This blog post is the hardest one to write. I am leaving my newfound love, a country that took me in and gave me a home. Australia has been the place of my dreams, giving me new friends for a lifetime.
I was so gut-wrenchingly nervous for my departure, and months later I am just as nervous to leave. These qualms are not because I don’t want to go home, as there are certainly things I miss. Especially the food– I miss Goya and Chick-fil-a and definitely Black Bean Deli, but it is bittersweet to abandon the ecosystem I worked so hard to create for myself. It was the truest idea of independence in Newcastle; I had no family or past friends to rely on for support or to fix my problems. I am thankful for this in the end, because I was able to prove myself to myself. Finals are lurking, the last nail in the coffin of this adventure I was lucky enough to embark on. Hopefully, it will not be the last of my sights of Australia, but it is a longstanding farewell.
I will miss the travels, and the new discoveries around every corner. I will miss the fair wages and fascinating work I was able to do. I will miss the people, and their accents. I will miss their willingness to learn and their inescapable questioning of American politics. I will miss the progress made at almost every turn, and I will miss the healthcare. There are many things I will miss, and they are things not easily forgotten about. I am thankful for the time I did get, however short, because it gave me so much room to learn and to grow. I will not be sad, because I am onto tackling my next country; Ireland. I am going to visit my girlfriend and be given the amazing opportunity to learn how yet another faction of people exist in this big world. Ireland will be yet another culture shock, not to mention one of temperature. It is freezing there, and it is summer in Australia. I think I will manage, after purchasing a coat. This time next week I will be writing a farewell to study abroad. However, I will be returning to the states and to these blog posts with new experiences and a new perspective on life and the potential future of America.
