So it’s pretty exciting. I am going home soon. Home to my Mum who I miss so so much, my Dad, my brother, Muffin, Carrissa, Trevor, Sean, Alain, Luke and all my other friends and family – some who I know really care about me and have been thinking of me and sending their love even if they didn’t always say it and some who I’ve sadly discovered just couldn’t give a shit if I was in Sydney, Paris, London or Antartica (by the way I have not gone there if you have not been following my travels, you would have known that)

I’ve really found out so much about myself over these last few months and it definitely at times has been the most challenging, exhausting, confusing, thrilling, heartbreaking journey of my life. Heh not to mention expensive….

There really isn’t much left to say. I left Australia not really knowing who I am and I would be lying if I said now I feel 100% complete. But life isn’t that black and white. I think I knew that before. The last few weeks I have really felt confused about how I felt about coming home. Some people back home have kind of given me the impression that my homecoming isn’t a big deal to them and yes that really hurt my feelings. I mean I don’t expect some big fanfare but when you spend almost every part of yourself thinking about how things affect others, how others are doing, if everything will be okay if I just be selfish for a while then well sometimes you just want a little of it back.

But today I realise I have gained so much during the last few years of my life and of course this trip is something I will never, ever forget. But you have to take the good with the bad. I just wanted to leave Australia feeling like I was going to take sometime for me and hoped others might understand that. And for everything the universe has thrown at me, the good and the bad I think I am finally starting to feel grateful of it because it has so made me who I am today.

And now I know there’s more to leaving your home than just seeing those monuments for the first time. I think I finally proved to myself that yes I can stand on my own two feet but I’ve never liked the feeling of being alone and I am happy when I feel I belong. And so for those who have never forgotten me and contributed to every bit of my journey from my birth place of Sydney to beyond I sincerely thank you from the bottom of my heart. I think you know who you are and whether I am coming home or saying goodbye I will never ever forget you

xxxx

Hi all

So life has been busy here. Working everyday at M&S to earn my dosh to pay the rent. Ive been making a bunch of good friends here so lately life has also involved regular visits to the pub after work. Hurrah!

Well now I am in Holland in Maastricht (two hours outside of Amsterdam) I will be here with my cousins until Boxing Day. I’m staying for two more nights in Amsterdam, very keen to check out the Van Gough and Ann Frank Museums (will pass on the dope) and then I’m taking overnight ferry to Newcastle. From there I will take a train to Edinburgh to meet Shona from Topdeck for NYE. Hogsmany is the big street party they have there on NYE which I will be going to!

Anyway after that its back to London for a week staying with Anna Banana and then HOME(!!) on the 10th of January

I’m excited and also a little sad to finally be finishing my journey but I’m so looking forward to getting home and sharing some of my adventures with you. It’s been an amazing and totally challenging journey, with lots of ups and downs. Strange to think I’m almost at the end.

But maybe this is just the beginning….

Merry Christmas and love to you all. I will see you very soon!

Vanessa

xxxx

Hi all

Just a quick update to let you know that I have been surviving my retail job at Marks and Spencer Marble Arch (on busy Oxford St)

They have turned on the Christmas lights here now and all the store windows are filled with festive displays. Yep Christmas is definitely well on the way.

Hoping to go to at least on Christmas show here in the West End. Right now I am using an internet cafe near work. Going to do a bit of shopping before I go home, trying to avoid the hectic London traffic for a while.

Its starting to get soooooooo cold here. I am all bundled up with hat, scarf, gloves! Work is keeping me busy. I start at 7am tomorrow.

Oh look time is nearly off so I will write again soon

Thinking of you all

Love from Vanessa

xxxx

Hello! Just to let you know that Ihave lined up a job at Marks and Spencer (kind of like Myer or DJ’s here) until Xmas and I have booked to fly to Amsterdam onthe 21st December with Easyjet now too so white Christmas here I come.

