he was talking about. Indeed, my hostel was located directly next to the cities’ largest mortuary! I pushed the thought deep into suppression and made my way to ring the doorbell and then up the steep, narrow staircase to a rooftop terrace. In front of me, at the top of the stairs, were two large desks pushed together to create an ‘L’ shape. A man in his late 20’s sat behind the desk, scrambling back and forth between paperwork and the computer, clearly frantic to find the booking of the 20-something year old couple sitting on the other side of the desk from him. He politely looked up and told me to have a seat by a row of computers on the adjacent wall, that he would be with me in a minute. 30 minutes later, he finally escorted the couple to their room, folded some towels and after taking them back down to the couple, Finally came back to the ‘lobby.’

Logging onto one of the computers along the wall I was sitting by, he quickly found my reservation and informed me I had been upgraded to a ‘module’ bed. Didn’t have a clue what that was, but at that stage didn’t care – just wanted to put down my things and go in search for some food. I followed him down a staircase leading down the back to a courtyard, home to the washing machines and bathroom. We came to a doorway and he motioned me to take off my shoes before entering into the ‘bed hall.’ Turning the corner after a row of bunk beds, the concept of a module bed because extremely apparent. It was literally a wall of square, container shaped holes large enough to fit a single bed mattress. A lamp was drilled into the top corner and there were ladders leading to the upper containers. He brought me to the last bunk on the bottom right (happy to not have to climb up into my bed for the next two nights) and then he handed me a towel/sheet/tapestry(?). I’m still not too sure if I was meant to use the large sheet of woven fabric as my sheet that night, but I first used it to hang across the opening of the bunk so I could leave a few of my bags on the bed, concealed (there was a compartment under the bunk with a door to store my other two large bags).

Freshening up a tad, I left in search of some much needed food – but of course having no clue as to the layout of the city, let alone where or what to eat, I impulsively jumped in a taxi and asked him to take me to the harbour. Right, so the harbour (which I discovered after getting out of the taxi in essentially the middle of the road outside the Marina Bay Sands hotel) is mostly made up of the hotel and all its affiliate businesses (Casino, shopping mall, botanical gardens). The Helix Bridge connects one side of the harbour and has been on several of those ‘ top sites to see lists’ – and for good reason! The design, structure and lights make it look almost like a strand of DNA. Across the street from that was the parking deck for the hotel  - now usually a parking garage is not something to rave about, but the outside walls were fitted with metal plates hanging on steel cords, strung from the top to bottom of the garage. When the wind blew, the plates would begin to move, creating a ripple effect down the side of the building , and it sounded like waves rolling across the ocean. I was so in awe and impressed by the installation – that I had to stand there and watch it for a few minutes.

Realising my hunger, I re-focused my attention to find some sort of restaurant, but there didn’t appear to be much. I discovered the mall and thought there had to be some sort of restaurant or food court - and I was right. The entire basement level of the mall was a massive food court, much like the one I ate at in Malaysia. I wandered for a good 10 minutes attempting to scope out the menus at each of the stalls, when I spotted a guy carrying a large plate of fried rice – and that was it. My mouth starting watering and I had to find the place where he got it. Heading in the direction he had come from, I finally found a stall with the rice and some Chinese broccoli in oyster sauce (which is essentially soy/teriyaki sauce. Got my order and the set off with my tray to find a seat and that’s when I became extremely irritable. I walked with my tray of food for what felt to be about 15 minutes. Every table I walked up to that had an empty seat (there were table of 4 and large community round and rectangle tables), I would ask if I could sit and I was refused every single time! Usually an easy-going person, my hunger pains and my patience got the best of me so as soon as I noticed someone getting up, I swooped in and took their seat without asking and starting shovelling the rice in my mouth as quickly as I could. When my plate was nearly empty, I was interrupted by the loud coughing of a middle aged white man sitting across from me. Usually this wouldn’t make me blink an eye, but the fact that he was clearly another North American in a sea of Asians made the two of us stand out – and of course made me a target for him to strike up completely unnecessary conversation. He obviously had starting coughing to catch my attention, but as soon as I looked up he smiled at me and broke out into conversation, asking all the typical questions – where are you from, why are you here, etc. I was polite and answered with short, one word or sentence replies or nods of the head. Only when he mentioned he was staying at the Marina Bay Sands did it peak my interest – ONLY because guests have special access to parts of the roof that normal tourists aren’t allowed to visit. He asked if I wanted to see – and I jumped on the chance. Now no worries, I had my guard up and I had an exit strategy (because, let’s be honest – it was a bit dodgy and I didn’t want him getting any wrong ideas.) I used him to get to the roof and then I ditched! But I got to see the lights and fireworks show across the bay from up there, got to see the infinity pool that goes to the edge of the building, spanning the entire middle section of the roof, and I got to see the restaurant/bar that’s raved about. I was exhausted for my travels so went back to the hostel after that to try to sleep (leaving my woven cloth as my ‘door’ to the container, wrapping myself instead in my fleece.)

The next morning a different man was sitting at the front desk and he was extremely nice and helpful with places to see. I walked the opposite direction I had gone the night before and spent the rest of the day wandering the streets through Hindu temples, Little India (where I got lost and a bit panicked because it actually felt like the dirty/smelly streets of Bangalore with creepy men staring – but I did locate a highly recommended curry restaurant where I had a delicious chick-pea curry and naan bread served on a large banana leaf), China Town (hundreds of stalls of everything fake/cheap you could think of), all the quays along the river (lined with bars, restaurants and shops), and back down to the bay (to see it during the day.) There was a music festival on while I was there, so I stopped to listen to one of the bands playing at an amphitheatre over the water. While that was going on, there was simultaneously a tribute to the Singapore military happening in a separate amphitheatre a bit further around the bay. It proved to be an afternoon of entertainment of music, boat shows (military boats and dragon boats lit up on the water once the sun went down) and fireworks. Having to get up at 4:30 the next morning to make it to the airport, I decided to head back to bed – but happy with all the things I was able to see in just one day.

