Adventures of an ordinary girl :) A Melbourne girl’s adventures in travel, food & life!

How did I end up here, in the middle of a Nubian village in Aswan, Egypt, my life irrevocably and forever changed? The afternoon started ordinarily enough, sightseeing with my tour group. Then, at dusk, we were let lose at dusk in the village, to explore the small market and the dusty streets, to be alone with our thoughts and captivated by our surroundings.

That's when the trajectory of my life changed. I finally saw clearly; there was another world out there, and I desperately needed to see it. Until then, all I could see was that I lived a comfortable life. I had a nice home, a great husband, a steady job, blah blah blah. It was always a dream to travel, but that was it, a dream. Like becoming an astronaut or ballerina, I never thought it was an option to make it a reality. I felt overwhelmingly guilty that I wanted it (must be the Italian in me). Shouldn’t I be content with my nice life? I’m incredibly average in every sense of the word, so shouldn’t I be happy to live an average, comfortable life? Isn’t it so selfish and ungrateful to want more? Won’t I be letting people down if I follow my dreams instead of their expectations?

Then, I shut my inner voice up and looked around. I'd made my life dream (visiting Egypt) come true. I stood on a dusty path, dirt on my clothes and sand in my hair, the strong, musty smell of spices emanating from the piles behind me, the bright colours of the scarves inundating my vision. It wasn't a dream anymore, it was all real. And if I'd achieved one life dream, why not another? If my dream was to see the world, why wasn’t I trying to make that happen? It hit me like a ton of bricks.

In that village, with my senses flooded by the foreign sights, sounds and smells, being yelled at and bartered for by local men, being started at in equal parts horror and intrigue by the women, children reaching up to my freckled face with such curiosity, I realised this was the life I wanted. Until then, I’d spent life in my comfort zone, with depression as a constant companion. In the last few hours I’d visited an ancient temple, sailed on a felucca, swam in the Nile, eaten a traditional meal in a Nubian home, met a guy’s pet crocodile…I was finally out of my comfort zone, and I was FINALLY HAPPY! The blackness of my depression had lifted, my troubles vanished, because I had finally discovered my destiny. It wasn’t to be a mum, or a career woman, it was to leave my comfort zone and experience as many worlds and lives as possible.