It has been nearly a month and a half now. Truthfully it’s been an incredibly quick dash, keeping a frantic pace while doing my utmost best to get the most out of each stop along the way.
The longest I’ve stayed in any one town or city has been 4 nights, and that was purely by chance as I simply happened to fall in love with Granada. It wasn’t planned or executed all that well if I’m honest. I still spent almost an entire day while there trying to simply figure out how to do laundry once again…
9 countries, 20 ‘stops’ (twenty!!) and 10 different languages later, I’ve returned to London, England.
It has to be the first time in my life that I am genuinely surprised when a stranger speaks to me in English. It has actually caught me off guard a few times since I’ve been back in London. I spent the first few weeks of this trip anticipating English simply because that is my history and what I’m accustomed to hearing. I find myself seeing strangers a bit differently now, and I like that. My people-watching imagination and skills have gotten much better and more entertaining.
It honestly has been very tiring. With my lack of plans for this trip and quite severe change in overall destination, I truthfully had very little in the way of a schedule. Most decisions were made at most 1 night before needed; hostels booked at the same time, and trains booked just slightly before that. The amount of mental energy I’ve expended simply staring at a map and picking my next destination based on proximity and train schedules has been immense. London is proving a very welcome respite before I set off again.
As you can imagine, I don’t really know where I’m going on Friday, just that I will be.
I’ve sketched out a rough plan that involves an end destination of Dublin for St. Patrick’s Day; but again, chances that plan fully comes to fruition is less than the chance that I WON’T have a snorer in my hostel room tonight. I’ve had my fair share on this trip that have indescribably hindered my sleep, as I’m sure a few may claim the same of me. I can’t hear myself though, so I can only speak of the others; inconsiderate sods that they are.
As I putter around London, contemplating how much clothing I will need to purchase to continue in the colder parts of Europe, I realise just how much this trip has taken out of me. I’ve loved it, after (as I’m sure some of you will know having spoken to me around the ‘Venice days’) an admittedly rocky start.
It has been very different from Australia, the wonder coming less from nature than from culture and people. It is not a stretch to say that my best and favourite stops have been the ones where I met the most people and took part in the cultures with gusto.
I still can’t figure out when Spanish restaurants are open or when their people eat; and I’m okay with that. I have enjoyed simply being lost, struggling my way through very broken conversations; frantically searching my brain for those lost Spanish lessons of 12 years ago or how I was greeted by the Swiss shop owner of 10 minutes ago; hoping to be able to at least start a query off with a local greeting.
The most entertaining moments have been when I forget what country I’m in, thanking a waiter in France with ‘Grazi’, or greeting a merchant in Morocco with ‘Hola’. I laugh, and they stare. As with myself and strangers, I now understand that they have absolutely no idea where I’ve just come from or where I’m going next. Truthfully, half of that equation is a mystery to myself as well. Only 10 minutes ago, to pay for my pint of beer in the pub that I’m now sitting as I write this, I magically procured a ½ Swiss Franc coin; all of which I was sure I’d stashed away over a month ago. The bartender didn’t find this nearly as amusing as I did, pointing into my hand and explaining the shape of the 10 pence coin needed to complete the transaction.
As I plan the next few weeks, or at least pretend to, knowing full well my plans mean nothing when I set off; I keep wondering how I’ll fare with new languages as well as interesting variations of ones I already know. I, for instance, am distinctly looking forward to staring blankly at a Scotsman as he speaks what I can assume is English, but which confuses me as much as Luxembourgish did.
What I’ve come to figure out is that language and currency can be transformative. It can take the shape and meaning of whatever is needed at that moment. What matters is the people behind them and how much they truly want to communicate.
I can offer to pay in Euros, and get told that here, in Switzerland, we only accept Swiss Francs and after explaining that I have no Swiss Francs, finish the sale in Euros.
I can hold a conversation with a Moroccan restaurant owner without either of us understanding a word the other is saying.
I can be returned to an English speaking country, and not be sure of what I’m about to say.
I’m finding myself reminiscing to the good old days of 2 days ago…
There is no feeling quite like being lost in a country where I know I will struggle to ask someone directions. You feel terror, self-consciousness, excitement and worry all in one.
And yet, for all of that, I know that it will be okay.
Eventually, they will point at that 10 pence coin; and in spite of all our shared differences, confusion and curiosity, we’ll know exactly what each other is saying.
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I really didn’t want to wake up. I intended to leave my hostel in Tarifa, Spain at 7.30, walk the 5 minutes to the ferry terminal and be well within the ‘45 minutes before departure’ recommended arrival time. I left at 8.10.