Catching a taxi which the driver was still on his rounds from the night before, I made it to the airport in plenty of time. Once landing back in Malaysia (I had to catch my flight back to Aus from KL) – I had about 3 hours to get to my next gate. Leaving customs to go back to departures, I just couldn’t seem to locate Air Asia’s ticket terminals. I finally asked one of the help desks and she informed me that they were in a whole separate terminal all together. My heart started to race a tad – so I left that building in search for where I was meant to be. I asked a taxi man if he could drive me to the Air Asia terminal and he told me I had to buy a ticket. What?! He pointed towards a building with booths for transportation tickets. The lady behind that counter said it was $35 ringgits for a taxi and it was about a 30 minute trip. AHHHH! I had just waisted about 25 minutes just to figure this information out – and not it was another 30 minutes to the terminal – and $35?! Stubborn me asked if there was another way and just pointed back outside to a bus lane that had a shuttle running and was only $2. Done.

I had ‘plenty of time’ still and the bus couldn’t take that long. Wrong. I waited another 30 minutes in that bus lane, asking every driver who pulled in if that was the shuttle to Air Asia. Finally the 10^th bus that pulled in was the correct one. I paid my money, sat down and started panicking that I would actually miss my flight at this stage and be stranded in Malaysia. 10 minutes later we took off down the road and about ½ way through the journey, the driver pulled off to the side of the road, unannounced. What could he possibly be doing – but to my surprise, a large group of people appeared out of nowhere and started piling onto the bus, each one having to pay there $2 to board – which ate up another 15 minutes of my time! The driver pulled onto the road (counting the money he had just collected, while operating the vehicle!!) and about 15 minutes later, we had finally arrived. I was one of the first to exit and had to take 5, yes 5! separate escalators to make it to the departure floor of this terminal. Rounding the corner, I spotted the Air Asia line, only to see a sign that all Air Asia departures had been moved further down to one area – and when I looked, the line was about 150 people long. By this time I only had about 1 hour left before my flight was meant to depart, I had been up since about 4 that morning and I was starving. I was not in a good mood and I was too anxious and antsy to stand still. The line moved, slowly but surely and I soon had my bags checked and RAN towards my departure gate. Thankfully the gates were quite close together and I made it in time to grab a bit to eat, buy some water and send a couple of post cards to my family.

I slumped into a chair at the gate and could finally relax. The plane left on time, the flight was fairly uneventful and Dave was waiting at the airport to collect me when I arrived. I was more than delighted to be back, but was nonetheless happy to have been able to see two countries that were so vastly different than a life I had grown up being used to.

This is it.

One year has flown by way to quickly. This exact time last year, I had finally just landed in Australia and had a chance to let it sink in that yes, I HAD made the move and there was no going back now. Reflecting back, there are so many things that have happened over this last year that I never in my life expected to happen. I mean, just take a reminding look at my blog's profile 'About Me':

As I left the Glory days of the University of Georgia, I embarked on an adventure that I soon began to refer to as "Stumbling Through My 20's." It seemed only appropriate to document these graceful moments of highs and lows in a sequence of chapters appropriately titled by the major surrounding events. I begin this documentation with Chapter 6: Stumbling Down Under. Although I will go back to write Chapters 1-5, I begin the tale here, with the greatest, most looked forward to, yet most terrifying event of my life: Moving to Melbourne, Australia for One Year. Over this next year, I am hopeful and anxious to meet many new people, work on a vineyard, travel, and most importantly, gather as many life lessons from these future memories as possible, to return to the U.S. in one year as a new and improved version of myself. Let the journey begin...


I know I've talked about this before, and I think this time, I can actually revise the facts in my 'About Me' to be more accurate, because obviously by the looks of it, I will be in Australia for much longer than originally planned. I haven't worked on a vineyard, but I have travelled, (I've unexpectedly met a boy!) and I have achieved the most important part - I have started to and will continue to gain as many life lessons as possible to take with me for the rest of my life. I have become a new and improved version of myself, but I am still continuing to grow, and I can't wait to see where I am at in yet another year.

Just to reminisce, here are 5 of some of the most important lessons I've learned:

1. Don't jump off balconies and miss the bean bag.
2. Patience. Doors that need to be opened will open in time. Fret and worry won't make it open any faster.
3. How to drive on the left hand side of the road (which in turns equates to escalators and the 'correct' flow of traffic on sidewalks as well).
4. IT language. Before starting at Accenture, I was lucky to be able to keep my laptop intact when it decided to freeze or shut all my programs down unexpectedly. I can now happily say that I am learning some valuable terminology and useful facts (including Excel shortcuts!) to help me in the workplace. (Don't you dare ask me to fix your laptop though. That's what Geek Squad is for).
5. Who my real friends are. (That may sound harsh, but moving to the complete other side of the world separates you from a place where you can have acquaintances who are there when you have no other plans. If you want to stay in touch with someone, you put in the effort to.)

I don't know where my life is headed, and I don't want to. I am so happy where I am at right now - not only from where I was just 1 year ago, but how my life is shaping to carry me on to the next adventure, the next journey. So as I said in my 'About Me,' ..."Let the Journey Begin..." , I now say, "Let the Journey Continue."

Food carts, caves with monkeys and even more falling.

I was waiting in the KL airport to head to Singapore for the weekend. I had heard rumours of fantastic food and shopping in this extremely clean Asian city– it has an extremely strict government that ensure rules (e.g. “No spitting your gum on the sidewalk”) are abided by. I had just finished a two-week-long training session for work. Not only were the 9 hour days full of Powerpoint presentations gruelling, we wanted to see the town during our evenings. I had successfully completely exhausted myself to say the least. However, I had met amazing new friends, from all over the world. I now have connections and invitations to visit Hong Kong, Thailand and Dubai. There were people there as well from all the major cities in Australia (Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Sydney.) The goal of the training course was to improve our communication skills, networking and learn the step by step processes of a typical Accenture project from start to finish. It was helpful in that there were certain aspects of even my project that I never really fully understood, and now the light bulb has gone off!

