The Countdown Begins

I'm back! Well I never really went anywhere, and I suppose that's been my problem since I came back to England, but I'm back not being back…

Seeing as my last post was an unforgivable amount of time ago, I'll recap how things ended for myself and my European adventure. Through the genius that is Workaway, I managed to get myself a very lovely job working at a fabulous hostel in Bratislava, Wild Elephants. Responsibilities included checking guests in and getting them drunk. Which really was a dream, but as with most things, money gets in the way, and a lack of it more so. So with a pitiful 19p in my bank account, and the heaviest of hearts, I returned home.

I'll give you some context about my hometown, a recent article in The Guardian by Mike Carter on Brexit (don't even get me started on my rage/embarrassment about that whole façade) sums up Nuneaton in a description as accurate as it is depressing. “Nuneaton, the home town of George Eliot and Ken Loach, had more charity shops in its high street than anywhere I’ve ever seen. And some of those charity shops had closed down. What does it say about a town when even the charity shops are struggling?”

Now, I don't want to seem heartless here, it was so wonderful to give my parents a long anticipated cuddle, catch up with all the people who had made my life here complete and meet my lovely new god son. It really was. I adored the small things as well, having multiple pillows on my bed, being able to leave my shampoo in the bathroom without it getting pinched and the knowledge that I had more that two outfits, but inevitably things began to feel much the same as before I left.

I woke up, went to work, went to the gym, came home. Repeat. Maybe on a weekend I'd spend all the money I'd earned that week in the one, very questionable, night club our town has, but that's about the long and short of it.

Sometimes people would ask about travelling, and at first I was so keen to inspire others to travel, but even that wore very thin very quickly. Every time my stories of the magnificence of being really and truly free fell on deaf ears or were reciprocated with a bemused smile and an elongated silence, I lost another part of where I'd been, what I'd achieved. So in the end I stopped answering questions with anything more than a “yeah, it was good thanks” which seemed to satisfy. Then suddenly, I woke up. I mean properly woke up, and four months had passed. In this time I'd found myself both made redundant and promoted in a new job. The mundanity that made up my everyday life had seemed acceptable, however it promptly became an obscene elephant in every room I entered. So the frantic saving began.

At first I wasn't entirely sure what it was I was saving for, Australia floated around in the back of my mind like a hazy, unachievable, dream. I could (should) learn to drive, I could (shouldn't) get a flat, there were plenty of things I could/should/shouldn't do with this money. However, somewhere deep inside me, I knew what it was for, but the idea and the reality were two very different things, and the reality was overwhelmingly enormous.

And then it was August. Eight months had passed. I'd been back as long as I'd been away and that really was a horrific sensation.

Something inside me needed to go again, and needed to go quickly. The same primal sense of running free that I’d had last year came back and I hit me like a truck. It tore my world apart and threw me into a free fall, I simply could not go on living how I was.

 With a sense of déjà vu, I quit yet another job and booked yet another one way flight and rescued my lovely backpack from the attic. Somewhat further afield this time, Brisbane, Australia but I guess it's a similar premise to before though. Hostels and backpacks and long ass busses and washing my pants in sinks. And I can't wait!

Two weeks Aus! Be prepared, because I’m not.

Settling In

Evening!

Sorry that I've been a little absent! The past few weeks have been really busy for me, finding my feet in this new job, moving into an apartment and still managing to explore Venice in any free time I get!

I haven't managed to write as much as I'd have liked, which has probably been a good thing seeing as I got pretty home sick for the first time last week. I know it's really ridiculous, especially considering how long I intend to be gone for, but it happened. I think it was a result of me actually stopping. Until now I've been moving so frequently, meeting so many people and just being constantly occupied. To then find myself actually living somewhere, without constant distractions and without any long term friends was a pretty big shock. A ludicrously long Skype session with my mum managed to reassure me that what I was doing was in fact quite amazing and I should just suck it up and realise where I am. I was also fortunate to have kept in touch with some people from my first trip to Venice so having people to meet up with has helped no end, making me fall in love with the city all over again!

Another sizable development for me has been moving to somewhere semi-permanently, bringing with it the ability to unpack! Such simple delights as being able to actually select what I'm going to wear for the day, rather than a lucky-dipesque way to dressing has improved my days ten fold. Having somewhere to go that I know is just for me is really lovely as well, and being two minutes away from where I work means I don't lose out on any valuable sleep. The apartment itself is what we call a 'work in progress' but it's free and in the centre of Venice, so I can deal with some peeling paint!