I have been really worried aabout stuff lately. I went for an interview for a writing job (a pretty dodgy one actually, writing all this content for those viagra, weightloss junk, sex toys…all that crap you get in your SPAM) …theres more to the company than that but its how it makes enough money to stay in business. It wouldnt have been a career move but it would have been more interesting than selling plates in M&S.  I would have had to stay here for probably another 6 months.  But I didnt get it (I actually felt relief, coz I don’t know what I would have done if I had. So lucky I left it to fate…_)

To be honest the idea of staying in London for another 6 months away from family, friends, SUN(!!) justdidn’t really appeal to me. London was always only ever going to be a place to base myself for a few months to wait for Christmas so I could join Hayley and Nat in Masstricht.

So as long as I don’t have a totally evil manager or old, evil colleagues I plan to make the most of my time working here….Well even if it sucks at least I know it’s not forever. i know there was a chance given with money, eventually some friends and a decent job, I may grow to love this place. But frankly where I am now, I don’t want to risk it. As boring as my job at home is, it gives me a sense of security and at least some plan for my future. I want to be an editor one day…..I think at least one more year at McGraw-HIll is going to get my closer to it.

I have wonderful friends at home….I always knew I didn’t need to come here to build a life. When I get home I feel like I can handle anything. In fact I thinkI will look at moving into a sharehouse somewhere.
I am content……

I can start my countdown for home soon too. Just deciding to do Ireland for NYE. Think I might….

Can’t wait to get back for Australian summer!!!!

And nothing has changed. Amazingly I still haven’t lost my marbles. Yep I am still unemployed and Peckham is just as boring as it was when I first arrived.

If I don’t get some decent work in the next week or so that’s it. I am going home.

Radio 1 (on BBC1) is just fucking awesome. They play the best mixture of songs I have ever heard.  Its keeping me sane.  Sometimes they play the most random songs. Someone just called in and requested Afternoon Delight from Anchorman so they played it. Hahaha.

The other day I was so bored I actually watched the same episode of Home and Away twice (they play it in the arvo then repeat it again in the evening) And then I felt like crying for more than one reason….

Mmmm that’s all. I will let you know what the outcome of this situation ends up being.

~Vanessa

xxxxx

Hi there

So right now I am in my room in my new sharehouse in Peckham. I don’t mind living here. The house is very orderly with a cleaning roster and no rowdy sex crazed housemates. I have a nice big room, very reasonable rent and a computer at my leisure,  and the girls who own the house are nice. Hmm but sometimes like now it is so quiet and I am so bored.

So where I’m living. Its not really the most exciting part of London but its not too far from London Bridge in the South-East part of London. There are heaps of buses that go into town all the time. Hmm so yeah lots of black people live around here. I haven’t seen any Aussies or hardly any white Brits. But the shops are heaps cheap for London. And you can get whatever you need – theres a huge supermarket, lots of those small Asian stores that sell cheap fruit and veg, and my housemate told me London’s cheapest cinema. To be honest at the moment thats great for me. I have hardly any money left so I can just stay here and watch tv and cook a cheap meal of spaghetti in the extremely clean kitchen.

But if I don’t find a job soon I may go insane (and be evicted as well)

I do have a few more interviews lined up so I really, really  hope besides the rent situation and for the sake of being able to afford to go out and have a few drinks at the pub and try to create some kind of social life when I do meet people, I hope I get it. I really want to do this Winter Tour in December and if I dont get some stable work it’s not going to happen. In fact if I don’t get work soon I think I will just head back to Australia before Christmas, which would be so disapointing. Have so been looking forward to my first white Christmas with the family. But the Aussie dollar is so bad. If I havent got work by next week I am going to consider it

We shall see….

And British radio is pretty shit. I have been fiddling with the dial trying to pick up a decent station. BBC1 is pretty good but it doesn’t have very good reception here at all. It keeps changing over to this annoying reggae station. All the other stations I have found have been golden oldies and some station where all they played is power ballads. I am serious…

But to finish on a happy note. I have discovered: wait for it…(Luke this will excite you)

Home and Away on Channel 5! And because my housemates are always in their rooms 99 per cent of the time nobody seems to care that I go downstairs and watch it at 6.00pm each night (it is also on at 2.30pm I have recently discovered) and they are right up to the episodes that were on just before I left Australia.The Olympic Cliffhanger Luke!!  That might sound really sad that I am here and just watching Home and Away but it costs nothing and I appreciate it even more than at home if thats possible.  A little of piece of home…

Well this stupid radio station is starting to drive me nuts. I am especially not in the mood for Vanilla Ice tonight.

