Take Two

When I first planned my trip to Australia, I never would have predicted this outcome. I initially went to Sydney with a very strict plan that I would find an apartment, I would find a job, and I would find Australian friends. However, once I arrived in Sydney I realized that maybe this plan wasn't so practical after all: "oh my god everyone is a backpacker and nobody has the same plan as me. What am I going to do?!" So I re-evaluated and came to the conclusion that maybe Sydney just wasn't the right city for me, and that maybe in order to make this plan work I needed to be in Melbourne (a city that is, after all, considered the San Francisco of Australia, so how could I not like this city?) After only two weeks in Melbourne, without ever really giving the city a fair chance, I switched plans once again and found a job opportunity in Perth where I could finally put my plan into action. But once I arrived in Perth I began to wonder why I even wanted to be a Barista in the first place—being a Barista meant 5am mornings, grouchy customers in need of their daily caffeine fix and I hated being a Barista at Peet's, so why would I ever want to do it again?? In the end I decided that "living" in Australia was just not feasible, and I decided to come home.

In hindsight I think my decision to come home was a little rash and a lot based on emotions and feeling so out of control that I didn't know what to do with myself. But even so, I still think it was the right thing to do at the time. I needed to clear my head and figure out what I wanted without all the pressure I was putting on myself to make things work. My dad kept telling me, "You can't fit a square peg into a round hole," and that is exactly what I was trying to do. But my biggest mistake was that instead of trying to find a "round peg", instead of being flexible, I remained adamant about sticking to my "square peg" plan and would not budge on that idea. When I could not make that plan work, I didn't want to be in Australia anymore. But I needed to come home in order to realize that this was the problem all along.

So here I am, four months after my return from Australia and preparing to return to the Land Down Under. Definitely didn't see that one coming! But once the novelties of being home (family, friends, my dog, my bed) became just an every day routine, I was able to gain some perspective. And there was a nagging voice in my head, that I just could not ignore:

"Why didn't I travel?" 

"Why didn't I join the people I met on their backpacking adventures from the beginning and give up the idea of finding a job until I was flat broke and absolutely needed to work?"

 "Why wasn't I flexible?" 

At first, I answered those questions thinking:

"Yes, I could have just traveled. I probably would have met even more people that way. And once I got used to being a solo backpacker, I would have embraced the backpacker life"

"I could have done it!"

 "Coulda woulda shoulda," I kept telling myself, "at least I'll know this for the next time I go to Australia."

 The longer I kept having this conversation with myself, the more I started to wonder why I should wait until next time. Why not just go back, with this new-found perspective, and finish what I started? I couldn't come up with one reason why I shouldn't, so I simply decided I would.

And so starts the second half of my journey. I'm going back to Australia as a full-fledged backpacker this time. I'm going to live in hostels, travel up the East Coast via Greyhound buses, pop over to New Zealand and Fiji and maybe get a job if I start to run low on funds. There is no plan this time. Instead I plan to be totally flexible and just let things play out the way they do. And if things don't go my way, then I'll consider other ways. There's no better time to travel then now, and no better way to avoid regret then to come full circle and finish my journey.

So ready, set, go! Australia, are you ready for me a second time?!