To the Land of Oz.

Well, my lovely friends, i've made it to the other side of the world! And, i'll be honest, I've only been here a day and I could totally see myself staying. I love this country so much. But let me backtrack so ya'll get a sense of what i've been up to until now.

                        

                                                   Ready to head out!

The travel portion of my trip was surprisingly not too terrible considering I was in the air for a total of 19 hours. I left home for the airport about 3pm on wednesday, and after a few hours of waiting headed to LA, where I had a short layover before heading to Brisbane! LAX was what I am considering the start of this journey, because it is where I first began to meet people. In LA I had a great chat with an Aussie guy who'd just gotten back from being in Colombia for a few months. It was great to talk with someone who had done a lot of backpacking and understood the insanity and excitement of travel. We chatted for the hour or so until our plane boarded, and perhaps i'll run into him again as I head south in later months. 

                                

                                        Mandatory "sunset-out-the-airplane-window" shot

Once on the plane I was lucky enough to sit next to a woman who had grown up in Brisbane and had lots of suggestions about things to do and see when I got there. While the flight was long, I did enjoy catching up on all my movies, (Em and Hil! I watched The Way, Way Back--SO GOOD.) and chatting with my seatmate. Oh, and beyond seatmates, I lucked out by being the absolute last row in the plane, which meant I had a little extra legroom, could put my chair back without annoying anyone, was on an aisle seat, and yet had no one to my right to block the window! Such a success.

Literally from the moment I landed, I have had the most wonderful interctions with people. The weather today was a bit dreary with clouds everywhere, and drizzling rain here and there. But, the excitement of being in a new country coupled with awesome people has made today beyond wonderful. I caught the train to my hotel (which is SUPER nice) and then showered and pulled my life together before heading out for a meeting at the bank to get my accounts in order. I walked around the city for a bit, saw the Queen Street Mall, which was really fun and just had a general enthusiasm surrounding it that you couldn't get past. The second I met my banker Rose we were laughing and chatting about travel and mango smoothies, and birthdays. She was unbelievably helpful and I now have all my accounts here ready to go and can actually start spending money! YAY! Just kidding, that's the last thing I want to be doing right now.

                                                

                                               A far away view of Queen Street Mall

After the bank, I just wandered the banks of the Brisbane River that runs through the city. I explored the Botanical gardens, ran into a couple of Kiwi gents who loved the Packers (Shout out to EMHAZE!) and the Ravens, weaved my way by the Maritime Museum and through Queensland University of Technology. I was planning on heading back to the hotel and napping for an hour and heading out again, unfortunately my body had other plans. I woke up 4 hours later and have just been hanging out and pulling stuff together for tomorrow since then.

                           

                                   The two lovely New Zealanders I met on my walk

                            

                                           The South Bank of the Brisbane River

                           

                                  Walking along the South Bank----Bogenvilla galore!

Tomorrow is supposed to be a bit cloudy and rainy again so i'm thinking i'll try and hit up some museums after I get settled into a hostel, but we'll see what happens!=] Today has been truly wonderful, and I cannot wait to get up and start walking this city again tomorrow. I cannot even express how blessed I feel to be here and have this chance to live out this crazy adventure.

Anyways, Sorry that was extrememly wordy for not that much exciting info, but I love you all and will hopefully have more exciting stories over the next few days!=]

 

                                                    

Bring on the Tears.

Well, it's official. I leave the country in exactly 2 weeks for the land of Oz. Its a strange sensation seeing it in black and white like that. I have been preparing for this trip for so long that it no longer is even really on my mind. My guess is that it will hit me in 3 big phases, and when it does it will be a barrage of tears and those awkward gasping breaths that are so terribly hard to stop once they start.

1. As I say goodbyes--This includes individual goodbyes to people as well as the horrific trek to the airport with my family. Which, i can only apologize for in advance as i know i will be all tears and emotions.

2. The flight from LAX to Brisbane-- this is when it will set in a second time. I will finally be realizing that oh my gosh. i'm not staying in California with family but actually leaving everyone i know behind to head off to a whole other side of the world. well frick.

3. About 2 or 3 weeks into my trip, after my initial gallivanting around is done--I can already tell you that the first few weeks i'm n Australia I will feel like i'm on vacation. I will be seeing Fraser Island, the Great Barrier Reef and chilling out in hostels. So, it is not until I start to look for a job that I will suddenly realize that it will be another year before I see my family and friends from home again. 