I am going to flick it off and go downstairs. Shame it is Saturday so no Home and Away on tonight

Wishing you all the best and as much as I miss you all really hoping I get to stay in Europe a bit longer

Love Vanessa

xxxx

Dear friends

I know its been ages since I have managed to write a blog. That’s because I have been with Topdeck for the past 19 days and have barely had time to breathe, let alone blog.

Actually I did get a bit of a break when we were in Pag Island in Croatia. We stayed in a lovely hotel and I actually got a double bed to myself and got to have a bubble bath, which might have been the best bath I have ever had in my life just because I needed it so much.  But seriously if you ever make it to the part of the world do not I repeat go any later than September. Seriously that place was dead. And it was actually cold and raining! It’s meant to be a huge party island between June and August but after that everyone packs up and leaves. Seriously all the stores were even shut and there wasn’t one internet cafe on the island.

We took a boat out to another island called Rab Island. Not a particularly pleasant experience. It was pouring rain, chilly and we were stuck on a boat with these loud, drunken Germans who looked like they had just been let out of jail. Rab island was a nice place though, climbed up another bell tower and got an amazing view of Croatia. Shame about the rain though.

It was also raining when I was in Florence.  Climbed another church tower (I’ve lost count of the amount of bascillas/churches/bell towers I have visited since I have  been in Europe LOL) That one was quite a trip. About 500 stairs. Got to the top and decided to call home because I felt especially lonely that day so I was standing at the top of this tower in the rain. It was as depressing as it sounds.

So I am finally free of the Topdeck bus. I cannot say how happy I am. That sounds terrible but I hated that bus. I have never seen so many amazing sites. (I just loved Italy and can’t wait to go back there for a month sometime in the future!) But being on a bus for 8 to 10 hrs hours a day sometimes with these people was really starting to do my head in. Don’t get me wrong there were some really nice people on the bus but generally the majority of them were idiots and that’s all I am going to say about that.

So I have had many experiences; good and bad, which was wanted to get out of this trip so I am not regretful at all. So far the places I have been to:

Dubai

London/Oxford/Scotland (UK)

Greece (Athens, Mykonos, Paros, Santorini and Ios)

Paris (still my favourite place)

Barcelona (hmm was okay, 4 days was a bit much there)

Nice and Monaco (pretty but extremely expensive and beaches were mediocre in my honest opinion)

Italy (Florence, Orvieto, Rome and Venice) – Fucking amazing, even with the rain in Florence.

Austria (some cave town I can’t remember the name of at the top of my head and Tyrol). Looking forward to hopefully seeing more of Austria in December

Slovenia (Lake Bled and Ljubjana) – really nice part of the world

Prague, Czech republic, which is where I am now.

So I am totally out of money and need to start working asap!! I am back to the UK on Saturday. I think I will spend a week there in London to see if I can find any temp work and a place to live. If not I will have to take the pub job which only pays less than 6 pounds an hour but has very cheap accomodation and provides one meal a day. Hmmm weighing it up.

I have so many stories to tell but not enough time. Thinking of you all

~Vanessa

xxx

So I have made to old Paris. Paris itself is amazing, today has not. Where do I start

Firstly let me say I am pretty tired&Cranky so this retarded French keyboard is pissing me off more than it probably would.  The letters are in different places so I keep stuffing up words

This morning it started off crap coz I was sharing a room with 2 snoring Americans so didnt get much sleep last night. Anyway first off the shitty hostel said I had 2 pay 10 extra Euros for my room which pissed me off cos I didnt have enough cash in my wallet and the retards didnt take credit card either. The ATM outside wasnt working either so I went to search for another one; ended up getting totally lost in shithole Athens. I had a map but ended up getting directed even further away from the hostel. Tried to hail one of ten millions taxis that went past me; seriously they said theres like 10 000 cabs in Athens but none of them stopped and then when one did they didnt speak English!!! By now one and a half hrs had passed and I was getting stressed cos needed to catch my plane to Paris by 10.20am. Finally found a cab driver who would take me back to my hostel and then to airport: the traffic ended up being terrible and by the time I got to airport even with him speeding like a maniac the gate closing time had passed. Luckily just made it in and got onto plane. Thought all was OK except got to Orly Airport in Paris and it was total chaos and couldnt find my backpack anywhere!

