Thursday, June 30, 2005

I miss Oz :(

Have u ever been homesick?? I never knew what people meant when they talked about it, but lately I think I can relate to what ppl mean.

It's been 6 weeks now away from home - travelling through Greece and Italy, and now finally settling into London. It's been a great time really, and we've been really lucky being able to travel with the honeymooners, the newly engaged, and the recently marrieds. Many many silly photos of honeymooners Wong I must say!

Anyway, it all started with weird dreams. I’d dream about dinners with groups of friends and I could see people’s faces and I could feel the love and I’d wake up and everyone would disappear. I’d be left awake in the middle of the night wondering what those people were up to on the other side of the world, and I wouldn't be able to sleep for the next 2 hours.

Then other symptoms began to appear – an almost obsessive need to check email overtook me (and Jen I think). There we were in these foreign country with marvellous sights around us and all we wanted to do at times is find an internet cafe and pay the $4-15 Aus/hr to find out what people at home were up to. We’d sit there and read ALL those reply-all emails – trying to find out how karaoke went the other night, what happened at rock climbing, who went, how they climbed, any little piece of information to remind you of home and make u feel that bit closer again.

You get this compulsion to send these giant mass emails about your travels – one purpose being to tell everyone what you’ve been up to, and the other reason is so that you hopefully can get an email in return. I never realised how many people there are that you want to catch up with and how hard it is to write personal emails to everyone. You sit back after sending the mail and expect a flurry of replies, but the other people are not in the same time zone (not like email banter at work!), so you are left to sign out and check again the next day.

One night you can’t sleep and you lay awake thinking about how to organise your school reunion (and planning it for 2 years time, so that you'll be back in Aus by then)!

I can only imagine how difficult it must have been for my folks and others who travel alone – the thought of leaving everything behind, breaking out of that comfort zone and doing it solo … it’s already tough enough I think.

It’s makes you happy when you think of the farewells, dinners and time spent with people before leaving – I’m sure it’ll make us appreciate home much more too!

Anyways - we miss you guys! Keep letting us know all those silly things that are happening in your life - all those mundane things too. It's weird how u grow to miss those things too. Lastly, get your butts over here soon and join us! Anna and Geri's Christmas white elephant party is only 6 months away!