It's been so nice knowing that I'm here for more than just a couple of days, up until now I've felt the need to cram as much sight seeing into as little time as possible and it has really worn me out. Being able to take my time and enjoy the city at my own pace has been a real blessing. This past week I've spent my days off visiting the islands; Lido, San Michele, Murano and Burano.

Lido has a beach! Coming from somewhere where the nearest sea is 2 hours away, brown and cold this is by far one of the best developments. It's June and I can not only sunbathe but actually swim in a sea that won't give my hypothermia. Such wonders do not exist in England and I have a feeling I'll be spending a decent amount of time there over the next few weeks.

Murano and Burano come as a sort of pair, famous for it's glass, Murano fully embraces this. Every shop is packed full of stunning hand made pieces, most of which with a price tag staggering enough to make you to choke on your gelato (of which I am consuming an inordinate amount). I visited here and Burano with a really lovely guest from the Hostel where I work. We stood for at least half an hour watching an ornament being created from scratch which was really amazing, It was interesting to see the mundanity with which the tasks were performed, I suppose that even the most elaborate of jobs become routine when done enough.

Burano has somehow managed to create tourism purely through painting their houses. There is literally nothing else there. Don't get me wrong, it clearly works, that's why we went there, and why we stayed all day! It looks like it was designed by a child, each house a brighter, more vibrant version of the last, the colours complimented perfectly by the clear blue sky. Eating a picnic surrounded by all of this gorgeous scenery I realised I couldn't be further from homesick!

So that's what I've been up to. I'd be lying if I said it isn't strange having to work again, but I get every other day off to go and explore more of this wonderful place, and I can genuinely say that I lived in Venice now (even if it was only a month!)

There are worse views to have whilst waiting for the bus!

From the top of San Marco tower.

Glass crafting in Murano.

Glass crafting in Murano.

Perfectly blue sky and sculptures.

Even the walls are decorated in glass!

Shop front in Murano. 

Burano in all it's colourful glory.

Burano.

Possibly the best gelato in all the world!

My Mum

Last year I wrote a piece about my mum's travels for my journalism course, here it is...

Theresa Chuter finished school at 16 and went to work in a factory, as it seemed all of her town did. By 21 she had progressed up to a bookkeeper/wages clerk at a local engineering company. It was at this point that she became “disillusioned” with life. “One day I was walking down the tiny little corridor that I walked up and down so many times and just thought, ‘how many more times am I going to do this?’ and I thought, ‘this is my life. I need to do something with it.’” And that was it, she quit her job and bought a one way ticket to Greece.

She had planned for a two month trip, with £400 and no immediate plans she aimed to get a job in Athens that would pay for her accommodation and return when she got fed up. “The first three weeks were just absolutely horrendous. I was lonely and homesick. ‘Go to Greece. Get a job.’ And then you get there and it’s a different thing all together. Nobody needed anybody. So I spent days and days wandering around looking for work.”

The reality hit home pretty quickly that running off and exploring wasn’t going to be as wonderful and idyllic as she’d have liked. The mundane job that she had been doing day in day out back in England looked a lot more appealing from 2400 miles away.

“And then I managed to get a job, and I met a fellow backpacker, my confidence was growing by this time so I went off to the islands, did a quick tour and thought ‘no. I am not ready to go home now. I can do this.’” With this new found love of Greece and confidence in herself growing, she returned to the islands, secured herself a job, and stayed there for five months.

By this time it was mid-October, England is freezing cold and Christmas songs are already starting to prematurely creep onto supermarket shelves and into our brains. Many of her high school friends had settled down and started families; my Mum however was heading for Egypt.

In today’s world, where I spend £30 a month on my phone bill, £60 on a haircut and £££ on dinners/nights out, I couldn’t understand how she could afford to not work for a month. She said that she had left with £400 and came back with £100, and that to survive she was ‘very, very skimpy with money’ and worked when she needed to. The freedom surrounding this idea is almost incomprehensible. Here my mother was, hopping about between continents without fear of the unknown, just a need to explore, I think that there’s much to be admired about that.

