I’m coming home – Rosa’s blog

Truth be told, I didn’t really want to come on this trip. Nine months away from home and everything I know, was a terrifying and not particularly attractive idea for me. I like seeing new places, sure, but I’m definitely not a natural-born traveller, I like my home comforts too much. But, in the end, I decided to go, because I wanted to see my aunty Ellie, and cousin Thomas and meet her dogs and her family and friends in Australia, and because I  wanted to see what China was really like, and because hey, it’s bound to be one hell of an experience, right?

As I’m writing this, I’m on a train going from Budapest to Vienna in Europe, only two days away from home, and although I’m so excited to arrive back and see my cat and finally get to properly rest for the first time in months, although I’m relived it’s finally over, I know I made the right decision in going.

It really WAS one hell of an experience.

I’ve definitely grown as a person on this trip. Constantly travelling into new and strange places forces you to step out of your comfort zone in ways you wouldn’t expect. It’s often challenging both mentally and physically, but that’s when I found my ‘travel mode’ kicked in. It would quickly become overwhelming if I thought too hard about the fact that we were going to yet another new place, or about how much more travelling was ahead of us, so here is my simple trick to deal with that: ‘don’t think about it’. I know, it sounds too simple to work, but trust me your mind will be happy to oblige, and it really made travelling easier than I was expecting. Sometimes the travelling was alright, and in other places even fun – I was particularly surprised by the long ferry rides we took to get through Indonesia. I thought they would be hellish, but we got to see dolphins and flying fish and even turtles, all on a mercifully calm turquoise sea.

…in the challenging parts of our trip, there was no other choice but to power through or when we didn’t have a clue, to be brave and ask somebody for help, and I think, over time, my confidence has grown as a result.

There’s also a lot you gain in seeing so much of the world. Most of it is hard to explain without sounding pretentious or saying things like, “oh you’d just have to do it to understand,” but one thing I’ll say is that everywhere around the world, despite how different places can be, it’s kind of all the same. We’re all people, going about our normal lives, whatever form ‘normalcy’ takes. We really are all part of the human race, and most of the time people just want to be kind to each other – perhaps because we recognise that we are the same, really.

The kindness we have experienced on this trip, from complete strangers, has really shown me just how warm and generous  people can be if they decide to be – and how much of a difference it can make to someone. It’s been a treasure to be able to experiemce something like that for myself.

All that said I still don’t think I am a traveller at heart. Part of how I survived this trip was the long breaks we took in China and Australia (particularly Australia), where I got to live in a world that was settled and felt just normal for a few months, that felt like home in a different sort of way. They both made it worth the trip to get there – getting to live with Ellie and my cousins was just such an irreplaceable experience, and China? It was everything I had hoped it would be.

Both gave me the strength to get up and go back again, with the promise of my other home waiting for me on the other side of all this ‘world’.

I’m not like my mum and dad, I’m not really a ‘traveller’ – I couldn’t even imagine myself living like this indefinitely. If we didn’t have a clear end date in our sights, I feel like I would have gone crazy a while ago. I like lazy days of nothing, and waking up in the same familiar setting practically every day. I like having little routines, and making the choice to go out, but knowing ultimately I can come back. I like the stability and comfort that comes with it.

I like my home.

It’s funny, I didn’t really realise how much I missed it until I could almost taste it. But wow, just travelling through landscape and hearing birdsong that vaguely resembles the UK in the past few days has made me feel almost giddy with excitement, as if it was just as exciting to see a hazel tree as it was to see a giant fern… and if I’m honest I reckon I was even more excited to see the hazel trees because I know what they represented. Home, almost within my grasp again.

I can’t believe after all this time, after nine months of adventuring and meeting so many people and seeing so many things, after travelling halfway across the world …and back, I’m finally nearly there.

And it feels that much more precious because of our adventures. This is really it, I’m coming home.