I honestly did not have a clue of what to expect KL to look like. Driving from the airport to the hotel, I was pleasantly surprised to see quite a large, modern city with nice shopping areas, beautiful hotels and clean streets, all surrounded by plush, green tropical hills. The people are a mix of Malaysian, Chinese and Indian, which obviously led to a very multi-cultural feeling in terms of the people walking around, the different varieties of food and the overall cultural feeling. There is also a draw of Middle Eastern tourism, so when walking down the street, I felt almost scandalous at points in time when wearing a skirt and tank top because of the number of Islamic women covered from head to two with only their eyes showing. However, seeing this entirely foreign culture to me was a draw to leave the hotel after class to explore as much as possible. Therefore after class, we typically went to the pool, and then headed on the monorail to Bukhit Butang, which is an area of town with huge shopping complexes. I envisioned dirt cheap deals, which we did find at the enormous shopping centre of Sungei Wang, but the quality was so poor, it was not even worth buying! (And after a few days of eating buffet, or at the Chinese and Italian restaurants located at the hotel, we were more than ready to venture out for some real, local flavours).

The Monorail

A massive food court spanned the entire basement of Sungei Wang – I have never seen anything like it. Food stalls everywhere! All around the perimeter walls, as well as filling the centre as well. Tables and chairs were shoved into any available space. Mirrored pillars helped bounce light around, attempting to keep it from feeling cave-like. The lights, smells and yelling of hawkers were overwhelming and almost had me in a panic. I was famished by that point and all I wanted was a big plate of fried rice, or something of the sort, to fill my stomach without having to question with every bite of what I actually was ingesting. Continuing to be drawn to the same noodle bar, I settled on a soup of vegetables and rice noodles. The friendly staff behind the counter assured me that there was NO meat in the soup (I am pretty sure I ate more questionable things while there, I just won’t think too hard about it). After collecting my large bowl and rounding up the troops to one, central table, I sat down to the steaming broth. It was quite tasty, (floating at the centre of the bowl was a mass of crunchy noodles that added a salty crunch), so I lapped it up in just a few minutes, only stopping to buy a bottle of water from a nice lady pushing drinks and sweets around on a trolley.

I must say, the food court experience (and food courts are a big deal in Asia, mostly due to the large assortment of cheap, Asian style cooking – I mean, how many different ways can you cook meat, veg and rice, but I digress) was not nearly traumatizing as I think I was assuming it would be. The food was not as scary as I expected and the people were eager to help you find something you would enjoy eating…

Eating from a street vendor, however, was quite a different experience. On about our 4^th night in KL, a couple of the girls in my training class invited me to finally venture out of the hotel to see what the rave was all about with the ‘shopping and eating’ in KL. By my previous statements, you might be able to foresee that we did not stay long at the shopping centre due to the poor quality of these ‘bargain clothing items.’ Instead, we gave into our hunger pains and ventured down one of the side streets in search for some great, local food. Low and behold, we stumbled upon one of the main streets of food vendors and night markets in KL. Lights were strung up between the buildings; people were bustling with excitement of, dodging from one food cart to the other, inspecting the menus and gauging the quality of the food based on the number of people already occupying the seats set up at front of the stall. Carts piled high with fruit and veg for sale, as well as ones with rows of skewers ( holding assortments of meat, fish, veg, etc. meant to be bought and cooked in large pots of steaming liquid) were parked in any open space between the ‘restaurants.’ We chose one that seemed to have a good number of people out front, and were pretty much forced into that decision after the host saw our hesitation out front and grabbing that second, ushered us in amongst the rows of tables and sat us before we had even blinked an eye. A menu was pushed in front of my face, and before I could even grab hold to start flicking through the pages, the waitress flicked through them for me, ensuring she pointed out every ‘special’ on the menu. Another lady appeared out of nowhere to toss a bowl of peanuts and a different bowl holding jalapenos onto the table. The first waitress disappeared, bringing us back some water, wipes to wash our hands, and a couple of Tiger beers (the Budweiser of Asia). Leaving but a split second to ourselves, the usher lost no time in running over, stealing my friend, Marybeth’s menu from her hands, declaring he ‘needed to borrow this for a quick second.’ He returned a moment later, menu-less and announced he would decide for us what we would eat (we warned him against bringing meat), then scurried off to place our order with the kitchen. The food was surprisingly quite nice – we had prawns, Chinese broccoli and some fried rice.

Food Cart Skewers

We also had quite a bit of entertainment while sitting there, enjoying our food. It started with a man in about his 20’s attempting to ‘Wow’ us over with his collection of wooden fruit baskets that could collapse flat, or when popped open, resembled 3D apples, pears, etc. They were one of those hideous souvenirs that you would find hanging on the wall of your 80 year old great-aunts house. Next up was a 10 year old boy who stealthily stuck up behind us, placing some bracelets on our table and then turned pathetically towards us with his hands out, hoping for any amount of change we could spare for one of his creations. Marybeth had previously warned us against buying anything from them, so I guiltily shooed him away. An array of other beggars and street vendors sauntered by our table, and slowly as the sun sank further in the sky, the street was filled with hungry restaurant goers and street vendors. One man rode up on his push-bike (what they call a plain bicycle here), dismounted and leaned against the cart he was towing behind his bike. After adjusting certain locks and hooks, he sat down in a wheelchair that he mysteriously had produced and began making little metal shaped objects he was hoping to sell to passer-by’s. Out of all these entertainment acts, the most intriguing to me were two separate sets of people, doing the exact same thing. They were two different disabled people, being pushed by someone they knew alongside the tables of the restaurants. Strapped to the wheelchairs were large sets of speakers playing various tunes, while the person in the wheelchair belted out the lyrics to the songs through a microphone, also hooked up to the speakers. It was heart-wrenching, yet bizarre and almost sad that they had to beg for money this way. After seeing this, I selfishly asked if we could pay the bill and quickly head back to our hotel, I had enough of this whole other world of culture.

