Travel Bug

The first time I realised just how lucky I was, was when I moved to Switzerland straight after finishing high school. I was a fresh faced 18 year old looking for adventure. I was fortunate enough to have a Swiss mother which meant dual citizenship - the world was now my oyster. I ended up in the alps, searching for powder and a place where I could snowboard everyday. I found work at a restaurant in a hotel which came with accommodation. I was set. On my first day on the job I met my colleagues, a real mixed bag of characters - the stuff that sitcoms are made of. One girl I really clicked with was a white haired German from Berlin. She loved to make jokes about our boss and reminded me of friends back home. After our first shift she invited me out to meet her friends from Berlin who had found work in another hotel.
A very inviting and friendly couple, we were soon immersed in a full blown four way conversation. They wanted to know about growing up in remote Australia and I was intrigued by their anarchist life style. We began talking about the start of season party the friends had taken part in a few nights ago. And soon one of them began telling me how she had vomited from eating so much. We all laughed. She then told me she had over-eaten because she didn't know when her next meal would be. Suddenly I was very sad. We were the same age, with the same hobbies and values - we even looked similar. The conversation started to delve into her childhood and the struggles her family faced as they were still trying to deal with the repercussions from the war. I was shocked. She told me how she moved out with her boyfriend very young and squatted in old buildings. She had to steal food and clothing. The wage we were on in Switzerland was what I considered pretty low as I grew up in a mining town in Arnhem Land. But they had travelled from Berlin for this wage. I never even considered people in the western world struggling to eat on a daily basis. I grew up never really knowing what hunger was, and right then I realised just how fortunate I really was. Our little group lived and worked together for the four months of winter. I followed them back to Berlin in the spring. We stayed in squats, ate only vegan food and went to incredible drum and bass concerts in all theatres. It opened my eyes to a whole new world. When I was eventually persuaded to come home by my parents, my life was changed. I had well and truly caught the travel bug. There was no stopping me now.