saying goodbye

Travelling is exciting. Being out on your own, seeing new places, meeting new people, tasting new flavors, hearing new accents and languages, if you couldn't tell there is a pattern here, travelling is "out with the old and in with the new." That's why it is so attractive, that's why we love it, that's why we make sacrafices and do it.

I wouldn't lie, I was ready to step on that plane on July 9th. I knew I wouldn't miss Australia, my time there had come to an end, and I was going out with a bang. It was meant to be because for the first time ever by a very slim and unlikely chance, I got upgraded to business class.

Let's pause and view why this was such a significant event in my life. Well as you probably already know I am six feet tall or one hundred and eighty-four centimeters (however you want to look at it) so flying coach is, to put it nicely, absolute agony. I sit cramped, figiting, re-adjusting, and restless on every plane seat that has the daunting "Economy" label. I'm not afraid to fly, but I often hate it because of the lack of room issue. I almost always exit the plane with a tweaked neck and sore tailbone. So flying isn't scary, its just insanely uncomfortable.

Business Class is luxery. "May I bring you a moist towlette Ms. Denaro?" a moist towelette, seriously? Yes please!! As if I could ever afford to fly business class, (one day after I become a famous writer...I'm very good at dreaming.) but being upgraded doesn't cost a thing. The odds of that actually happening are slim. The chance you get upgraded on a sixteen hour international flight are one in a million, and the only quote that comes to mind, "so your saying there's a chance!!" I was confused when they called my name to print me a new boarding pass, I was shocked to find out that I would not be sitting in coach on this particular day. No, on July 9, 2010 I flew the 7,500 miles from Brisbane, Australia to Los Angeles, California in complete comfort. I was saying goodbye Australia in Business Class style.

I was ready to leave. I wasn't going to miss it, but here I sit three weeks later, unsure if July 9th will really be my final australian goodbye. If I am honest, I miss Australian accents, I miss their attitude, I miss the quarkiness down under, and I really miss my friends. Only three weeks later Australia feels a million years away. The only thing that time warps me back is this funny program known as Skype. All the sudden I can hear and see everything that goes on in my former country of residence and I long to be there, to smell it, to taste it, to feel it. On July 9th I was sure I would not go back, at least not for a long while, on July 29th I'm not so sure how that will actually pan out.

The next year of my life is basically planned out, go to France and get paid to play water polo, awesome and exciting life. I know better than anyone the length of one year. When everything is new, a year feels both extremely long, and unfathomably short all at the same time. At the end of the year though, when I left the lovable country down under I convinced myself that I was ready to leave for good. Bon Voyage Australia, I'm off on a new adventure. Three weeks after my concrete goodbye, I'm looking back and wondering what significant event will bring me back there again...