A short trip home

It feels like forever since I’ve been on this thing. Lots to catch up on so I’ll be short and sweet about it (I hope). As you know I made the decision to go home for two weeks, see friends and family and all things Aussie. It was wonderful, I had such a great time and did nothing that I intended to (except for the catching up part). Before I went I made a huge list of things to do, intending to act like a tourist, go and see all my favourite places in Sydney, catch up with friends, swim and sun bake every day and eat at all the food places I’ve missed. Yet I basically did the total opposite.

I flew home with China Southern and it took me 36 hours, which included a stop over in China for 14 hours. Lucky I didn’t book a hotel for the night and intended on hanging around the airport because they surprised me with a room in a 5-star hotel as I landed. It was heaven and made my long journey just a tad better. By the time I had landed in Sydney all I wanted to do was get home (and have a shower!) but an electrical storm meant that we were delayed with our landing and then again in collecting our bags, my poor mum almost gave up waiting for me. As I walked out of arrivals to see her of course she gave a massive scream and embarrassed me as best as she could but it was even better seeing my brothers there and it was then I realised how much I actually missed them.

It was late so I stayed at Mum’s and caught up with everyone, sharing stories and giving them their gifts and horrifying Mum with how much stuff I’ve brought home for storage but I finally managed to get to sleep and some how missed the jetlag Hooray!

The next morning I went around to see my dog and by surprise my boyfriend had also taken the day off. I was thrilled and didn’t know which one to kiss first. All my plans for that day had gone out the window and were spent with them. If you thought seeing my family was tough this was even worse. I knew I missed these two both not nearly as much as I realised once I saw them. It was like it wasn’t real and at that point I was sad that I only had 2 weeks here. This would be tough, so I’d have to make the most of it.

The weather really didn’t go in my favor whilst I was there so instead of sunbaking and playing tourist every day I spent it sleeping in, catching up on Aussie TV, walking the dog and every meal was spent catching up with friends.

Even though we have Facebook, Skype and instagram there is nothing like seeing your friends face to face. I’ve known about all their milestones like getting engaged, married and having kids but nothing beats sitting down and having never ending conversations with them. I really miss that big time!

I also managed to go to the beach twice. The first time with Becky and only for a few hours but somehow got so incredibly burnt (I really am turning pommy I guess) that I could hardly walk for two days and it hurt to even get from my front door to the car and the second just near the end of the trip when the sun decided to come back out so my desired tanned and bronzed skin wasn’t quite achieved…silly me!

However, I’m ok with what I did and instead of treating it like a holiday I now look at it as a privilege and opportunity to see my friends and family again. I went straight back to doing pretty much exactly what I normally do and I loved it. The first day or so I tried to convince myself that nothing had changed and it would be easy to go back to London but by the end of the first week I knew that wasn’t true. I realised that it wasn’t only my friends and family that I missed but it was the Australian lifestyle. We are so lucky to have the lifestyle we have in such a beautiful place. I’ve always been about colour and London I realised, can’t give me that with it’s grey skies and buildings and dull days, Australia, even in Winter can do it for me.

Week Two saw most of the same structure but with a few more arranged catch-ups with friends and a visit to my old school where I’ve also made some wonderful friends. Even just walking around the school put a smile on my face. It made me proud to be Australian and proud to be a teacher. As I walked past the classes they were calm and I could see some quality-learning happening. The classrooms were bright with beautiful art and work displays and every teacher had a smile on their faces. Don’t get me wrong, London has that too but the weather just makes everyone miserable I think and it just so happened that it was a nice day in Aus so this was the contrast that I was provided with. It just so happened too that I had came to Australia at the right time and after some discussions it was clear that my return to home would be much sooner than expected.

My mind was made up, my days in London were limited. I had decided that I would go back to London, finish the school term, travel a bit of Europe, doing the countries I have yet to explore and return home, ready for Term 3 in Sydney and it just so happened that there was a job opening available to me. Everything fell into place within the last week and I was excited about it all.

Knowing I would return within a few months made it much easier to say farewell to everyone however once at the airport I begun to plan out my last weeks in London and how I would tell my family over there because it was now that I begun to imagine my weeks without them once I returned to Sydney again. It gave me new light for London and I hopped on that plane with the eyes of it being a mini holiday and a better attitude to treat London as an adventure. Yet that all stopped when I got off the plane to snow, cold and misery. I began to wonder why I even came back. To stop these horrible thoughts take over once again I made a bucket list for London, in the hope that it makes my last few weeks more exciting.

London Bucket list

·      Stonehenge and Bath day trip

·      London Dungeons

·      Museum of London

·      International Rain Room

·      The Lion King

·      See a ballet

·      Take in the view from Ally Pally (requires a sunny day!)

·      Night out in China town

·      Cookes pie in Hoxton (recommended place)

·      Thorpe Park

I’ve been here for 5 weeks and done none of this (way to go Holly!) so with my last 3 weeks I guess I better make a move on and I guess by thinking that if I put it on here it may force me to actually do some, if not all of these. Wish me luck!

 P.S There is an extreme lack of photos as i completely neglected my camera on this trip so whatever was taken on the iphone is all that i can provide..and its really not much as we can clearly see i mostly take photos of the dog whoops! Enjoy..