So its Thursday afternoon....exactly 4 more days until I depart on my great adventure. Do you ever feel like you're on the brink of something? Like you know that something great lies just ahead, but you have no idea what that something is? Welcome to my world for the last couple of months. Right now I am a ball of uncertainty, anticipation, dread and excitement. I'll be in Eastern Australia for 2 months, from February 4th until April 6th. Let me give you a rundown of the typical line of questioning that has been bombarding me since I randomly purchased my plane ticket (thanks Alaskan Permanent Fund/Sarah Palin! I don't care if you can see Russia from your house and that your eyes glaze over when the words "Bush doctrine" are thrown at you, you gave me dollars!)
me: "I'm going to Australia"
random person: "Australia....wow....how long will you be gone?"
me: "2 months"
r.p. "who are you going with? Your boyfriend? Friends?"
me: "Nope, i don't have any of those. I'm going by myself."
r.p. "by yourself?! how brave! So why are you going?"
me (awkwardly looking around and fidgeting): "oh geez...i don't really know.... to get away, because I can, um yeah..."
r.p. "so you're not going to school? what are you going to be doing?"
me: "hanging out."
Anyone who remotely knows me knows that hanging out is not really my strong suit. I am a self-driven workaholic and a perfectionist in recovery, with an extremely high need for structure, stimulation, multiple tasks, and a bazillion plans. When I try to explain to people my reasons for taking off to the land of Oz, I get stuck trying to formulate a canned response. The closest I can come to a solid answer is: I need to break my mold a little bit, survive for an extended amount of time without knowing anyone, learn a little bit more about who I am, get closer to God, and develop a greater sense of what is out "there." yeah....so here I go.
I'm hoping to keep this updated and throw up some pictures as I travel. I don't have any set travel plans, besides the plane ticket and an open bus ticket from Sydney to Cairns, so I'm not sure what my communication situation will be. I assume that there will be plenty of computers for me to sneak on, so stay tuned for further adventures....
