Filling The Pages

It arrived. Finally. November 24th: the date I took off from London on my way to Sydney, Australia on a ticket that cost me £10, or I like to think of it as one thousand pennies.

On August 3rd, almost four months ago, I got in a queue outside STA’s London Victoria office where I stayed until two days later, Wednesday, August 5th to become one of 150 people to be named the new ‘£10 Poms.’ And here I am. Writing to you from a home in Lane Cove, Sydney, where I’ve been settling in for the past five days and getting ready to start this new chapter of my traveling.

So last Tuesday, I boarded my Qantas flight and made myself as comfortable as I could. Unforunately, £10 only got me Economy Class (shocking really…), and I also somehow managed to land a seat in the very last row of the plane. Not ideal, but I made it work. Several movies and a short nap later we were in Bangkok where we were ordered off the plane to walk through the airport, go through security again, and re-board at a new gate minus some original passengers and plus a few new people making the trip from Thailand down to Sydney. Several more movies and another nap later and I woke up to my first Australian sunrise. I don’t think any of this was real until then.

Before I knew it, I was on the ground, backpack in tow, being driven to Lane Cove by the lovely Nad, Johanna and baby Kamran who, along with Nad’s brother Sal and India, the golden lab, were kind enough to host me during my previous stay in Sydney back in May (well, Kamran wasn’t around back then…).

In the last few days I’ve spent a lot of time around the house trying to adjust (the jet lag is killer, my days tend to start around 4:30 in the morning…) and organising my plan of attack which right now just entails finding a job as soon as possible.

Last Saturday I was cordially invited to an American Thanksgiving meal by a few old friends from BU who now call Sydney home. About thirty of us drank, ate and made ourselves thankful by the beach in Double Bay. Not your typical American Thanksgiving scene, but I wasn’t complaining about eating turkey and pumpkin pie with Sydney Harbour as a backdrop. It could definitely be a lot worse.

This week is official job hunt week. Cross your fingers that next time I write here I’ll be employed… Wish me luck.