I always had a strong desire to travel and explore the world. I have had an around the world trip- dream shared with my best friend from the age of 16..When I was 23, it occured to me time had come to give in to my wanderlust. By the time I was so sick and tired of doing what I was supposed to do.
All my life I did exactly what I had to do. Not only our parents, family and friends but even our society make it very clear that there is a certain path for everyone to follow. Things you have to do in life in order to be a ‘normal’ and good person.
The plan is usually play untill your Wow,.. a whole 3 years old….
Then go to kindergarden followed by elementary school, and after that 6 years of high school.
If you got good grades untill now, you normally stick to what is ‘silently’ planned out for you… An almost non discussable choice… university or further studies. You have to choose between several topics with a really wide range. Not easy to decide whatever you want to commit to for the rest of your life at the age of 18 .
So under this unspoken pressure.. I did my best for good grades and good behaviour. I finished university whitin my time and kept my travel dreams to myself a little longer..
I felt like I had to wait until I had accomplished something in life. Because even though everyone pretends it’s not really there.. we are all under constant pressure to do what is right.. to follow the plan you are supposed to follow..
After 4,5 years of Uni.. the end was nearby so I finally started to plan my trip.
As I learned that an around the world trip would not be possible starting off without any money. I thought I’d better stick to just one continent at a time.
I litteraly chose the one the furtest away from home because I wanted to be drowning in a new culture.. I always had a thing for New zealand… (I think I have the lord of the rings trilogy to thank for that)
So that was the plan.. It occured to me that I would also have to work if I wanted to spend a couple of months overseas..
Also I really wanted the whole experience.. because as a traveller you often only see the most attractive and touristy sites of a country… I figured the best way to really soak up the culture was to actually live with people from whitin the country. Learn about their values and their habits.
I thought to myself why not help out a local family with whatever they need. The idea of being an aupair naturally evolved from that…
As I searched for families New Zealand didn’t really offer a lot of families I could see my self fit in with…
I started broadening my range and included Australia wich was also really high on my wishlist and not too far from NZ.
I contacted a few families but my eye fell in particular on 1 young bubbly couple.
She was French and he was Australian… their profile matched pretty good with what I was searching for so I contacted them and really hoped for a positive respond.
After a couple emails.. we both felt like this was it and after a skype-session we made it final.
Andrew Hay and Gaetane Potard were to be my future Down under family!
I started to get all the paperwork done.. visum,international drivers liscence, insurance, flights,…
And as I was getting more and more excited I finally recieved the long expected email and soon to be skype session with baby Anaïs who was born on july 29 th.
October 28th I had to say goobye to my dear family and friends.
It was pretty damn hard but as soon as I was on the plane I had peace with it knowing I would return in 4 months. Only up until that moment it felt real.
Slowly it occured to me that my very great grand adventure had started.