People like us

The thing about Sydney is that I’ve been in love with this city since I was 12 years old. I don’t really know why Australia was a destination in my childhood mind, and why it was I chose this city in particular. But ask anyone, ask my mother. I’ve wanted to come here ever since I was a little girl. I started a piggy bank and wrote across the top “Australia Money” It’s still in my bedroom in my parent’s house. And it wasn’t just the idea of seeing a kangaroo or a koala (although, in all honesty, that probably had something to do with it in my subconscious 12 year old mind). Personally, I’d like to think that it was something about the idea of being all the way on the other side of the planet that caught my eye, perhaps I was a pirate or an explorer in a past life and a tiny incling of a previous personality reared it’s head slightly when I was 12 years old and looked at a map of the world and though “There. I want to go there.”

Well now I’m here. Finally. And maybe I just say this about all cities, but for some reason, Sydney and I just clicked. A pattern I’ve been noticing: I judge the people, not the place more. Just like Granada, though the buildings and scenery are amazing there, my experience in Granada would not have been what it was if it weren’t for the people I met along the way. Well perhaps it is the same with Sydney. My Sydney experience was quite unexpectidly, (but most luckily) hijacked and rescued by a website called Couchsurfing.com. When I was in Mexico, after constant encouragement from a certain poet, I decided to give the site a go and sign up. Being from a slightly overprotected family, I was wary about sleeping on some stranger’s couch, so I made contact with a person living in australia just to “meet up for coffee”. That’s pretty much how Jake stumbled into my life. And emphasis on stumbled.

I had no idea what to expect, online profiles can be really decieving and I knew that going into our meeting, but when I finally met him, I knew he’d be a story. A good story. He himself was a writer, and a huge Kerouac fan as well. One of the first things he said to me was marveling at how we are at the perfect age to travel, see the world, and of course, write about it. Hunter S. Thompson was 22 when he wrote the Rum Diaries… Jack Kerouac was also in his early 20’s when he wrote On The Road just think about that. THINK ABOUT THAT. He spoke an a slightly frantic manner, reminiscent of our favorite authors’ narrative style and, having travelled around south america, we immediately understood eachother. It was soothing to hear someone else ramble into spanish at random moments… no need for the usual sheepish smile and awkward “oh that wasn’t in english, was it?”line here. Just talking and gesturing and feeling alive. It was so good.

He introduced me to some of his friends, whose big red comfy couch I eventually stayed on for my second week in Sydney. Immediately welcoming to me, (an interesting sight at their doorstep, here with Jake appears a strange girl with a strange accent) his two friends invited us in and made some tea. We sat in their living room, and listened to music while Jake told us tales of Ecuador, Colombia, Peru… A gigantic map of india hung over our heads, and the familiar yet foreign smell of incense and tea filled the room. (The Romani gypsy melody sung in my head… could it be?) They told me about their travels. They asked me about my own. With light hearted prodding, they encouraged me to travel to Laos instead of singapore, to explore Thailand and of course, India.

Oh their strange love affair with india, perhaps as strange as mine with spain. A slightly obsessive pull to a foreign land where so clearly we don’t belong. “A magnetic pulling at our nomadic souls”, my friend Tyler once explained it “people like us are sensitive to it.”

People like us. Travelers? No I think it’s more than that. Some people travel and never feel the country. They compare with their homeland, and never break their hearts open the right way. People like us are more open to the world. Our eyes open, our hearts open, our minds open, ready for new experiences.