It was four years ago on this day – Oct 3rd – when we tried to leave Europe and head to Australia but we couldn’t. The decision that our family shall go and see what life looks like in the kangaroo lands was taken spontaneously in the late summer of 2015, somewhen between the 2 wonderful weeks we had spent in America and the vacation we were going to have in Bulgaria.
I’ve been dreaming about visiting Australia since the day I read Jules Verne’s “The Children of Captain Grant” but never really put much effort into actually doing it. Besides those several weeks in 2003 when I was clutching the immigration papers and was close to lodging an application but then I fell pregnant and the idea of crossing continents immediately faded away.
It was the things happening in Europe in the fall of 2015 that have awaken the old Australian dream. Some very odd events made us read the news more carefully and follow up on details, international plans and novelty legislation rushed through governments and parliaments back then. From everything we heard, read and felt, it seemed that a time has come to move again.
In less than six months we dismantled our comfortable Western European life, approximately 7 years after it had started from a scratch. Houses, cars, belongings, visa and school applications, embassies and administrations, sad tears over precious memories and cats, formalities and plans for unknown distant places – the story repeated itself for a second time.
We left for Oz with one suitcase per capita and no idea how exactly things are going to be, incl. financially. Ignorance is bliss. But my word was for our very departure. The anticipation, the hesitation, the preparations and all the stress culminated on the warm morning of October 3rd, 2016. With just a couple of hours left until the long-haul flight and a million things yet to be finished, including 150kg corporate parcels to be signed and unloaded at the local post office, we were running against the clock.
There were luggage for packing, a rented car for returning, nails for polishing and children for minding. Sounds easy but it’s not because of the melatonin pills we were taking in the target sleep time. Melatonin works wonders on preventing jet-lag but causes irresistible drowsiness in the most abnormal hours of the day.
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So this was us at the peak of the day – a sorrowful portrait of overwhelmed parents and their two unfortunate children – Hanzel (12) and Gretel (10). By noon we officially ran out of time so the kids and I locked the empty house and run off by foot through the forest carrying 5 bags and a car windshield, while Hanko was labelling hundreds of envelopes in the post office.
500m down the road we came across an expensive vehicle with a pale ghost behind the wheel whom the kids recognised as their father. Apparently he’d hit the bumper while offloading boxes, thus losing the last strain of self-composure for the day. We crammed the car and dashed to the airport, a good 90 minutes away. It was literally a matter of minutes and green traffic lights for us to catch this flight.
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Luckily, we got there just on time, returned the car and checked the luggage. While praising each other’s superhuman skills, we slid into the business lounge like a bunch of truly successful people. After a buffet attack and a couple of hours spent in good spirits and plenty of petit fours, we decided we could board a plane already.
We showed up to the gate with the aplomb of stellar platinum travellers, only to be informed that the plane had somehow taken off without our platinum bottoms. Busy with indulging, we had obviously missed some vital details displayed on the airport boards. Then a whirl of tense discussions and hysterical syncopes unfolded, followed by a marathon between airport service desks to retrieve our luggage and a painful investment in new tickets for the next morning.
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On further negative side, we had to cancel the first night of our forthcoming Singapore adventure as well and substitute it with the airport hotel instead. On the positive side and as per unanimous vote, this was the night we had the best sleep ever.
So this is how we made it to Australia back then, in two batches. Despite the uneven beginning, these were four fantastic years which made our family really happy and impatient to enjoy the fifth.
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