The bill came, and to our shock, they had charged us for those bowls of peanuts and jalapenos – we hadn’t even asked for them, yet alone eaten them! Even more shocking than that though – was the second item on the bill – the hand wipes the first waitress had brought to use with our drinks! We didn’t want to cause a scene (and honestly, they hadn’t charged us that much), so we politely paid for all of it and thanked them for the meal.

One evening, after class, we headed to view the Petronas Towers (‘Twin Towers’), which are magnificently lit up at night, the KL Tower and a couple of rooftop bars (Luna and Sky Bar). All of these are KL Landmarks that dominate the sky during the day, and even more so at night. From any spot, they are fantastic views of the city and lend for great backdrops for a night out.

Petronas Towers

On the one long weekend we had in KL, we trouped up to the Batu Caves. Located about 20 minutes from the city, there are two caves that draw a large number of tourists every day. The first is mostly one large cavern, brightly lit from all the skylights and the home to a Hindu temple that draws practicing believers for worship. Monkeys, actual, live monkeys, crowded the large staircase and surrounding trees leading up to the cave. They acted as sort of ‘guardians’ –stealing people’s food and water bottles straight from their hands when they got the chance!

The second is the ‘dark cave’ and is one of the most ecologically rich and most researched caves in the world (due to the number of species of insects, flora & fauna and bats). We opted to first have a look around the temple cave. Called ‘The Ramayana Cave,’ it depicts the story of Rama in a chronicle manner along the walls of the cave. In my typical nature, I was busy taking pictures of the brightly colored statues, paintings on the walls and fascinating people. Not paying attention, I stepped off a ledge that was literally only 1” high. The next 5 seconds were a blur and felt more like 5 minutes as I flew through the air, flinging my sunnies (sunglasses) and camera through the air, both skidding across the floor of the cave to stop about 10 feet in front of me. Biting my tongue to keep myself from screaming out loud in this sacred temple, I jumped to my feet (only then realizing how badly I had twisted my bad ankle in the fall). Looking down, I was covered in dust and dirt and had scraped on my knee that had already begun to bleed. How humiliating! Thankfully one of the girls in the group had a wet wipe and I had some hand sanitizer to attempt to clean my wound. If only I had something to clean away my hurt pride! Thankfully, it was time to head into the dark cave anyways, so I could disappear into the darkness and away from the stares of the 100’s of people also visiting the cave on that sunny Saturday.

The dark cave was fascinating and our guide was quite insightful on the facts and history behind the large, luminous natural structure. Bats flew high above our heads and the mass amounts of droppings they left on the floor of the cave was what made the rich environment for all the insects and plant life in the cave (the guide pointed out some of those bugs – giant centipedes and cock roaches crawling under our feet – it made me squirm at every breeze blowing across my neck thinking one had landed on me!) It made it all worth it once we reached the very back of the cave, to the one sky light – it was heavenly!

Leaving the cave, a few of us girls were feeling a desperate need for a foot massage with all the walking around we had been doing. We had heard about an infamous place that had an option for Fish (yes, live fish) to eat the dead skin off your feet! Such a gross concept to think about – but one we just had to try none-the-less. We found the place, not too far from the shopping center we had been visiting every day. Paying for a foot and back massage, we settled down on the edge of a pond and dove our feet into the cold water. Slowly but surely the little fish swam up and starting nibbling at our feet. It was the strangest sensation! We could help but laugh and yell out because of how bad it tickled. Thankfully when we were out of time we were rushed into a separate room for our back massages because just at that moment, a group of about 50 Asian tourists came in and all stuck their feet in as well. That was our queue! The massage did us some good – and we were back and ready for more exploring.

Training ended that second week and after an amazingly hilarious ‘Talent Show’ (we had been split into groups for training and each group had to perform an act) and end-of-training dinner, we had to say our goodbyes. I was off to Singapore for the weekend, but most everyone else was back to their respective citifies and home offices. We promised to stay in touch (and especially those of us from Australia) – it’s always great to make connections, not to mention some great new friends.

Back into the grind of work now after a 3 month whirlwind, I am focused and ready to step up to the plate at work, proving myself and asking for more challenges. Since May, I have felt unable to breath at times with: visiting home, two-weeks in KL/Singapore, moving out of my apartment (because Bec has now gone back to Canada), and then a trip to Ireland for our dear friend’s Dave & Sorcha’s wedding. I think after this week of organizing and housekeeping type things, I will maybe feel like I’m back into some semblance of a routine!

More stories for Singapore and Ireland to come…

Singapore Skyline

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Settling Back in Before Heading Back Out.

I had a tremendous trip home to visit my family and to watch my two amazing sisters, Courtney and Victoria, graduate from middle school and high school. In my usual fashion, I made my vacation anything but relaxing and slow-paced. I had too many places and people to see during those two weeks! Thankfully because of all the graduation festivities, all friends and family were gathered together so I could catch up at once (my voice certainly didn't thank me though due to how much talking I had to do!) I was able to see dear, dear friends of mine (Hunter even drove up from Florida to see me), watched Yacht Rock perform (check them out: Yacht Rock Revue. My sweet family celebrated Christmas in May with me since I was not there in December. Everything was perfect!

Just as soon as it started though, it ended. Good things are always like that I find. You are anxiously awaiting their arrival, you have the most tremendous of times, and then as soon as you blink - it's all over.

I boarded the plane on Atlanta with a longing tugging on my heart. I had to walk away, hearing my mom's words, "I think it's harder saying good-bye this time, because I don't know when I will see you again." And it's true - I really am not sure when I will be back in Atlanta again, but I will treasure that time I did spend with them until next time.

My flight back was less than perfect. Almost the same song and dance as the first go-around. I had to fly Atlanta to Houston, but because of a delay, I missed my Houston to LA flight, so I was re-routed through Denver. Thinking I was going to spend the day on Venice Beach, and instead spent it wandering around airports, I was even more anxious to get on yet another plane - and this time for 16 hours! This anxiousness was heightened by the 2 hours we sat on the runway waiting for an electrical problem to be fixed (which was effecting the air conditioning, so the cabin was about 105 degrees). Not something you want to hear before an around the world flight.

