The Full Circle of Expat Life

29 March 2016

Moving abroad, returning home and everything in between

At the end of 2008, I used the inheritance from my recently deceased Granny to buy a one-way ticket from Scotland to Australia. I was 24, and the grief of watching cancer take the woman I loved with all my heart, idolized and spent most of my time with sent me slightly off the rails. So after making a barrage of idiotic choices, I impulsively bought a flight, gave up my first professional job as a sub-editor at a Sunday newspaper, squeezed my life into a backpack and flew to Sydney in March 2009, with no plan apart from meeting my sister, who was already there backpacking.

Now I’m 32 and I’m on the cusp of returning back to the U.K. on a one-way ticket. I’ve called this beautiful country “home” for about eight years and it’s been a wild ride.

I reunited with my sister in Sydney, and was immediately overawed by the thick wall of heat that hit me as soon as I stepped off the plane, as well as the Neighbors-style houses, and everyone’s laid-back, friendly vibe. We then flew across to Perth and stayed in a hostel, making a gang of travel friends (including my future ex-husband), before heading to work in a pub in a rural mining town, which was undoubtedly the most authentic and unique Aussie experience I had, with searing temperatures, ocher Aussies, skimpy bars and kangaroos bouncing freely around.

We saved enough cash to rent a car and drive the red, dusty road from Perth to Broome, and then flew to Darwin to meet our traveling friends and work again, before exploring the east coast. In the next few months, the group gradually dispersed as visas ran out and new travel plans formed. By this stage I was in a relationship with an Irish teacher called Michael* and we decided to take a road trip to Melbourne to find work in our professional fields.

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