Antipodean goodbye
3 years, 2 months and 15 days.
The timespan between two flights: a tiresome one touching down in Sydney Airport ending the Kangaroo Route and the another heading for the Java Sea in just a few hours.
Three years can be hard to condensate, let alone recount. They represent a complex blend of faces, moments, experiences and lessons. Some good. Some bad. Some necessary.
I came to Australia days after graduating from high school, leaving behind what I called home for 18 years: friends, my mother tongue, parental warmth and restless curiosity for the world beyond it. What a decision that was, one of the best I will ever make.
I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Australia was then an exotic escape from the ordinary; a laid-back refuge for 6 months of English lessons and, if luck allowed, the perfect place to harvest a few amusing stories involving Aussie sheilas and booze. I was very young.
