Just say "goodaye"

I’m sitting on the balcony right now of a hostel near the Gold Coast Airport. It’s Friday night. Tomorrow morning, I fly and leave this beautiful country. Who is to say when, why and how I might or might not set foot on Australian red soil again. Nobody can know.. But for now there are many I DO know and I’m more than happy to share what it is I’ve become aware of.

It’s dark, it’s humid, it’s nice. I went for a walk just to check out the place, and all I found were drunken kids and surf-shops. Australia. I thought: My last impressions? Drunken kids and surf-shops? This location is near a place called Surfers Paradise (those who have travelled in Oz, have definitely heard of it, as it’s a tourist “hotspot“). It’s somewhere I’ve never been before but I’ve heard stories about how amazing it’s supposed to be - in the daytime that is. I’m sure the sea is a clear bright blue colour. I’m sure it’s as pretty as a picture and I‘m sure the surfers dudes are hunks and the girls are all models with blond hair and amazing tans. But, from what I can see, I’m not too impressed. I strolled around in search for something, but didn’t know what. And so, I found nothing. Nothing that would be of any interest to me. It felt so strange: this amazing place, my last night, and not an ounce of anything.

So, as I sit here on the balcony with loud music blaring in the background, coming from the pub downstairs, and from the one next door and from the nightclub across the road, I’m feeling as if I’ve already said goodbye. I realized this as I was strolling along and a dude walked by and simply said: Goodaye”. I smiled and that word echoed in my mind: “Goodaye.” A word I’m not likely to hear anytime in the foreseeable future. He said “goodaye” to me, and I was saying goodbye to his country. What a contrast. It made me suddenly see myself from the place I set out, 9 months ago, which was Ireland. I could feel the distance I had travelled, in both space and time. And now, this was still me, having done all I had to do in Oz. I set out in April, without any expectations as to what I was going to do or how long I was going to stay. It was an open door that would reveal so much and the only “plan” I had planned was to go with whatever came my way. And today, I found myself suddenly at the end of this chapter, rich with so many new experiences through which I’ve grown in many different ways.
More to come..