“The plan was to do Egypt and then come home. We were sitting on the roof of this hostel one night with other travellers, and people were saying where they were going and there was an American guy. He wasn’t event part of our group, he was just sitting on the roof reading, and he looked up and said ‘yeah, everyone seems to want to go to Bethlehem for Christmas’ and I thought ‘yeah. That’s a plan.’ Because by this time I was well into it, there was no way I wanted to go home.”

In under a year the experience had already changed her so much, the girl who was pining for home comforts now barely gave England a second thought, the girl who couldn’t wait to go home was now preparing to spend her first Christmas away from home. The more of the world outside of England she saw, the more she needed to see, there was not a chance that she could return to the confines of working in an office after experiencing the freedom of travelling.

                                                                                                                                                       

“I managed to get to Bethlehem for Christmas Eve. I secured a place on a kibbutz first, a tiny, tiny kibbutz with very, very few people. It was right on the Jordanian border, which at the time there was quite a few terrorists who came over from Jordan into Israel. Our first night there was spent, being told ‘Don’t cross the barbed wire, the gates lock at night so you can’t get out, if you see anything on the floor don’t pick it up, whatever it is you don’t know”.

Ten months into her two month trip she fell completely in love with Israel, her visa for Israel was valid for a year, and she saw it out to completion.

After this she moved to the south of Israel, “it looked like the end of the world, like if you walked any further you’d drop off, absolutely nothing at all. It was the back end of nowhere. At the time the Sinai desert, was being handed back to Egypt because of the peace talks. Over the months before I arrived people were slowly moving out and there was very few houses or anything left at all, but now it’s actually a thriving holiday resort called Sharm el-Sheik. It was called that when I was there but there were no hotels, or holiday complexes. It was just a lot of sand.”

By the time the second Christmas had rolled around her Israeli visa had ran out and she saw this as a good time to return home. She had been gone for two and a half years. During her time away contact with home had been sporadic at best, during her first lonely weeks she had written home every couple of days, then as she began to find her feet it altered to weeks, months and eventually when she could remember.

After catching up with her old friends, of who she now had very little to say to, she packed up and left again to do some “proper backpacking”. Starting in France she travelled across Europe to Belgium, The Netherlands, Austria, former Yugoslavia and Italy. She then found herself back in Athens where, through pure coincidence, she came across a girl who she had met on the bus from London to Athens years ago. Together they travelled to Istanbul where due to the heavy military presence they didn’t stay long before moving on back to Israel. “Then I think I got tired, there wasn’t really anywhere I wanted to go, apart from India and Australia and I wanted to go overland, but there was a lot of trouble between Iraq and Iran, so it wasn’t really safe to go overland for anybody. So after four and a half years I decided to go home for good this time.”

The time that my mother spent away changed her life forever, it gave her confidence, a passion for exploring other cultures and showed her how vast and diverse the world really is. She has always told me that she doesn’t want me to look back on my life with regrets from opportunities passed. She never has, and never will.  

It Started With an Australian.

“Admit it. It would make for a great story in ten years’ time. The night you spent in Prague on the Charles Bridge talking to that sort of cool, a little bit handsome Australian guy.” His words spun through my mind on the way back to airport. Nick and his wide grin and sparkling eyes, my friends' horrified reactions to the suggestion and insistence of me to stay, me pacifying them and declining the offer. Nick left. And I had no story for ten years’ time.

The anticipation built in the taxi on the way to the airport as talk of English Breakfast tea, hair products and other such home comforts circled me. The girls smiled and laughed whole heartedly at the idea of home, and I became aware of a shifting within me, an agitation building, starting low in my stomach like a deep hunger. All through security checks, passport controls and the endless isles of duty free my mind wandered, unable to focus on any one task at a time. The hunger pangs had continued to grow, feeding off one and other, infecting my bones right through to the marrow. It wasn’t until the need had grown so large, filling my entire body and expanding to the utmost corners of my soul that I could even pin point what the sensation was. Agitation, with life, with wasted time, with lost opportunities. What would I say in ten years time? What stories would I have to tell? None.

With this realisation I grew more and more fractious with every growing moment, life was on a timer and twenty years had already slipped by. At that point I couldn’t get home fast enough, couldn’t waste any more moments, any more potential adventures.

I need to start my life properly this time, no time for waiting, no need for anyone else.

With this new found lust for life I have planned my great escape from the mundanity of my current situation. Starting in Venice I plan to work my way down the east coast of Italy before heading over to Greece and hopping around the Sporades Islands.

Wish me luck - I fear I’ll need it.