4.18.2010

London Calling

London has never been on my wish list as a destination of desire and certainly never a place I thought I would ever call home. The bustling city felt harsh and cold whenever I visited it. I once, not too long ago related it to like being in an Ant farm. And now I am deciding to become one of those ants!! I am about to become another face, another image in the collage of millions of other faces and images that make up London.

Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would become another token Aussie in London. Another ‘flamin gala’ to be found in one of those Australiana pubs of Sheperds Bush! But I am! And I can’t quite help but wonder how London will change me. Will it embrace me and allow me to see and feel its inner essence or will it leave me wanting to run screaming from its cold harsh depths? Will it give me a sense of belonging, a community atmosphere or just eat me up and spit me out just as it does to many of its dwellers trying to make it in the big smoke. Personally, I think I may find the answer in the knowledge that for all that is cold, harsh or brilliant about London it will change me for the good, better and worse!

A New Chapter...

The need to put away my travelling shoes for a while has allowed me to think about what my next move will be. What skills I will now choose to use in the steps I take to find a base. How my migration story might play out, which country I choose to call home for a while and what I decide to do with my life after I put away the travellers’ shoes.

It seems my time travelling has given me two things. Firstly the time and perspective to work out what it is I am good at and what my true passions are. Secondly travelling seems to have given me the opportunities and experiences to learn new skills which I am now able to use and integrate into my now well developed passions.

As I brought in the new year, perched on an old stone bridge with the ice cold water running off the French Alps flowing below me, I realised it wasn’t the next destination I craved. Instead I craved a place to call home, I craved my friends and a life lived more purposefully than the selfish lifestyle of a traveller. And if I thought about having to deal with one more guest I feared I may flip out beyond the point of no return!

I realised I couldn’t continue along this lonely travellers path anymore. I had neither the energy nor desire to find a new adventure in which I would find myself surrounded by new people and a new place to explore and get to know. So with that said I went about and set myself New Year resolutions in the hope of curbing my loneliness and somewhere I could call home for as long as I desired.

The lure of normality and a place to call home won over in my mind which had been hardwired with the travellers’ mentality for the past 2 years. As the search for a normal life begun to control my thoughts I realised it was the small things about ‘normal life’ that I missed and had begun to crave again. Being able to enjoy weekends of leisure, Sunday lay ins, reading the newspaper (and being able to understand it), the luxury of joining a gym, shopping at the local fresh produce market, cooking simple single meals, nights out with friends and coffee from the friendly local cafe!

As it was, life was weaving its web for me long before I arrived in my humble surroundings of the French Alps and realised these answers within me. An instant connection made with an individual along my travels made my destination known to me. What was left was to somehow find a life for me there...