I think part of me knew that it was going to be a pretty long day, with the early wakeup and all the ‘other stuff’ going to Morocco and Africa for the first time would present. I was already quite tired from the insane journey to Tarifa from Lisbon, Portugal. I contemplated not going to Morocco after all.
Obviously, and thankfully, that thought process did not win.
8:30 AM
The pre-boarding went smoothly enough, if not frustratingly slow. The sheer amount of luggage that was being slid from point to point in the line to clear customs amazed me. The line would move one metre, so would the 7 bags between 2 people. Then another metre, all 7 moved again. Rinse repeat. Then a handle broke on one of the bags….chaos.
Once on the ferry, I settled into a seat after realising there was no outer deck where I could witness my approach to the African continent. I must’ve stared at the door leading to the car garage forever trying to work out if it maybe, just maybe, DIDN’T lead to the car garage…
I grabbed a croissant and two bottles of water. Then I waited.
When we pulled into the Tanger harbour and disembarked, I had one thing on my mind. Well, that’s not true. I had many things on my mind. Each step I took further away from the ferry and closer to African soil (I didn’t count the dock as ‘soil’), was internalized and appreciated. Every step, for whatever reason meant something new. It was simultaneously humbling and arrogant. I felt as though this was somewhere I both belonged to and yet didn’t; so far removed from any and all ancestors who had left this continent, most likely against their will. I didn’t feel at home, but I, perhaps strangely, did feel very much at peace.
It was when I exited the terminal that the ‘at peace’ ended; at least for the next hour.
9:15 AM
I will save the full story of my first hour in Morocco for those who wish to hear it in person. It deserves all the inflection, exasperation and heartfelt humour that only verbalizing it can give. Suffice to say, the worst part of my very short trip to Morocco, and Africa, was that first hour. Short version: I made two friends. Except they weren’t friends. They were unwanted, unrelenting and, as it turns out, quite racist. It is from them that title of this post is taken. I was asked, in disgust as opposed to curiosity, if I was Jewish.
I will choose not to focus on them though, rather the rest of my experience in Tanger.
10.15 AM
Once I finally shook them off (read: resorted to being very firm and combative as opposed to polite refusal), I started to see the beauty in this city. The medina was nowhere near as crowded as I anticipated and it certainly was less touristy than I was led to believe it would be.
Despite all the claims of my now distance acquaintances, I was un-hassled by the locals as I poked my way around. I wanted to find my way to the Kasbah but kept getting lost every twenty steps. I was okay with that.
The sights, colours and sounds of Tanger were nothing if not intoxicating. Spice stalls, leather goods and lots and lots of fish created an oddly satisfying aroma. It wasn’t good, nor was it bad; but it was fitting. It lent itself to the place that created it.
10.45 AM
As I began to climb, now realising that the Kasbah would be up the hill, as opposed to at the bottom, (I’ll be honest, I had basically no clue what a Kasbah actually was until today), I finally decided to use my offline maps, even though they were being pretty useless. At least I could search street names and try to deduce my location.
I finally reached it, thanks to help from an unknowing tour group I stalked for five minutes, and what a view. Out over the ocean along the coastline, I knew this was somewhere I wanted to spend more time; not necessarily today, but in life. This continent deserves as much effort, if not more, than any previous trip.
11.00 AM
I wanted to go down to where I was just looking. So I set off. My only direction I followed (as I had given up on the maps now) was as long as the street goes downhill, I would take it. It worked, even despite my detour into a shop to mingle with the local who wanted me to make something out of leather I believe. Then he chased me down the street to point me in the direction of his friend’s shop. Chased is the wrong word. He was also about 90, so his ‘chase’ was a bit more like yelling with a very moderately paced walk. He was actually very lovely and polite; he was simply trying to help out his friend. I graciously declined however, and continued my trek downhill.
Once I reached the point where I had started over two hours previously, I finally felt like I knew where I needed to go and how to get there. That was a first for the day.
11.30 AM
I reached the point where I had looked down at earlier and, upon seeing some fishing happening from the rocks by the roadside, I wanted to watch.
I spent nearly half an hour sitting there by the ocean. Fisherman and farmers, for me, often show you the true soul of a place. At the basest form of human existence as we know it, is the ability and capability of communities to feed far more than an individual. Throughout history, we have grown as a species because of people who provide food for the masses. Even in today’s society where it seems as though we take these things for granted, there still needs to be those people. I will never tire of watching a fisherman do their work and was admittedly disappointed when I had to leave my perch on the North African coastline.
