I always knew I wanted to travel and for as long as I can remember I have always wanted to see the Eiffel Tower. But it was always one of those out-there-someday kind of dreams. I always thought it was something I would do when I was older, in the distant future. And then I started university, and I started meeting people who had been to Europe. I remember sitting in my history lecture with my history lecturer asking who had seen the Sistine Chapel, and watching hands go up all over the room. I was sitting there thinking 'I want to be one of those people'. I wanted my dream to become reality. And then in one of those bizarre moments, it did. I had talked to a friend about wanting to go to Europe, and had even gone so far as to make a plan. I will admit now, that I was influenced greatly by the book 'Eat, Pray, Love'. I didn't sell everything I own and run away to a foreign country for a year, but I did become convinced that it would be better to spend a longer time in fewer places and have a chance to really explore the cities I was in, rather than take the more traditional route of university students before me and catch the Contiki party bus around Europe. So with these still rather vague ideas about going, but a large dose of determination, I told my parents. And my mum surprised me by telling me that she wanted to come with me. It was surprising because before I had been to New Zealand, neither of my parents had left Australia. When I came back, they decided that it might be nice to go to New Zealand. But I never thought my mum would ever make it to Europe. Obviously I agreed. What happened next took me by surprise. The very next day we were at a Travel Agent. The day after we were paying for our flights and making bookings. My friend pulled out, as she didn't have the money to pay the deposit on the flight. We had planned to save for a few months and then book flights later in the year, but my mother was an unstoppable force. I think she may have been acting before her rational brain could talk herself out of it. Whatever the reason, within a few days we had a hotel booked in Paris for 7 nights, a hotel in Rome for 8, and flights, there and back again.
It took all of my savings to pay for the flight. I then spent the next 8 months filling shelves at a grocery store to pay for the rest. That is a feat I am rather proud of. While my friends were out drinking, clubbing and generally wasting their money, I was sitting at home saving every cent I could, researching everything I could about travelling to Europe. I could barely afford to leave the house except for uni, but at the end of eight months, I got on a plane, everything paid and enough money in my bank account to enjoy my European adventure. A lot of my friends asked me why I bothered with this. I was travelling with my mother, wouldn't she just pay for everything? I could also see that written on the face of almost every person I told I was travelling with my mother. They assumed I was a spoiled kid getting treated by mummy. But its not true. I earned that money with a crappy job earning minimum wage. It was a matter of pride, precisely because I didn't want to be that spoiled kid. My family has never been rich, and we've had to earn and fight for every cent. My parents sacrificed I hate to think how much, to make sure we could go on excursions, and had the best chance in school. And while we are now much better off, with three kids no longer at home, and my mum having a much better job, I still didn't want to take her money. I hated asking for anything as a kid, knowing just how hard it was for my parents, and its a hard mentality to shake. I know now, a year later, that mum did struggle to pay for her half of the trip, and if I'd been relying on her, I don't know if she'd have made it.
After several revisions, our itinerary had us in Paris for 7 days, flying to Rome via London, staying in Rome for 3 days, heading north to Venice and Florence for 2 days and then returning to Rome. On the way back we stopped in Bangkok for three days before returning to Brisbane. In retrospect it may not have been the best way to organise our itinerary. But it worked for us. And this trip provided some of the most amazing and inspiring experiences of my life.
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