Thankfully though, I ate (well, tried to eat some dinner - all the vegetarian options they were serving was 'Cheese Cannelloni' which ended up being full of beef mince. Wonderful!). And then slept pretty much the entire rest of the trip, landing in Sydney. My final leg from Sydney to Melbourne waited for our arrival, so we arrived in Melbourne not too long after our initial time.

Sweet Irish Dave was waiting for me (even after his friends gave him a hard time by posting this on Facebook:)

We had a nice afternoon, catching up on 'all the news' (as my grandmother always says) over some excellent food at veggie bar (yes, he ate there for me!) But because it was already Sunday, I had to prepare for I found it tremendously hard to get back into my routine, and actually only got back into the norm this week (even after a public holiday for the Queens Birthday on Monday).
My time has been most spent catching up with all the Aussie friends (two weeks feels like a lot longer when you're away). Two weekends, I visited the Good Food and Wine Festival and the Mind, Body, Spirit Festival, both had a booth by The Chocolate Box - so was able to catch up with those friends.

Good Food and Wine had just what the title says - amazing food and wine.
Mind, Body, Spirit was a bit more eccentric with booths for angel wings, crystals, and detox remedies. I decided it would be a great idea to get a henna tattoo from a very kind Islamic lady (she assured me it would fade after a few days). It's still on my hand, and is very hard to cover up at work! Good thing Australia is a little more lenient on those type of rules in the workplace:

So, now that I'm back into my routine, I am about to hit the road again. Sunday I leave for Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for two weeks of training for work. My last weekend, I am taking a short 1 hour plane ride over to Singapore for a couple of days. I am more than excited to have a whole adventure in itself in SE Asia - with of course stories and pictures to come!
As soon as I return though, I already have my mind on the packing I will have to do to move out of my apartment before July 13 (my house mate's job is sending her back to Canada earlier than expected).
But you know - life throws you curve balls, and instead of ducking and crying - you swing and hope for the best!

See ya after KL!

The Awakening of a City

Thanks Monday.

Speaking of Lemon Awards (refer to my last post), I was about as engaged and functional at work as a lemon sitting on a kitchen counter. Thankfully, the day sped by and I was able to work out some frustration at the gym. Having not checked the mail box for a while, I grabbed the contents before heading inside to have a nice salad for dinner. One piece of mail for me, and here is what it was:

I have now been flagged for research by the "Trauma Registry." Well, I guess if my injury stint in the hospital helps better the Australian healthcare system, then it was worth something.

I'm just setting a new trend, that's all.

My Friday started off basically like any other one. The night before, Kelly had slept over after a nice dinner of prawn tacos and wine. I had a mountainous pile of wash to do, so while I sorted and started a load, Kelly was working away making some homemade guacamole. We hadn’t really caught up since our voyage out the Great Ocean Road, so it was nice to swap all the new gossip and near future plans.

I hung that laundry to dry on the clothes line, just like every other load I was (we don’t have the luxury of a dryer). Last Thursday night though was one of those ‘winter is definitely here or just around the corner’ types of nights. Neither one of us could get warm not matter how much we bundled up (we don’t have central heating or air in the apartment – just one small gas furnace in the living room. Handy when you are sitting, watching TV – it at least helps to warm the room up a tad). I tossed and turned that night trying to sleep as well because of the sub-zero temperature of the tip of my nose. So when my alarm rang in my head at 6:45am, I was exhausted, frozen to the bone and not in any mood to drudge myself to work. But because of 3 girls having to share 1 bathroom that morning, I quickly headed to the bathroom to take a shower. Fridays at work are casual dress days, which on mornings like last Friday (another Baltic day), I was happy for the option to wear jeans and my tall boots in an attempt to stay warm.

Checking my jeans from washing them the previous night, I was utterly disappointed to find them still soaking wet, and not even just damp, but literally almost frosted over because of how cold the house got during the night. (There is no way I would leave that gas furnace in the living room to run all night for fear of blowing up the whole apartment complex.) This was probably the only moment since moving here that I was genuinely upset with our lack of dryer (well maybe that and having to use cold, crunchy towels due to the indoor clothes line versus hot fluffy ones straight from the dryer; heated towel racks are a much needed investment I think.) Making a split-second decision (I was in a rush to take my shower and desperately wanted to wear those jeans to work), I blasted on the gas furnace (you have to ignite it with a grill lighter because the ignition switch has long since broken – I mean, this thing is straight from the ‘70’s):

Becoming nice and toasty in a jiffy, I threw my jeans on top, hanging the top bit in front of the front grill, since that was the wettest part of the jeans. Running to the shower, I was washing as quickly as possible, knowing Bec and Kelly still had to have a turn. Mid lather of my long mane, I hear the smoke alarm going off. ‘Strange,’ I thought, ‘Bec must have burned some toast in the toaster.’ (We have an extremely sensitive smoke alarm that cries out even when I have a stir-fry on the cooktop) – so the fact that burnt toast was setting it off did not even phase me. Well, not until I heard, Waaahhhhhhh!!!!AHHHHHHHH!! OHHHHH MY GOOOSHHHH!!!! YOU’RE PANTS ARE ON FIIIIIIIIIIREEEEEE!!!

I have to admit, I’m not even 100% clear on what happened for about the next 90 seconds. All I know is that, for still recouping from the ankle, I have never in my life bolted faster from a bathroom, thankfully grabbing a towel in the process to cover at least my front half. Widely rounding the corner into our living room, I see my jeans, lying in a heap in the middle of the floor and Bec running towards the kitchen. Flinging open the doors to our balcony as quickly as humanly possible, I grabbed the jeans with my only free hand, threw then jeans outside, just in time for Bec to arrive with a huge pitcher of water (I had never even seen the pitcher before – so no clue where it magically appeared from), but thankfully it had appeared, in Bec’s hand, to douse out the smouldering jeans now laying limp and charred on our balcony. After regaining my breath, and fully wrapping myself with my towel, I look over and Kelly, poor, sweet Kelly is perched on the edge of the couch, with the most shocked, sleepy and bewildered face I have ever seen. She was speechless. Now, I can’t be too sure if it was because after she finally was able to speak, she admitted she thought the house alarm was sounding because a stranger had broken in to rob and murder us all, or because she just had to look at my hind side running around the living room for a good minute and a half. Either way, after the shock had worn off, she declared that she would have to stay over more often because we were just so amazingly amusing.