It was the best thirty minutes of my trip so far, looking out towards the Atlantic Ocean, knowing that so far from home, I can feel so connected to my past; however distant it may be.
That being said, it was now time for food.
12.15 PM
I had passed a small restaurant on my climb down from the Kasbah, and had decided that I would eat there for three reasons:
1 – It looked nice, cozy, and local
2 – I recognized the name from my Trip Advisor search the night before
3 – I knew I’d be able to find it
Number three was the kicker if I’m honest…
12.30 PM
I found my way there and was greeted enthusiastically by a gentleman who spoke no English but tried his hardest to. It was a very warm gesture that was entirely not necessary but much appreciated.
I asked for suggestions other than chicken tagine (which I was going to order anyways) and he recommended a chicken pastille to start my meal off. I accepted.
While waiting for my food, he tried his best to have a conversation with me about where I’m from and if I like football but sadly, neither of us could understand each other. I do know that he likes Lionel Messi and prefers Barcelona to Real Madrid. He was intent on showing me a map of Morocco as well, but I have no idea what he was trying to point out. It was the type of hospitality I had pictured in Morocco and I truly loved and valued it. He, and his restaurant were fantastic and that was before I even tasted the food…
Which was stunning.
The chicken pastille was a very odd yet complimentary mix of savoury and sweet, as a chicken patty, for lack of a better comparison, had basically been dusted with powdered sugar and cinnamon. It was a very unusual combination that immediately tasted like Morocco. I can’t describe what that means, but that doesn’t make it any less true in my mind. It was delicious.
It was now time for the tagine. Easily one of the best things I’ve eaten on this trip. It was one of those meals that you simply don’t want to end, so you order something else, not because you’re hungry or even because you want to try something else on the menu, but more so because you’re hoping the next dish is terrible so you can leave the restaurant with no regrets. I honestly could’ve eaten five more chicken tagines, that’s how good it was, and I know if the next dish had been fantastic, I would’ve kept ordering food.
I settled on picking a dessert I wasn’t sure if I’d like; the Moroccan pastries. They were okay. Nothing special, but neither bad nor good. Thankfully (because otherwise I would’ve missed the ferry back to Spain) I could now finish the meal.
1.15 PM
I paid my new, actual friend, and made my way back to the ferry terminal, preparing my speech if I came across my two one-time fickle friends again. I didn’t see them and could make my Morocco leave in peace; the same way that I arrived.
2.00 PM
As the ferry pulled away from the terminal, it was very odd, but I didn’t feel the need to look back. With most places I’ve visited in my lifetime, especially the particularly memorable ones, leaving is very hard. I find myself glued to the window hoping to catch a last glimpse of somewhere that happened to steal even just a little piece of my heart.
With Morocco, I was satisfied. I loved my time there and knew that I’d be back. This was not the time to waste wishing I could be where I had just left. This was about looking forward not just to the next stop, but to life in general.
I’m not one to normally get ‘this way’ about race, but this introduction to Africa was interestingly important to me. I found myself wondering, for possibly the first time in my life, where I came from. Chances are it wasn’t Morocco, but that didn’t matter.
I can’t say WHEN I’ll be back to Africa, but I know for sure that I will be. The more I travel, the more I realise that leaving somewhere is never the end, rather it is almost always simply the beginning. Whether I like it or not, life continues because of my past and oftentimes, in spite of it.
Somewhere in history, my ancestors called this place home. I can’t say that though, because of hundreds of years of theirs and others’ struggle. Still, look where that struggle got us. It is bittersweet to visit and then leave a place that my ancestors also left behind, yet in very different circumstances.
Africa isn’t my ‘home’ in the truest sense of the word. For whatever reason though, I felt like I understood it there; it didn’t feel unfamiliar.
Have you ever met someone and know as soon as you meet them, that they’re going to become a very close friend?
You wonder how you’d never officially met before; how they don’t already know all about you and you about them and you marvel at how easy it is to be in their company.
It’s as if you met at some other point in the past and have known each other forever….
What I’m starting to understand is that sometimes, a destination isn’t actually a destination at all. The destination, in and of itself, is the journey.
It’s something I don’t generally do with most other things (movies, restaurants, etc), but more often than not, if the reviews are bad, so is the hostel. Works the other way around too, if people rave about a hostel, it’s usually worth it. (Still, make sure you focus on the right things when reading reviews. See #6…)
9 – Not everyone is out to get you.
