Earthquakes and travel weariness

Today was a day of very exciting events. First of all Anna returned from the horrors temptations of the jungle, so finally I have my travel mate back to share the joys and sorrows of the journey with. Another rather exciting thing was a small earthquake that hit North Queensland this afternoon. The focus was farther down in the south but slight tremors reached our little city, too. I happened to be reading a book in my bed, so I felt it quite clearly. First I thought it's just a spell of dizziness but then a memory of the "who's rocking my bed"-feeling from Japan surfaced and I was able to recognize the tremor for what it was. I didn't know there are such powerful quakes that you can actually perceive them in Australia. Later it was in the news that our earthquake was magnitude 5.8 and it was the biggest quake in Queensland for 20 years!

OK, let's leave the topic, I guess it's not even normal to be so excited because of an earthquake.. But we have also experienced mental quakes. Anna and I spent two weeks without the constant company of each other and it seems we have used the time to think about our journey. When we were traveling together and spent most of the time in each other's pocket, we used to share all the worries and look after each other, but without the mental support of a friend both of us were forced to think about our life here and also about the life after the Australian adventure. It's maybe not so surprising that we made some very similar discoveries about our feelings towards Australia. However, I'm only going to speak for myself as I continue explaining my feelings.

At the moment I am a bit fed up with the entire adventure thing. I am well-known for my inability to maintain my interest towards anything for longer than 3 months (and it so happens that the three months milestone was reached a couple of days ago), but I am surprised nonetheless. I never planned my life after Australia, as I kind of assumed that all the dots would connect here, that I would finally be able to figure out what I want to do with my life, I was sure this place can offer all the answers. Not surprisingly, that's not what happened. I wish it was so easy to find the answers but the ugly truth is that I am still stuck with wrong education and career choices, I still don't know what kind of job I'd be interested in (I only know I don't want to work with people) and the supply of and demand for money never meet.

So I thought that I'll go back to Finland, probably via Thailand, around Christmas and after that there will be new adventures somewhere else but I don't know where. On the other hand it would be nice to live closer to my family and friends but on the other hand I know myself well enough to know that the winter in the Nordic countries only makes me feel pissed and it's quite tiring to be pissed with your life most of the time. I can still remember how unhappy I was in Finland. So if you happen to know a nice and warm place where it's easy to find a job without relevant education, please share the knowledge.

The short term plan is to go to Sydney where we have another volunteer place waiting for us. I am starting to be a bit tired of volunteering, too. It would be nice to have a life of my own instead of borrowing other people's lives. On the other hand volunteering saves money as we don't need to pay for accommodation and food. From Sydney we'll continue to Melbourne and if Melbourne can't provide me a job I'll be off to Asia in November before I'm forced to go back to Finland. Well, that's my day in a nutshell. I hope to write a more positive post next time but it's worth remembering that travel weariness is a natural part of a traveler's life, nothing to be scared or ashamed of. It doesn't mean that I don't love my life and my stay in Australia. it doesn't mean that I regret coming here or that I want to jump to the next plane back to Europe. It'just one of those moments on the road when everything look grim and gray and like it's raining inside your head. But the feeling will pass and you can learn from it, so embrace it, let it come and let it go!

Travel depression

A new job in Ireland is waiting but suddenly I didn't feel like going anymore. I got back to Finland and my original plan was to have a t least a 3 weeks holiday. Too bad it turned out to be only 5 days holiday. Maybe that's the source of my lack of enthusiasm towards the trip to Ireland. Or maybe I'm getting old and it's starting to sound more appealing to have a nice little apartment where I'm going to live longer than 1 year.

Missing these landscapes

Anyway, I left Finland once again and started my too long a journey to Ireland. A trip including a 9 hours transfer at Heathrow is a nice but maybe not professional way to test if someone is quite right in the head. After 4 hours of waiting I started to randomly laugh at stupid things and had to come to the sad conclusion that I'm not right in the head.

Plane spotting at Heathrow terminal 2

I got to know terminal 2 so well that I could write a Lonely Planet guide about it. What a relief it was when the flight departed around 6 o'clock in the evening. I was even too tired to be afraid of flying. Even better, the drive to the hotel only took 10 minutes and the hotel room has a bathtub.. Now I'm happy I'm here in Ireland :D