Finally able to return to the shower, I rinsed out the now-drying-shampoo from my hair and jumped out to a wall of swirling smoke still billowing throughout the house. I threw on my only other pair of casual pants and attempted the best I could to open all the windows and doors, turn on the fans and spray some air freshener. My only concern at this point was Bec now hates me because of nearly giving her a heart attack and death scare at 7am on a Friday. I also was worried that we would all die of smoke inhalation and our clothes would be ruined (especially all those freshly cleaned ones still hanging on the clothes line.) Having to run off to work though left little concern for the rest of the day because there really was nothing else I could do at that point. I just had to hope the smell of smoke dissipated by the time I got home that night (which it had, phew!) Bec helped clear the air with not only a Facebook post, but also a sweet text message stating:

“Sad to say good-bye to a nice pair of jeans. Maybe we can make some artwork out of them??? Hahaha… sorry, I’m peeing my pants laughing.”

Well, this wasn’t really the ego boost I was hoping for, but at least she didn’t want to murder me! The continual waves of laughter persisted for the entire rest of the day between her, Kelly and me. I called my mom while waiting for the train to tell her what had happened. The connection was tragic, so all she heard was something about fire, the loud noises from the station (which she convinced herself was the fire department outside my house), and then my laughing, (which she couldn’t distinguish between laughing and crying.) Frantically texting to ask if I was ok, I told her everything was fine and that I would call her back. Once I reached the office, I called her back to explain everything, to the response of, “Well, I guess there’s a new meaning of ‘hot pants!’” – HA!

At work, our project team is called Project Orange (don’t ask me why, this was already in place when I joined), we have stand-up meetings every Friday. This is where each of the work streams can give a progress update, new joiners can be introduced, and we give out awards. Orange awards go to people who had excelled on something the last couple of weeks - an award of grandeur. The other award is the lemon award. You can only imagine what the qualifications of a lemon award are. People have been known to nominate themselves for moments of idiocy over the past two weeks, but usually the award goes to the person who had not realised anyone had seen their moment of idiocy.

Now, I know what you’re thinking – someone saw Kelly and Bec’s brilliantly humiliating posts already on Facebook by 8am that day – and nominated me for the award. This isn’t so. Being the loud mouth that I am, when my manager arrived to the office, and asked how my morning was going, I just had to reply, ‘Well, thankfully I’m still alive. I almost burned my house down this morning.’ Of course, he and the rest of the team sitting around me had to hear the explanation of this outrageous admission. So, although I did not win the lemon award that day (it went to a moment documented on camera of a fellow team member parked in a pedestrian crosswalk with people attempting to walk around his car), I was nominated that week.

You know, thankfully I could laugh at myself because no real damage was done (well maybe minus scarring Kelly and Bec forever with my living-room-streaking and near death experience). Our porch is now starting to look like a dump between my jeans that are yes, still out there and Bec’s mud-covered-tennis shoes from Tough Mudder.  I might just have to take Bec up on that challenge to create some artwork – who knows what masterpiece could be created!?

So yes, my Friday started out just like any other day, until my smart-self decided to speed up the drying process with an antiquated heater. Lesson learned the hard way.

Humiliation.

Gold Coast. The Panama City of Australia.

A couple of weekends ago, I headed to the Gold Coast for a girl’s trip. I had more fun and laughed more than I have in a while with just a bunch of girlfriends. There was no drama (well minus Nikki threatening to throw all her clothes in the rubbish bin after the Tiger Airways desk clerk told her that her suitcase weighed too much). And we spent 4 days relaxing on the beach, acting like little kids running around Dreamworld (think Six Flags of Australia) and enjoying nice dinners followed by dancing to live music at the locals. I am slowly making my way around Australia, attempting to visit everywhere worthwhile seeing. Hopefully my tales will give you some insight for that if-and-when you plan a voyage down under. For a little glimpse into the Northwest area of Australia, Gold Coast is essentially a version of Panama City mixed with Miami. We stayed in Surfer’s Paradise – so don’t get me wrong, the beach was gorgeous, great waves for surfing, but the people, oh my! the people! Not only did we feel stuck right in the middle of either an 18 year old or 60 year old crowd, we also wore more clothing to cover ourselves than they all did combined. Now I know, we are at the beach, but some things should just be left covered, if you know what I mean. And this was just the girls! The boys were no better versions than all the guys on that awful reality TV show, Jersey Shore. “Guidos” as they are so kindly referred to as, have that Latino, Miami look going on: slicked-back, gelled hair, graphic printed t-shirts and a smug look plastered on their face. Needless to say, we were not interested in talking to ANYone outside of ourselves – and I think this led to the amazing weekend that we ended up having.

Along the beachfront, they had large prints hanging on wooden boards of sunbathers in the exact same spots on the beach, beginning in the 70’s and continuing right up to modern day. It’s pretty hilarious to look back at pictures like that and realising, not much has changed with the human race, except perhaps the length of men’s swim trunks and the size of women’s hair.

Dreamworld is pretty much the same as Six Flags, and was fun to feel just like a kid for a day. A large section of the park was also a wildlife/petting zoo type exhibit – we got to see tigers, feed kangas, and of course snap pictures of my favourite – koalas. Zoo keepers were also inside a pin feeding two baby tigers with bottles (we later saw these two precious babies riding through the park in the back of a golf cart!) I don’t think I could ever get enough of seeing all these animals.

Leen, my Belgian friend from work came to meet us Friday night. She has been put on a project in Brisbane, which is just 45 minutes from the Gold Coast, so she hopped on the bus to spend the weekend with us. Friday night we saw a cool band and Saturday hung out on the beach until we were hungry enough to have a snack at a local beach bar. That night we had an amazing Japanese dinner right by the water, and then headed to Waxy’s for some more live music and dancing.