It's not that I'm dreading these moments (with the exception of the first one which I will hate with the entirety of my being due to the number of times I will probably cry in front of people). Actually, quite the opposite. I relish moments of sadness lie this in travel. Yes, they are hard but they are a reminder that I am loved and that if all else fails i have people to come home to. Of course there is the old cliche that life wouldn't be as sweet without all the bitterness. Well, yes. Sometimes missing home is just the push i need to venture further into my new environment. It is a reminder that God provided incredible relationships before and He can do it again. So yes, I am terrified for the horrible bouts of loneliness I am  more than likely to encounter (if you know me at all you probably have caught on that i don't deal with being alone well). However, I look forward to the change, to the ways in which those hard moments can help me grow. 

Consider it pure joy my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds knowing that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. So let perseverance complete its work in you that you may be whole and complete.

James 1:2-4

Touché God

"Your life is a journey you must travel with a deep consciousness of God."  1 Peter 1:18 (The Message)

As I head off to Australia this is something I have found really touches my heart and truly captures my desire for this upcoming trip. Of course I want this to be a journey of discovery just like anyone who goes off on a grand adventure, but I am reminded that I don't always love what I discover. Granted, everyone finds out that they have flaws--obviously I'm far from the exception to that rule. However, I will be honest in saying that often what I have discovered in my trips is how shamefully easy I find it to step away from my faith when it suits my own needs. I desperately want this trip to be different.  I want to return from my journey having found myself more in love with God and on fire for my faith than ever before. I want to discover strengths I've been blessed with and challenges that have been set before me. I want to use this trip as a challenge to my faith. 

I plan everything. If you've known me for very long you know this well. Organizing is my comfort zone. It's how I relax my mind. And so, instead of attempting to control every aspect of my life's direction this coming year, I'm letting God work through this trip. I have a list of things I'd like to do, I know I'm flying into Brisbane and will be visiting with the lovely Colleen for a bit, that I will be in Sydney for New Years (cause you can't miss the chance to be in Sydney for New Years!), and will visit old family friends who live near Melbourne at some point. Past that, I have absolutely no specific plans. I don't know what type of work I will end up doing, where I will be any given month, or how I will get places. What I do know is that in everything I have done thus far in my life, the "touché God" moments have piled up.* I have a perfect plan and everything goes wrong..."why God, why?" And then BAM. The new and improved plan pops up, brought to you by the man upstairs. And all I can say is "touché God, touché." So for once were going to try and do this without the year finishing with a touché, and rather a look back at a year where I truly let go and allowed God to bring me to the circumstances I was supposed to be in knowing that he is a God who cares immensely about absurd little things like gap years in Australia. 

Side note. If you've never had a "touché God" moment, I really encourage you to take a moment and look back at your life a second. Look at the plans you've made that have gone wrong. Look at what happened next. Or look at things you cherish more than anything and look back at what happened to get you there. More often than not you'll see a touché turnaround in the midst of the times you were most frustrated or anxious about the future.

I have been looking up photos of Australia tonight and am being reminded of this insane desire in my heart to go and just be. Lately I have been getting so caught up in the idea of working elsewhere that I forget why i wanted to do this in the first place. I wanted to take a chance and live somewhere and experience all of it, and take each moment as it came, and sit back and just let it all in. I wanted to relive that feeling of sitting somewhere afraid to breathe, afraid to move, afraid to leave, knowing that the moment, once over, was gone for good. It is this feeling that keeps drawing me back. It's my internal Wanderlust: the feeling you get in the midst of travel when you look around, take it in and suddenly are able to see so much more clearly. They are the moments you realize that life is short and you cannot forget to spend time in complete wonder at the beauty God created. I can so easily recall moments in the past ten years when God has brought me to a halt, awestruck by the blessings of the moment i'm in. ...I'm immediately back at the edge of a small town in France taking in a countryside I couldn't tell you the name of...I can feel the chill of the early morning on top of a mountain in the Sinai as the sun begins to rise...I can feel the arms of friends around me, and hear voices singing at a fair in Germany...I can hear a good friend laughing as we wander around a graveyard spooking ourselves in England...and I have to wonder, what is next? Each new picture I see of Australia makes me crave those moments. Not to relive the past, but to have new snapshots. To be overwhelmed by the joy and sadness knowing this moment is it. Where will I be the next time God choses to ask me to pause for just a second? In the Blue Mountains? Camping in the outback? Along a highway? Staring at the sky? Laughing with friends in a hostel? I don't care, but I cannot begin to tell you how excited I am to find out. 

*this phenomenal term was coined by the best bible study crew ever: B-money, lextasy, Bex, and Molldoll.