Australia…I have daydreamed of going there for years and when I say years, I mean years. Not like one or two but more like ten plus years. Everyone has a place they want to visit or places they want to visit. When I was 16, it was Key West and then I thought maybe I’d like to move to San Francisco because I so loved Armistead Maupin’s characters in Tale of the City, but when I started my mason jar of fun, I labeled it Key West. San Francisco, you just weren’t in my soul like Key West was. Another place I wanted to travel to was New Orleans and Las Vegas. I never knew pre-Katrina New Orleans, but I do know post-Katrina New Orleans and it was as if Key West had moved to the land of gumbo and crawfish. My soul felt good there. Vegas…Sin City…the desert of flashy lights…I enjoy you but for only about 3 or 4 days. It’s where my soul goes to play and eat decadent food. In the back of my head, there was one place, I knew I had to visit. I longed for it. My soul longed for it…Australia. I’d ask my parents every year if they would mind if I missed Christmas or New Years because this year I WAS GOING to Australia. They would say no they wouldn’t mind, travel while I could, have fun while I could, and supported every hair brained plan I had. Another year would come and go and I’d ask the same question again. Well, after years of planning and day dreaming, I am going to Australia this December. First, I was going to go by myself. I’m an adult, I don’t need someone to be with me to have fun. I am content to travel on my own and do things on my own. My first trip to Key West was on my own. Now though, I am going with some dear friends: Suzanne, Heather, & Nikki.  We arrive in Sydney on December 15th. On the 17th, I plan on watching the sun come up over Bondi Beach and as the sun kisses the morning awake, I will look up to the sky and know that my mom is smiling down on me for FINALLY realizing a dream and when the sun bids the day goodnight, I will make a wish on the first star I see over Bondi Beach and know once again, that all the roads I have traveled, all the choices good and bad I have made, and that all the money I have and don’t have put me right where I should be…Australia.

After the 18th, we don’t have a set plan on what we will be doing…we will go wherever our songlines take us until Dec 28th when we return to Bondi Beach and spend the rest of the year skydiving, being beach bums, adventurous, and ringing in the new year.

I don’t know what adventures Australia will bring for me and the other girls, but I do know it’s now not only a trip that I was destined to do but that they were destined to do with me. It is written in the stars and it has been written into our songlines. It will be the trip of a life time for all of us and it will be a trip that changes all of our lives.

Australia, I still cannot believe I will be seeing you in a mere 196 days. I don’t think I’ll actually believe it until I land and see you for myself. I do know, that I cannot wait to experience everything you have to offer and give my life.