Great weekend, great place to visit – but if you do make it over here, I wouldn’t put it on the very top of your list. There are better places to see while you are here. There aren’t many differences in high-rise-condo beachfronts. Once you see one, you’ve seen them all.

Still on my list to visit in Australia are: The Whitsunday Islands, Port Douglas/Diving in the Great Barrier Reef, Cairns (pronounced Cans), Darwin down to Uluru and Ayers Rock (in the Outback), and Byron Bay. Frasier Island and Kangaroo Island are also on my to-do list. But then, there is still Fiji and New Zealand – and those are whole separate trips in themselves! Basically what I’m saying is that there are just too many places to see, and now that I have a travel bug – I want to go to as many as possible. Time to start saving money and vacation days!

At work, I am finally beginning to feel a part of the team – with projects to work on and having recognition from the exec team. Being on the Great Place to Work committee, I have been able to design a logo, create a sharepoint website and help to plan events for the team to attend outside of work. Last night we had a kick-off dinner at a restaurant in the city that I helped plan. It went really well, with an amazing turnout. It’s fun to have people around this huge office recognise who you are and congratulate you on throwing a great event. Brownie points!

Well, last highlight for me: 10 more days until I come home!!

Let the Journey Continue...

Recently, I re-read the “About Me” section of my blog. About 9 months ago, I sat on the floor at my friend Brittany’s house in Atlanta and told my small group girls I was moving to Australia. I’m not too sure how big of a shock my news was to everyone but it couldn’t have been that big of a surprise, as I had talked often about moving somewhere – taking a risk – doing something “crazy.” I think back to when it all began – Christmas of 2010. Like an older sister to me from the time I was 15, Steph and I sat on the sofa at her parent’s house, and over a bottle of wine, she told me about her decision to move her entire family to Australia. Her husband, Scott had spoken with his company as well, and they agreed to transfer him to an Asia-Pacific role. We laughed until tears filled our eyes envisioning the four of them driving around in miniscule smart cars, seeing kangaroos and koalas in their backyards, and Austin, their son, quickly picking up the accent and phrases i.e., “Good-aye Mate!” The idea was so outrageous, it was almost unbelievable, but then and there, I decided that I also wanted to move to Australia. Ever since I can remember, I have always had the urge to live overseas (which led to my decision to study abroad in France). I knew friends who moved overseas after graduating college – places like Italy, the Ukraine, and China. My goal was to always move back to France, but what intrigued me about Australia was it is one of those ‘unattainable’ places; the remote outback on the absolute other side of the world where so many Americans only dream of visiting. And I had a chance to up and move there?! I never even second guessed my decision, it was almost as if a switch flipped, stars aligned, and this was exactly what I was supposed to be doing. I had no job, not much savings and no idea what I would do when I arrived; I just knew I needed to come.

Looking back, there were many reasons why I didn’t move somewhere straight away after graduation. For some time, I resented the fact that I moved right back to Atlanta and struggled to find a “real job.” Slaving away at two different internships, a modelling agency all the while working as a full-time server at a restaurant and applying for jobs every night – I was exhausted for 6 months until I landed “the perfect job” at Atlanta Bread in July 2011. When the idea of Australia was planted into my mind, I began to justify leaving Atlanta Bread after just one year of work. The thought of giving up this hard earned position to move half-way across the world, terrified me. However, the urge to live abroad fought harder than the security of a perfect-turned-mediocre job, in the city which I grew up in. From day one, I planned on leaving for Australia for just one year. With a racing heart, I let Atlanta Bread know of my plan (they 100% backed up my decision and even offered me a job on my return).  I remember thinking as well that an employer (upon my return to the US) would never question my reasoning for leaving a job after one year to travel abroad. I think so often, we get caught up in the “resume build.” Creating excuses in our minds of having too large of a gap in between jobs, ensuring our resume is perfection in terms of experience and timing and credentials. I know I even got caught up in the hype of wondering what would happen if I came back after one year abroad and I couldn’t find a job again – what would I do? Where would I live and how would I make money?

Nine months later, I just have to laugh. If I have learned one thing about myself – and this has become one HUGE thing that has changed about me…I used to be a WORRY-WART to the extreme. Everything had to be planned to the T. I had to have justification and reason for every choice I made. I had to have all the dots connected to every single plan in my life. I remember my dear friend Rachel (who has now lived in Kiev and Istanbul – compared to me, she is 200% more courageous than I am!) becoming so frustrated with me at times for having planned outings with her down to the last second. She always told me to, ‘relax, and go with the flow.’  My control issues led to anxiety with the unknown, the future, being alone, not having plans. I absolutely stressed myself out!

Something changed in me that day I received the email that the Australian government had granted my visa. I was in the middle of running a 4-day conference for work and was to my absolute wits end with exhaustion, stress and frustration. It seemed that everything that could have gone wrong with the conference, with boys, with friends and with life hiccups in general, had gone wrong that month.

{I have to quickly pause here to tell a side story. In the past couple of days, I have been constantly reminded of just how blessed I am. There is not one single thing in my life right now that I can complain about, yet it happens. Irish Dave and I had dinner the other night and just as I was complaining about the walk to work in the pouring down rain, my umbrella turning inside out, and my train running late, he stopped me in my tracks. He started laughing and before I could be upset about him interrupting my vent, he explained that the same thing happened to him. He arrived at the tram stop, just barely missing the one he usually catches and having to wait 13 minutes until the next one. He was about to ring all the lads and exclaim how preposterous this was that he had to wait 13 WHOLE minutes for his ride home, when he paused. How are any of us going to start complaining about these minute, first world problems when there are wars and starvation and poverty happening even right in our backyards. I have taken this as a lesson to think before I speak, before I complain, before I drone on about idiotic “problems” I have throughout my day. A co-worker of mine passed me in the hallway the other day and mumbled to me, “You are just too happy.” You know what – I am full of joy! I love being happy, I love to always have a smile on my face. That’s just who I am, and my hope is to share joy with everyone I come across during my day. So next time I have those thoughts of judgement or frustration or annoyance – I need to erase them as quickly as they appeared. Life is TOO SHORT!}

