Leaving on a jet plane, don’t know when I’ll be back again

I am sitting here in my hotel room for one last night in Melbourne before we fly out tomorrow morning. It will again be quite a journey. The breakdown is:

10:30 am Sunday (8:30 pm Saturday East Coast time): leave Melbourne
7:30 am Sunday (10:30 am Sunday East Coast time): arrive Los Angeles
(yes, I arrive in the US 3 hours before I left. This act of time travel amazes me too).

7:30-12:45 (LA time): go through customs, sit in the airport

12:45 (LA time): fly to Philadelphia
9:00 pm (Philly time): land in Philadelphia
9:01 pm: hyperventilate and cry with joy

So, as you can see, it takes a full 24 hours for me to get home. Add that to a day of traveling today (from Mildura to Melbourne it was 7 hours on a bus/train), and I will surely be exhausted. But then the next day (July 9th) is my 20th birthday, so it should make for a great homecoming.

I am sad to leave Australia. It’s been my home for five months, and I’ve done some truly incredible things during my time here. I made 23 amazing friends, and learned a lot about myself in the process. However, I am extremely excited to go home. While Oz is amazing, it is not my home. Though right now home does not seem real, it’s just this thing I remember from a long time ago. It seems very surreal that tomorrow night, I will be sleeping in my own bed.

I always have mixed emotions at the end of semesters, because I’m sad to leave but excited to be home again. This time it’s amplified to the extreme because who knows when I’ll be back here again. I will be back though, I know I will. Thank you Australia, for all that you’ve given me. Until next time, it’s been real. :-)