how (and a little bit of why)...

the time has come, i've decided, to actually provide something of an explanation. i've alluded a number of times to going travelling and i think it's appropriate that i discuss how i came to make this decision.

years and years ago, in a past life, certain friends and i discussed the idea of going on a worldwide odyssey. not necessarily the same one mind, more getting into the concept and how we'd all go about it. some time later i moved across the country in search of a new life, new opportunities, and hopefully people who hadn't heard of me already. i had mixed success on all three counts, but one way or another things wound up working out pretty well.

back at the beginning of 2007 i finally got around to leaving the country, spending 5 days in Singapore with a couple of friends, getting thoroughly adopted by a Hokkien familiy over there and completely loving the culture and vibe of the place. a few months later i wound up back together with the girl i'd spent a couple of years living with, which lasted until around October or November before it started going cold for reasons i couldn't quite understand at the time. just before the final crunch happened i went to Fiji to visit Moonbug, old friend who'd been living and working there for half the year. Moonbug's incredible - while she was at uni she did a number of shitty jobs (which nonetheless paid well) so that she could pay her way through, and come out the other side with a slush fund which she used to go around the world for something lik 6 months. she's been damn-near everywhere as far as i can tell.

Fiji was awesome fun for the most part. i spent days swimming in the clear waters and wandering around the island, and nights getting roaringly drunk with backpackers from all over the planet trading stories and realising quietly that i was being so completely outclassed that it wasn't funny. there was NO way i could compete with these people, most of whom had spent at least 6 months wandering before they got to this tiny little island in the South Pacific.

i flew out of Nadi the day before New Years Eve with an impressive tan, a backpack full of Fijian booze and a quiet melancholy because 3 nights on a desert island with a great bar is never enough. i had a 3 hour stopover in Sydney before my connecting flight home so i checked in with Shadow who'd agreed to give me a lift home. through an amusing coincidence his brother and family were on the same flight out of Sydney as i was (he was moving back to Australia from London and had just spent the last 24 hours in Hong Kong before flying in to Sydney) and he had an idea. we discussed the plan, tuned it a bit, and i took up station in the departure lounge at Kingsford Smith with my book and waited. it wasn't even 20 minutes before i see this couple stagger into the lounge being towed by a ridiculously energetic 3 year old. i was lucky enough to have seen photos of her, at least, previously, so i instantly knew it was them, so i surreptitiously sent the message "Contact. Call me now."

15 seconds later my phone was ringing, and i let it ring a couple of times before i answered with
"hello? yes, they're here. please hold..."
and walked across the lounge, phone in hand. we were the only people there at this point, so i should explain - i was wearing black shoes, black jeans, a black tshirt and dark sunglasses, my hair was slicked back and i'd shaved the night before in the hotel in Nadi, so i wasn't looking too scruffy, and at 6'3", i must have cut a fairly imposing figure to someone who'd spent the last 48 hours travelling, so when i walked up, looked Tauss in the eye and in a deep voice asked:
"Excuse me, Mr M__ C__?"
he looked visibly freaked, but admitted "Er, yeah?"
"Ah. Phone for you." at which point i handed the phone over and gave his shocked-looking wife a quick wink as a silent "don't worry". the next thing i hear is
"Um... hello?" and then HEEEEEYYYY! HOW YOU DOIN?!?

joke played, i wound up spending the next hour or so hanging out with these poor people i'd freaked the hell out of. it turned out that Tauss had gone over to the UK for 6-12 months, 7 years ago, and was now bring his wife and 3-year old daughter back to Australia.

back home again, and things were still pretty cold with my ex, although it was still a couple of days before i found out that the reason she'd been so cold was because she'd hooked in with a new boyfriend. about 2 months ago. and hadn't thought it worth telling me until i asked. lovely.

i'd like to say i was shattered, but that would be overexagerating the truth. i was already pretty messed around and this was actually pretty good. i mean, i was upset, but at least now i knew what the hell was going on and it made things easier. at the same time as all this my job was getting particularly intollerable and i was getting ground into the dirt by the people i worked for, so i was in a seriously wrecked state all told.

either way, it wasn't long after this that i started talking to people about the idea of getting out of the country for a while. Britain was the first choice because... well, we speak the same language, for a start, i've always wanted to spend some time there eventually and it's an easy gateway to the rest of Europe. one evening i was talking to Paul & Lou about it while we sat around drinking wine out on their balcony and when i went to leave she walked me down to my car so that she could tell me that she's wanted to go over there since she was 16 and just hadn't had the opportunity and... well, if i went could she come with?

i was a bit surprised at this one. i was also a bit worried since Paully and i are pretty good mates, which is why a week or two later when Lou was out of the house i sat him down over beers and had a chat with him about my intentions, or lack thereof. that out of the way, and 50 or so emails back and forth over a couple of weeks and we had a plan. i headed off to Singapore, and this time Thailand and 2 weeks after i got back things were set in stone, tickets purchased and i had plans to move out of the (disintegrating, screaming hellhole of a) sharehouse i'd been living in for nearly 4 years, selling off most of my possessions in the process, and take up a spare room in Paully's flat.

amusingly enough, this isn't the first time i've had things to sour in the town i lived in and gone Some Where Else in search of something new. it's how i got came to move out of the place i'd grown up in and come out to this end of the world. it's been suggested that i do this because it seems easier than trying to fix things where i am. really, though, there comes a time where you've exhausted a part of the world and need to give it time to recharge. i'll go back west eventually. i'll come back to the land of the Ngunnerwal at some stage. right now, before i'm 30 and can still get an easy working-visa, is the point at which i need to go and do this sort of thing, even if it means that i dump my profession for a while and work in a bar or something. i'm not expecting to have to or anything - techies are (from what i've been reading) in even stronger demand in the UK than they are here.

still, i've got the opportunity and the ability to go see the world so what the hell? i figure that it's when everything falls apart that it's by far the easiest time to let climb out of the rubble and walk away to explore something new. it's almost as if one change begets another, bigger one.

now i just have to wait a little longer - 3 months and a week, to be more or less precise - and i'll be flying out again, off on another adventure which will take me to fuck-knows where. my last adventure went in directions i'd completely not expected, so this time i'm going with as few as possible. i want to see just how outlandish this all can get...