Actually quite the opposite. Obviously don’t be stupid and leave your wallet sitting on your bunk while you’re out; but for the most part I haven’t ever felt like my things were in danger of getting stolen. The only place that you should really be worried about that is….
8 – Know what you’ve put in the kitchen.
Those fridges are a goldmine for cash-strapped travellers. Label your stuff and have a good idea of what you’ve put and where you’ve put it. Oh, and use the kitchen in general. Even if it’s just to eat food from elsewhere. It’s the best place to meet people.
7 – Use the reception desk.
Ask questions. They’ve heard all of them a million times and usually have pretty decent answers. Sometimes they don’t though. In which case, ask other people in the hostel. If they’ve been there a few days already, they probably have the answer you’re looking for.
6 – Research the right things.
When you’re travelling there’s really only a few things that are important nowadays. Don’t waste time trying to find a review that tells you what the beds are like, if it’s noisy outside and if there are enough lockers in the room (see #9). The important things? Wifi and power outlets. Those are your keywords to look for. Is it free, and how many are there in the room.
5 – Don’t be shy.
Just about everybody there knows nobody. You’re not alone. Well, you ARE; but so are they. So you’re not really if you get what I’m saying….
4 – Be a little tidy.
It’s easy to get carried away and think ‘I’m in a cheap place, a dorm room, and dealing with a backpack’ but your dorm-mates will talk about you. I’ve been on the good side of that chat and hopefully not on the bad side. I believe the words spoken were, “Don’t you just hate how some people check into a hostel and then their stuff just explodes in the room?”
3 – Don’t indulge your inner kid.
Yes, you haven’t slept in a top bunk since you were 5. Don’t start now. Bottom bunks are valuable currency in a hostel. If you get stuck with a top bunk, plan your attack and find out who in bottom bunks is checking out. Then be ready when the time comes. It’s just so much easier to operate when your pack is right beside you and you can use your bed to rest things, sit down and organise yourself etc.
2 – Scan the room and the hostel.
When you first enter your room, remember #6. Power outlets. Find them and plan your life around them. Then do a quick walk around the hostel. You’ll feel a lot more comfortable when you know where the bathrooms are. Life lesson.
1 – Be realistic.
You’re paying less than $20 (hopefully) for a place to sleep in a foreign country. They’re not going to be the best place you’ve ever stayed. And yet in some ways, they actually kind of are….
Naively, I was under the impression that backpacking was a vacation; that it ended when the final flight lands, bringing you back to where it all began.
IF YOUR WORK IS NOT FINISHED, BLAME IT ON THE COMPUTER - Read it
It all happened really quite quickly. Thirty-five thousand feet above the North Atlantic Ocean on my way to Manchester; the first stop along my journey to ‘Southeast Asia 2016’, I finally fully understood that feeling I’d been having.
I’d spent months deliberating where to go, what to do and how to get there without ever fully exploring the notion that I actually didn’t really want to go. To Southeast Asia that is.
All of a sudden, it hit me; don’t go. I don’t HAVE to go along with what was originally planned. It’s a sentiment I’ve spent the last few years coming to grasps with: plans can change. Yes, sometimes they are forced changes (something I’ve always been pretty adept at dealing with), but sometimes (and this is where I struggle), sometimes I can change them myself
It is pretty official now, Southeast Asia 2016 has become Europe 2016.
Most likely.
We (Iain, Jess and myself) began in England. Manchester more specifically. Food and football being the only real reasons we were there. Mostly football though; the food came after.
Then came London, getting turned away from restaurants, and lots and lots of alcohol. When combined with quite possibly the most miniature hostel dorm I believe I’ve seen on my travels, an ‘excessively drunk person’ (if you catch my drift) is not an easy thing to deal with. I did however find a way to squeeze in a double cheeseburger from McDonalds whilst going to grab water for said drunk person. The night was not a total loss.
What followed was an early morning flight to Amsterdam, lots and lots of walking; as we didn’t decide to use the trams until 3 days later; and more food than we really should have been eating. It’s not our fault entirely, the bitterbollen was just too good.
New Year’s Eve was interesting. Fireworks being legal and unregulated made it absolute chaos. Shot from every direction, a metre behind you, just there to your left; it was something I still can’t quite figure out if I enjoyed, appreciated, experienced or simply tolerated. Much like the fireworks themselves, my thoughts on the matter seem to be coming from every which way.
All of this while being really quite cold. I’d packed for Asia after all, not winter in Europe.
I saw it coming; that’s perhaps what is so maddening about this change of heart.