So back to April 2011. Bad month, but was granted my Working Holiday Visa. This allowed me to travel and work in Australia for 1 year, but the catch was I could not stay at a single employer for more than 6 months. ‘Perfect,’ I thought, ‘I could find a café or retail job, travel and perhaps move around to other cities.’ I’m pretty sure people from work knew something was up from that point on. It couldn’t have possibly had anything to do with the bouts of screaming and laughing and crying I proceeded to have for not only the remainder of the conference, but until I told them I was moving, could it? I remember calling my mom and breaking down in elation – it was finally happening! The night I flew home from the conference, I booked my flight. I don’t think I have ever been more nervous than anything else in my life. That moment of clicking the confirmation button for a $1,500 plane ticket to Australia left me panicked and un-easy…for about 30 minutes. Then I was right back on my cloud nine. I remember running out to the living room of my apartment to tell my roommates and best friends, Abby and Jenny, about the purchase. Up until that point, neither one, especially Jenny, thought I would actually make the move. They thought it was just another one of my crazy ideas. Honestly, I think this lit even more of a fire under my tail to prove everyone wrong - that I could leave my home and loved ones behind in Atlanta and move to the other side of the world. Granted, this was the biggest thing I have EVER done – so it did seem a little unbelievable. Buying that plane ticket though solidified in everyone’s mind that yes, I was actually moving. I remember my mom telling me before I left, that she was 100% happy and proud and excited about my move, until she looked up how absolutely far away Melbourne is from Atlanta. You couldn’t get more distance between us!

With my job resignation, ticket purchasing and visa out of the way, all I had left to do was pack say some tearful good-byes and board the plane. Coming full circle, I am leaving in two weeks to head home for a visit for the first time since July 2011. In retrospect, I have met people here who moved from home and didn’t go back for years. I felt guilty about not coming home in December for Christmas, but now it’s May and I have zero regrets for not coming home sooner, nor do I about waiting any longer to come back either. My little sisters are both celebrating huge milestones in their lives, and I would not want to miss that for the world. Victoria will be leaving 8^th grade, making her big and scary step up into high school. Courtney is making the even bigger and scarier step in COLLEGE! Oh my goodness, I can’t believe they are both so grown up. I told my mom the other day that I am turning into such a sap. I can feel the motherly instincts taking over. Tears welled up in my eyes when I opened Courtney’s graduation party invitation. I mean am I really THAT sap that gets emotional over Hallmark cards and cheesy TV commercials? I guess I am, but I don’t care. I am so proud of my sisters, of my whole family (I’m pretty sure my friends down here are sick of hearing about them) and I want everyone to know it.

So to re-cap, I take you back to the very first entry on my blog. The “About Me” section from last year:

As I left the Glory days of the University of Georgia, I embarked on an adventure that I soon began to refer to as "Stumbling Through My 20's." It seemed only appropriate to document these graceful moments of highs and lows in a sequence of chapters appropriately titled by the major surrounding events. I begin this documentation with Chapter 6: Stumbling Down Under. Although I will go back to write Chapters 1-5, I begin the tale here, with the greatest, most looked forward to, yet most terrifying event of my life: Moving to Melbourne, Australia for One Year. Over this next year, I am hopeful and anxious to meet many new people, work on a vineyard, travel, and most importantly, gather as many life lessons from these future memories as possible, to return to the U.S. in one year as a new and improved version of myself. Let the journey begin...

Well, I can say a few things here:

Obviously, Stumbling Down Under was a completely relevant and appropriate title for Ch. 6 – not only with my entrance into the Melbourne Airport (refer to blog post 1), but in particular, my first broken bone incident.

“Greatest, most looked forward to, yet most terrifying event of my life” – well yes, all of those are true, and there were even moments when I cried out to the heavens asking what in the world possessed me to do this!? But I would not for one second take this back for the world. I have finally learned to let go, to relax, to take it easy. There is no point in stressing and becoming terrified of the unknown and not having my life planned down to the last millisecond. Life is to be enjoyed to the fullest, with whatever obstacles it throws your way. Roll with the punches and enjoy every last minute.

Over these past 9 months, I have met more than many new people, from all different backgrounds, walks of life, pasts and presents. I’ve met the most wonderful group of friends [including a cute but completely unexpected Irish boy ;) ] who surround me, encourage me and challenge me on a daily basis.

Work on a vineyard. Now, I have mixed feelings about this one still. Working on a vineyard is still very much a dream of mine (well actually, owning a vineyard and making my own wine is my dream), but I’m not sure if that will happen here in Australia. Never say never, but perspectives change when you are actually put into a situation. Ya see, here, backpackers (the young travellers with no jobs and usually nothing but a bit of savings) are the ones who get jobs at Fruit Farms and Vineyards as ‘fruit pickers.’ If you work as a fruit picker for 3 months, the Australian government adds 1 additional year to your visa. Enter in Bethany, the over-achiever, who decided to choose the corporate job that would straight-away sponsor her 457, 4-year Visa, over fruit-picking for 3 months. Hence, the lack of interest to work on a vineyard and the subsequent 1-year plan out the window. That was a fun phone call to make to back home, “By the way, I’m not coming home after one year, I might stay for four!” I was prepared to work in two different cafés for 6 months at a time each, and now I have a real job, a real apartment with real bills. Australia is my home now for a while…

I think that during this time here, I HAVE become a new and improved version of myself, full of life lessons and stories to tell and memories to keep forever. The person I was back in December 2009 is nowhere near the person I am today, nor will it be the person I am 10 years down the road. I am just so happy and thankful I made this move. Travelling and experiencing the world is the greatest gift you can give to yourself – and it’s never too late! (All the retirees down here sell all their possessions, buy a campervan and travel around Aussie. They are kindly referred to as the ‘Grey Nomads’). Now that I have the travel bug, my mind never slows down about where I want to visit (or move to) next. 

So now that this journey has begun, I say, let the journey continue…