Always try everything once

You're on the right track

georgiaskipper — Thu, 16 Apr 2015 14:07:23 GMT

Before I begin my story, you need to know something about me:

I HATE public transport. The thought of being stuck on a crowded bus or train carriage in the sweltering heat or shivering cold gives me the heebie-jeebies. So when I was faced with several eight hour train journeys across Romania, let's just say I was not enthused. I had heard all of the horror stories about thieves or beggars targeting inexperienced travelers, and had even experienced a scary overnight train journey in Vietnam where soldiers had stopped the train in the middle of nowhere to arrest somebody.

Little did I know that trains are actually a wonderful place to get to know people, whether it's a friend sitting next to you or the stranger across the aisle.

One of my most memorable train experiences was on the journey back to Bucharest after spending six weeks volunteering in a kindergarten in the north of Romania. My only companion was the Chinese girl who had been volunteering with me, and we sat in silent tears at having to leave our new friends and our children and go home. About half an hour into the journey, and old\ gypsy woman leaned across the aisle and started chattering excitedly away to me in Romanian.

Now, I should note that this had happened to me many times in the past weeks, as I have European features and I was clearly traveling with an Asian girl. I was quite often mistaken for her Romanian translator.

After realizing that neither of us could understand her, she switched to more simple sentences so that we could reply to her questions. We managed to communicate with gestures and a simple yes or no format of questions, telling her who we were and why we were visiting Romania. After a while, the old lady pulled out her phone and called a friend who then started translating for us, not wanting our differences in language to be a barrier for us.

We talked for the entire eight hour journey, and at the end of it I helped her out of the train carriage and she kissed me and called me her daughter before we went our separate ways.

I didn't know that old lady, and I didn't even learn her name. I will probably never see her again. But on that train we shared a bond, one that I will never forget.

So yes, I hated public transport. But sometimes you can find that the best things can happen when you least expect them to. You can get to know a complete stranger on a train in a foreign country, never see them again, and have a great memory despite all that appears a barrier.

Photos: Melbourne May 2014

georgiaskipper — Thu, 22 May 2014 13:12:00 GMT

Photos from my three days in Melbourne with my mum, aunt, uncle, and cousin

Lemurs on my toes

georgiaskipper — Wed, 21 May 2014 20:23:00 GMT

The weekend just past was my cousins 7th birthday. As she lives in Australia and we don't get to see her or her parents very often, my mum and I decided to go and visit them for a few days. We woke up at 4am to get to the airport and after a 4 hour flight we landed in Melbourne and started our car ride to their house.

Once we arrived, we all decided that after lunch we should head off to the Melbourne Zoo, as they had a family pass and my mum and I both thought that it would be nice for my cousin to show us around her territory. She was very excited and was planning which animals we would see first on the way.

At the zoo, we strolled around happily, peering into the reptile enclosures to find the hiding creatures and laughing as my cousin bent down close to the grass to kiss the snakes. That girl is fearless! We stayed for a while at the meerkat enclosure as they were attempting to dig their way out while one meerkat was standing on a big rock and alternating between looking at the digging and looking at the sky. It was like they were trying to escape.

The zoo trip was amazing and we had so many crazy close encounters with the animals.

First off, there was an enclosure called lemur island where you walked through a secure door and into a big netted space where lemurs were running around freely. Though we weren't allowed to touch them, they came right up close to the humans and quite happily ran inches past us, their tails whipping us as they went. My cousin was so enthralled with this that she got out her notebook and sat down in the path to start drawing the lemurs. After she finished her drawing, she showed it to one of the keepers, who asked what she called the lemur in her drawing. Apparently she chose "Stripey". The lovely keeper told her that maybe when they get some new lemurs in they'll call one of them Stripey.

Secondly, we visited the monkey enclosures, one of which contained two Gibbons which were flinging themselves around the branches with their ridiculously long arms. When the gibbons saw us through the glass, they made their way over to us and sat on a little ledge pressed up against the glass and looked at us. One man had his camera out and the gibbon looked at it directly for long enough for him to take a "gibbon selfie". Afterwards, the other gibbon put his hand up against the glass, so I pressed mine up to the other side. I was an inch away from holding hands with this monkey.

Our third close encounter was in the butterfly house where, if you sat for long enough, brilliantly coloured butterflies would float over and land on you. Unfortunately we didn't stay there for very long, but we all enjoyed seeing the pretty creatures flutter around.

After this, we went to the marine creatures enclosure, where I communicated with some penguins who were calling out. As I copied their noises, people laughed because I was so accurate with the imitation and the penguins started swimming around trying to find their lost friend that was making the noise.

Finally, we visited the seals. It was close to closing time, so we were worried they may have closed the enclosure, but we luckily managed to get there right at the end when the keepers were inspecting the seals and practicing all their tricks. We stayed for about 20 minutes watching the seals bark on command and jump onto various rocks and into the sky to hit a bucket hanging from the roof. It was pretty amaing to see just how many tricks the seals knew. I've always said that seals are just like mermaid dogs.

After the exhausting day at the zoo, we headed home for some dinner and a cuddle with the cats before we retired, excited for the day to come.

Photos: Romania Jan-Feb 2014

georgiaskipper — Thu, 1 May 2014 22:59:00 GMT

Volunteering in a kindergarten and exploring the city, these photos are from the various shenanigans I got up to while in Romania

Standing on the edge of the world

georgiaskipper — Thu, 1 May 2014 22:46:22 GMT

At eighteen years old I stood on what felt like the edge of the world and I felt totally calm for the first time in my life.

In the summer after my first year of University, I decided that after many years of yearning to find a place where I belonged, I should volunteer halfway around the world teaching English in a kindergarten in Romania for two months. So I packed a bag, and after three long days of flying and airports and trains I arrived in a small city called Suceava, where I met my local hosts and began my journey of teaching and making extraordinary new friends.

Having had problems with anxiety, my natural instinct in unfamiliar situations is to say no, so when a few of my friends offered to take me on a roadtrip I decided that from now on in my life I would adopt a new philosophy;

“Always try everything once.”

So I said yes.

I jumped in a car with my friends Andrei and Claudiu, and we started our day trip to a nearby town called Gura Humorului, where two more of our friends joined us as we bathed in the public pools overlooking a ski slope. After the swim, we returned to the car, and the two boys told me they had a surprise for me.

We drove for nearly an hour, getting further and further away from anywhere vaguely familiar, and we started to drive up a mountain that I later found out was called Vârful Rarau. After crawling at a snail’s pace up the 6 mile road to the summit, we finally decided to stop near the top as the road became too snowed over for the car. The group led me up a track to the top of the mountain, where we slipped and slid across rocks before coming across what can only be described as a lookout.

I went first, climbing up onto the few planks of wood and the metal bar to hang on to and there I was, standing on the edge of the world. The sun was setting, and a profound silence settled upon the group as I looked out at the twinkling faraway cities, standing on three hundred feet of nothingness as the sun disappeared behind the mountains nearby.

I’ve never experienced true speechlessness before, but standing at the lookout on Vârful Rarau I knew that this was where I belonged. This was the place I felt all my anxiety leave me, and this was the place where I’d found what all travelers spend their lives looking for.

Standing on the edge of the world, on a cliff in Romania, was the first time I saw what travelling was meant to be, and I felt true serenity.