As the trip gradually approached, the urge to make it shorter and more concise loomed large.
First was the exclusion of Australia; due to extravagant flight prices. Then, with the Australia portion cut out, so to went Singapore as the only real reason I’d had to go there was its reputation as a connection hub. With the need for a connection gone, so to did the need for the country. When Thai Airways refused to accept my credit card for the flight to Bangkok (or maybe HSBC had something to do with that), I should’ve been more alert to the warning signs.
The truth is, this feels far more settling than it appears. After all, if backpacking has taught me one thing, it’s that you can never be afraid to let life take you in a different direction. It may not always make sense (to others or even myself), but maybe if it feels good, then there could be something to it.
The Asia trip never sat well with me for whatever reason. After a few days of deliberating and analysing, the best explanation I’ve been able to give myself is that I’d rather do Asia with somebody else alongside me as opposed to on my own.
What this change of plan has actually done is entrench the mindset of backpacking quite a lot faster than expected. All of a sudden, thrown into a continent that is completely open to me, I find myself in a situation where I can go just about anywhere. I have no time frame or commitments; I can simply pick a city and go.
The difficulty is found when actually trying to pick. The options are seemingly TOO endless. I can go North, East, South or even West. I just need a destination.
Therein lies the problem: The destination.
We seem to only think of destinations in one of two ways. It’s a lifelong conundrum that in a grander sense, encapsulates finding out what our path is and where we should be going. In a much smaller sense, it simply means that I need to figure out where I want to be tomorrow. After all, destinations can simply be that; a destination, with no deeper meaning to be found. If I want to go to Basel, then I can go to Basel. If that works, then great. If not, the next destination will be coming soon.
What I’m starting to understand is that sometimes, a destination isn’t actually a destination at all. The destination, in and of itself, is the journey. The cities, countries and places I can go to, and the things I see and do along the way, all make up the true destination, even whilst individually holding that status as printed on my train ticket.
What this means is that maybe the name of the trip doesn’t matter at all. Maybe ‘Southeast Asia 2016’ stands for far more than I thought because Southeast Asia was never actually the destination at all; the trip itself was.
I remember being in high school, and being told to ‘always show your work’ when working out math problems. It annoyed me. If I get the answer right, does the fact that I missed one line in the equation really matter? Turns out it does. However unintentional it may have been, perhaps our teachers weren’t necessarily teaching us a math’s lesson, rather a life one.
Sometimes, the final answer can be wrong even though everything else is right.
Sometimes, what you write down at the end is irrelevant because everything along the way made perfect sense.
As it turns out, you can plan, organise, thoerise and envision everything you were supposed to and yet somehow still write down Southeast Asia.
So, to all my teachers in primary school, I apologise. You may not have realised it yourselves, but you were teaching me a very valuable lesson.
It doesn’t necessarily work for math, but in life, the final answer doesn’t always matter.
If your work is not finished, blame it on the computer.
11 months.
Eleven months after reading this promising, yet oddly non-prophetic nor entirely sensical fortune in the LA airport on my way to my journey in Australia, I've returned.
I know what you're thinking. Three Six Four is a sham. This year will in fact last the full 365 days. If this deception truly offends you, then go ahead and hurl insults through the interweb. Post, hashtag, tweet, snapchat or selfie your disappointment. I won't even judge you.
For anyone who isn't yet aware, I am home. At the request of my mother, wrapped in a convincing offer of paying for the ticket, I flew home to surprise my brother, and consequently everyone else, on his birthday. Three flights across three days, and my adventure that started exactly eleven months previously was over. Australia and New Zealand are once again, halfway around the world from me.
I can't say that I'm upset, disappointed or in mourning. This doesn't mean that I'm glad I'm not in Australia. Far from it. I still feel as though I'm there. One of the perhaps unfortunate side effects of backpacking, for me, is that it entrenched a mindset of nothing lasting forever. The repetitive nature of travel, use, pack, explore, pack, travel, use, pack etc. has guided me to the belief that I won't be home for long. It still feels as though I may be gone tomorrow, off to the next place.
In all honesty, aside from all of us being a year (11 months) older, and my house being rearranged into a smaller house and an apartment; not much has changed at home. I anticipated being in Bermuda after spending a year (11 months) abroad would feel weird. I wasn't entirely correct.
What feels weird is the stationary nature of life in general; waking up and having nowhere to go with no new sights or places to see. I wake up knowing that today will be vastly similar to yesterday. Give or take the weather (why, for example, is it so hot in September?), and the always unpredictable interactions with friends, family and other humans; each day closely resembles that of the one previous.
