Where I Live

I just got back from a weekend in Rome where I celebrated my 30^th birthday with some very special friends. It was the best birthday of my life simply because I was laughing, eating, walking and chatting with people that I love dearly. They flew to Rome from London to be with me, knowing that I had just moved to a new city and may not have had anyone to really celebrate with! Aren’t they wonderful? I was also able to catch up with some local Italian friends ‘a cui voglio tanto bene’ :) It was fantastic!

I departed from Termini Station this morning, Verona-bound. As I stepped onto the train, my heart pumped out a strange and wonderful sensation that coursed through my arteries and gave me that tingly feeling in the guts that makes you smile. I can only describe it as a mixture of satisfaction, excitement and relief in one deep-seated hit.  It was something I recognised but had not experienced for a very long time… I felt like I was going home.

I’ve been travelling for two-and-a-half years now and during all that time, I have not stayed put anywhere longer than six months. I have lived in places for two, three, four months and then moved to another job, another flat, another city. However, as I got on that train to head back to Verona, I felt like I finally had a place to call home. A place where I could unpack my winter AND summer wardrobe because I’d be staying for more than one season; a place where I could put books on the shelves and own more than one suitcase-full of stuff.

Verona is gorgeous. It is an ancient city that has been dominated and developed by a myriad of people. You’ll see ruins and constructions still standing from the Roman to Austrian Empires. 

Every day I cross over the river at Ponte della Vittoria, and even if I have been wondering what on Earth I’m doing in Italy, I glance over to Castelvecchio on my right and the dome of San Giorgio in Braida on my left, and I know that I’ve made the right decision. It’s just so beautiful! Then in the evenings I walk along the Adige River listening to him rush by the soft yellow lights of San Zeno and I sigh contentedly… I live here.  

So It Begins!

This post was written on May 7^th while in transit at Heathrow Airport London – we’ll see how long it takes me to find some affordable or free wi-fi so I can post it and still maintain my penny pinching, travelling-student values.

It was a tearful goodbye at Tullamarine Airport as I farewelled my family and a couple of friends. I wasn’t sure how I felt about leaving for at least a year. I felt sad about leaving my family and kind of numb at the prospect of the unknown. Still, I am convinced enough by the reasoning employed in making my decision and so I press forward!

When the plane took off and I looked out my window at the aerial view, the words of Dorothea MacKellar floated through my mind as I gazed down:

“I love a sunburnt country

A land of sweeping planes

Of rugged mountain ranges

Of droughts and flooding rains

I love her far horizons

I love her jewel sea

Her beauty and her terror

The wide brown land for me”

That last line was the main one ringing in my ears because the view of the suburbs surrounding the airport is quite brown, and well, kind of ugly. It is probably due to the "droughts" rather than the "flooding rains", but maybe it just always looks like that. Nevertheless, I do love it so I took my last glance at my home town and thought, “Bye Australia, I love you." Just as I thought those very words, we flew over a large rubbish tip. How romantic.

The flight was uneventful; which is a good thing when you are thousands of kilometres above solid ground. The guy in front of me insisted on having his seat reclined back onto my knees and there was a kid sitting behind me who kept thumping my seat. Glorious. The redeeming factor was that Laural and George, who were sitting next to me, were lovely and friendly.

After a reasonably quick stop over in Singapore, we boarded the twelve hour flight to London. This time I was next to a nice, elderly British couple who collected my snacks for me while I slept and nudged me awake when it was time for breakfast.

Meals on the plane really mess with your body because they’re not sure which time zone to honour. The first three meals fit well with my Australian body clock, but then, we were jolted awake by the arrival of another hot meal at, what would have been, the middle of the night if I was at home in my Melbourne bed. Not to mention the regular flow of "snacks". By the time breakfast came, all I could handle was Cornflakes.

Twenty hours of travelling + lots of food + little-to-nil activity + occasional turbulence = unnatural sensations in one’s gastro-intestinal system.

Right now I am sitting in a transit lounge at Heathrow Airport wondering at what the future holds for the British parliament (yesterday’s election results seem to be swinging the Conservatives’ way) and how I am going to kill the next four hours in this uninspiring waiting area.

Maybe I could amuse myself with the hand dryers in the toilets that blow so hard your skin shifts to make way for the torrent of air (like a sky diver’s cheeks flowing back past his ears as he plunges down towards the earth); or perhaps I could do some duty free shopping at Prada, Dior or Tiffany where it would require an entire week’s accommodation fees just to buy a bottom of the range trifle. On the other hand, I could just stay here typing with my legs crossed – getting pins and needles – while I employ a variety of paranoid strategies to keep my bags from being stolen or infiltrated by drug traffickers.

Yep, its gonna be a long four hours…