What a wonderful place to start.
So this is basically the story of how I ended up living in London. And to be honest I don’t really know a chronological, sense-making story. The move came from the desire to travel, get away, escape, explore, a feeling that I had for a long time before I ever left. And of course it used to get spoken about, with school friends and uni friends and family friends, one of those ‘one day we’ll go overseas’ but no plans ever actually being made. I don’t even know why exactly I wanted to move to the other side of the world, in one way it’s just ‘one of those things/everyone seems to do it.’ My ‘brother’ had graduated uni and then moved to Shepherds Bush, London, sharing a room, working at the cinema, going to the pub-a typical experience of an Aussie in London. And my older sister had planned to do the same; she was going travelling in 2008. But then my Dad got sick and travelling was no longer a priority and her trip was postponed until 2009. It was late in 2008 that the decision was made between me and my ‘broads’ that we were going to come over and travel Europe. That’s it, a decision made. And the excitement started to grow because this decision was made, even before any flights were booked we would discuss all the different things we wanted to do and tell anyone and everyone ‘I’m moving to London!’ It became a sort of catchphrase on drunken nights out. We had decided that the 4 of us needed to get into training and had many a drunken night out in preparation for the carnage that we assumed would occur in Europe. Ok no decision was actually made that we would train ourselves but it just sort of seemed to happen.
The events going on in my life must’ve had some impact. In 2008 I lost my Dad, my Mum lost her husband and both my sisters and I all broke up with our long-term boyfriends. We went from a house of 8 to 4. Although I struggled with the decision to move to North-east WA within a couple of weeks of my Dad passing away there must’ve been an element of ‘escaping’ in my decision.
And what better time to spend with my girlfriends? Spend quality bonding time with them and plan an overseas adventure. I graduated from uni at the end of 2008 after 4 (long) years and wasn’t feeling particularly motivated about my degree and what I wanted to do with my life. In all honesty I didn’t want to start a ‘career’. 2008 had taught me how the unexpected does happen, that life is fragile and fleeting and sometimes you need to just ‘go for it’. There’s that ‘escaping’ theme again…..
Remember what I said about chronological order and making sense?
Anyway so I then decided to work in the same job I’d had for nearly 6 years *cringe* because I was paid well, it was easy; I had both a lot of responsibility and a lot of freedom and flexibility. In truth, I was spoilt at that place. I’d done the working in a ‘proper’ job, commuting to the city, and it hadn’t paid as well so couldn’t quite justify putting in the hard slog when I didn’t even know what I wanted to do with my life. Well I knew I wanted to earn money, money that I would need in order to travel and move to London.
So in February we booked our flight for August. This date was chosen because flights get cheaper after the 15th of August (peak season) and we planned it so that we would be travelling during the times of the festivals that we really wanted to attend (La Tomatina and Oktoberfest). We knew the weather would be good In Europe at this time of year; it would still be touristy but not peak season. So flights were booked and then gradually over the next few months more and more plans were made. Dee, Kristen, Mollie and I would all fly over together. We would meet up with Jenny in London to go to Spain where Jess would then join us. Mollie left us in Spain to visit family in Ireland and then start her uni life in Glasgow and Jess and Jenny went back to London for Jess to party and Jenny to work. So then there were 3, continuing on throughout Europe. However Mollie would join us again in Munich for Oktoberfest before going back to Glasgow. This is also where Dee left us to visit family in Belfast (not actually decided in advance, a lot would depend on money and just how we were finding the experience). So then Kristen and I would continue before we met up with both Jenny and Dee in Belfast. That wasn’t actually planned, we were doing the sort of trip where you have a loose idea of what you want to do, where you want to go, what you want to see but at the end of the day the trip could be whatever we wanted. We could decide at the last minute to change plans, visit somewhere else, skip somewhere, stay longer….whatever our little hearts desired!
So we did make some plans (some of the parents preferred to know where their daughter was going to be) but basically we just spent the next 8 months working, partying and getting increasingly excited and nervous. Just getting ourselves ‘ready’ for August 16th.
Crazy to think that all that was well over a year ago. And reading over it there really doesn’t seem to be a moment where I made a concrete decision to move here, I didn’t even have plans beyond the travelling. I didn’t know when I would stop travelling or when I would actually decide to live in London. Or even whether I would at all! But somehow I ended up here.
So that’s the beginning (sort of) and as I let my return flight home go a couple of weeks ago I don’t even know when there’s going to be an end.
