Goodbye Australia. Hello Blighty.
As most of you who read this know, as of Wednesday night, I am now safely back home in the motherland, so I felt I should do a final post to talk about my last days there and my overall feelings of my exchange over the past 6 months, just to provide some nice closure both for myself and my blog!
Unfortunately, my last full week was spent revising for, or taking, exams which went OK and I’ve just found out I’ve passed so that’s all good news!
I spent Friday evening celebrating with choir friends and then onto a medic post-exam celebration party which was really good fun, and so nice to properly catch up with people after the isolation of the weeks of STUVAC, and to sadly say goodbye to lots of people!
The weekend was very busy with lots of choir things and then housesitting/dogsitting 3 adorable dachshunds with Scott for one of his friends in the evenings.
We sung for a big Ordination service on the Saturday which went on for so long I no longer remembered life before the service by the end! Then I went for my final post-Eucharist brunch with my lovely choir friends on Sunday followed by an afternoon on the beach with some other friends!
My final service with the choir was the Advent Carols service that evening which was such a fantastic one to end on! So much beautiful music with beautiful people! Afterwards we had lots of group photos which you will have seen in the previous blog post, and I was presented with a beautiful enlarged photo (see below) of the cathedral taken during a storm the previous week whilst we were inside singing!! It has been such a privilege to sing with that lot, I couldn't have wished for a kinder and more hilarious group of people to welcome me in who I was able to just click with so easily! Luckily it was not a goodbye forever- I see two of them in England in a couple of weeks, another is coming in September and the rest will be coming on tour to England in 2016, just before I start my job as a doctor....wherever that may be...!
Monday was ‘packing up my life’ day but managed to get out in Scott’s boat for a few hours as a break which was great fun, before final drinks with the other exchangers and some other friends for an evening overlooking the beautiful beaches and ocean one final time.
Then on Tuesday, Scott and I headed down to the Blue Mountains for the day. For some reason I’d not managed to get down before and I thought it would be such a shame to leave without going- as soon as we arrived I couldn’t believe I’d nearly left the country without visiting them!! We went to the Three Sisters and then did a gorgeous walk down to the base of the Wentworth Falls.
It was such a perfect way to spend my final day in the country! From there it was onto the airport hotel to prepare for a rather early and emotional 3am start…!
I was of course so so excited to come back and see my friends and family, but it was also extremely heartbreaking to leave everything behind in what had been some of the happiest months I've ever had. I won’t lie, the majority of the first flight was spent either crying or sleeping, but after a speedy 30 minute transfer at Dubai airport, I just made it to the Gate in time, and had a rather lovely surprise of seeing 2 Australian friends there who were flying over to England and up to Nottingham to see my exchange, Tom, whose house I've been living in and who’s living in my house! So being able to sit with them for the flight was a nice distraction and good company!
It does feel very surreal to be back in the country- it is certainly taking some time to acclimatise to the temperature here having left in about 35 degree heat, but still, at least it feels a bit more like Christmas now and the first thing I did after arriving in Nottingham was head to the Christmas markets with my best friends and drink mulled wine! Singing Christmas carols whilst drowning in a pool of my own sweat just wasn’t doing it for me to get in the Christmas spirit. Having said that, I'm typing this in my bed wrapped in my duvet with a hot water bottle, wearing 3 jumpers and can see my breath and the thought of going back to the sweating is actually very inviting.
As you may have gathered from both this and all my previous blog posts, the past 6 months have been some of the most fantastic and happiest of my life. I fell in love with a country and with its people and I wouldn't change a single thing about it. I come back with so many incredible memories and a very strong hope that I will return, perhaps for a longer period of time at some point, hopefully not too many years from now! It is hard to believe that I almost didn't apply for the exchange because I thought I had absolutely no hope of getting it and thought I’d just be wasting my time with the application. Well, I can safely say choosing to just go for it and apply was probably one of the best decisions I've made in life. It has honestly been a phenomenal 6 months. Since being back, lots of people have asked me the highlights and I all I can say is 'everything', because its true, The entire thing. The city, my housemates, the choir, the relationships I formed, the hospital, Med Revue musical, travelling through Queensland with my best friend, visiting friends and family in Melbourne, the beaches, the ocean, the weather, the way of life, and even just sitting outside drinking a coffee from one of the many cafés just watching the world go by. I miss it all. Everything.
Alas, for now…I am back in Nottingham immediately for a few weeks of the new semester before Christmas!
I hope you've all enjoyed following my updates on the blog and thank you for all your lovely positive feedback! Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year wherever you are in the world!
All my love,
Jane xxx