Perhaps more so than most other countries, it's an effort to experience new things in Bermuda simply due to our finite quantities of land and people. I'm no longer used to that. Its weirdly disappointing to meet someone new or even not so new and not find it necessary to ask simple questions such as "where are you from?" or "where have you been?". Throughout the last 4 months, 'small talk' was much appreciated, incredibly vital and hardly small talk at all. If anything, typically 'small talk' questions yielded the grandest and most interesting answers. After all, what is 'big talk' if not small talk done right?
It has been nothing if not maddening to be returned to a world in which small talk is greeted with palpable disdain and a frustrating unwillingness to participate and contribute. There is a true disconnect between us as humans that is becoming worryingly widespread and, one in which I'm finding it very difficult to adapt to, mostly because I find myself increasingly asking the question, 'should I have to?'.
The realisation has been to understand that while I may have left a moment in time, I have simply begun a far more widespread journey. While nothing around me has wildly changed, I, in fact, have.
I miss Australia and New Zealand. That much is certain. The problem I'm finding is that looking back on it all, it doesn't seem real. It's only when I look at myself that I know it happened. Sure, I've got the woven bracelets on my wrist and ankle, I've got the Maori fishhook necklace on my shoulders and I still roll all of my clothes instead of folding them (I literally forgot the process of folding a shirt). Eschewing superficiality, I see a different person; right down to the smallest thing like choosing not to wear headphones when taking the bus (and, of course, choosing to take the bus), preferring instead to listen to life; hopefully creating my own experience rather than relying on stimuli from elsewhere.
I'm finding that, perhaps out of habit more than anything else, I live my life a little bit differently now. It is true that you never really see the change in yourself until you're surrounded by familiarity. It took traveling home for me to appreciate all of the things that made backpacking special and undeniably unique.
My adventure cannot be described. No one but myself understands it. Strangely, even I'm finding it difficult at times to fully grasp the significance as I'm constantly learning from it. As is the case with most things in life, each person finds something different from each act. While backpacking will teach most of those who do it very similar lessons, each of us also endures our own individual experience; weaving together the singular sights, sounds and people that brought us to those moments and places with the moments and places themselves.
I remember being worried about coming home and falling back into patterns and behaviours that initially necessitated the change in my life a year (11 months) ago. Naively, I was under the impression that backpacking was a vacation; that it ended when the final flight lands, bringing you back to where it all began.
What I failed to appreciate were the over 70 different roommates, including everything from 18 year old Brazilian high school grads to 80 year old widowed English women.
I failed to account for the nearly 20 nights sleeping under unconventional circumstances; everything from a Greyhound bus seat to a swag in the middle of the Australian outback.
I didn't understand the nights sitting around a fire drinking cider, eating kangaroo, laughing with the incomparable Johnny Reid, a traditional Aboriginal land owner in Kakadu National Park, and the upwards of 60 strangers who became close friends.
From the comforts of the eclectic Melbourne to the outback of the Red Centre. From the tropics of Kakadu, Cairns and Northern Queensland, to the beaches of Mission, Airlie, the Whitsundays and Fraser Island; right down from the quirky Byron Bay to the iconic Sydney and the oddly and interestingly unforgettable Canberra. From Australia across to the glaciers, mountains, farmland and lakes of Wanaka, Hokitika, Fox, Te Anau, Aoraki, the Catlins, Queenstown and all the stunning beauty and humility of New Zealand's South Island: I apologise for my oversight. I apologise because I didn't truly 'get it' until I came home.
Much like my growing appreciation and evolving values regarding my place in this crazy thing we call life, it's really quite simple. These moments, places and people won't disappear into a haze of photo albums and souvenirs. They mean too much, and perhaps even more than that, I won't let them.
As everything I brought back inevitably goes through its deterioration, and Australia and New Zealand become something I didn't 'just' do, rather something I 'once did', it all still feels very incomplete. I did everything I wanted to, and yet there is still more.
Much like the year it was supposed to be, what backpacking and coming home has illuminated is that my work definitely isn't finished. No thanks to the computers (as the fortunes may tell me), eleven months, rather than being seen as a disappointment and the end of a journey, simply highlights how much more I can still experience.
Much like that wayward fortune cookie, this hasn't ended the way I thought it would.
"As much as I claim to ‘know’ about backpacking now, there is only one thing any traveller worth their salt truly understands; and that is that there is no telling exactly where you’ll go or what will happen."
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