Its not all bad I suppose; I do have small suitcase with few clothes; better than having nothing. Do hope it  turns up though, guess I will have 2 use Travel Insurance otherwise. See travelling is not so magnifique sometimes

So tired now; been a long day. But I am happy to be here; it really is beautiful, cant wait to sightsee tomorrow

Wearily yours…

V

What can I say? I am in Ios at the Far Out Beach Club and it is awesome!!!!!!! There are 3 pools (one with water slide), a beach right out front and like 2 or 3 bars in the resort and loads in town. Went out last night with the people from the tour. Ah what a night. I must say theres been some crazy nights here. The other night my roommate threw up in the sink. Apparently I came back (drunk of course)and tried to clean it up with the toilet brush….hmmm not a good thing but I don’t really remember so does it count? Don’t worry there hasn’t been any drunken hookups…yet but there is still a longtime ahead on this trip.

Time’s about to run out on the internet. Speak to you all soon

 

Love V

 

xxx

Hi well here I am in Mykonos in the Greek Islands. Its strange to think I’ve been away from home for over 2 weeks now. Time is just flying by. Apologies for my lack of updates lately, I do try to find internet cafe whereever I go its just by the time I put my photos up for my folks and friends to check out, check email, check Facebook there just isn’t much time left!

I have 15 minutes here now so I’m quickly going to give you an update what I have been doing since I arrived in London on the 21st Aug. Spent 2 nights in London then took bus to Oxford to meet Ben. Stayed at the YHA Oxford for 1 night then me and Ben took a train to Edinburgh.

Scotland was just amazing. I loved it. We happened to come when the Fringe Festival was on, caught the last 2 days and the vibe was just so cool. Everyone was just happy and friendly. Food was shit like in England but I’m trying to keep healthy by buying eating fruit regularly and I drink a lot of water (bottled because usually I don’t like the taste of tap water and I am a bit worried about how safe it is to drink)

So we spent 4 days away in Scotland. Spent a day sight seeing in Edinburgh with a cool Canadian guide. It was a tour system where the tour is actually free and you just tip the guide at the end, depending how good you think he conducted the tour. My Canadian guide was hillarious and had very good knowledge of Scotland so I gave him 7 pounds. Ben spent the day in Glaslow looking at random soccer stadiums…go figure. Its Ben lol

The next day we took a bus tour through the Highlands and the Lochs. Took a few hrs to reach Lochness and it was raining of course. But it was so beautiful. We took a boat cruise on the loch…no lochness monsters unfortunately. Ben was so disapointed. By the way if you ever come to Lochness you will see ‘hairy coos’….that is hairy cows for us non Scottish. They have a famous hairy coo called Hamish. Ah he was just beautiful and gentle.

Took the train back to Oxford from Edinburgh on the Wednesday and I spent 2 more nights in Oxford. On Friday I took a bus from Oxford to Gatwick and flew to Athens. Arrived about 9.30pm and got a taxi to the Athens backpackers hostel. There was a lot of partying going on there but I went to sleep coz I had to wake up at 5.30am(!) the next morning to catch my ferry to Mykonos.

I’m really loving being part of this Busabout tour through the Greek Islands. Our guide is cool. His name is John and he’s from Perth. I think he said he was 26. I’ve met lots of cool Aussies, Kiwis, Canadians, Londoners.  We’ve been spending the days at the beach and nights at the bar. Lots of fun

Well my time is about to run out and I also need to get ready to leave for our next island which is Santorini. We spend 2 days in each. Going to Mykonos, Santorini, Paros and Ios. Ios is supposed to be party hard place so I’ll let you know about that soon!!!

I’m starting to miss everyone but having a great time. Look forward to talking to you soon

Love Vanessa (who is very tanned and also bit hungover today!)

xxx