You may or may not know this yet, but Lars and I love to travel! We often get asked where we are from, and when we say New Zealand, the same answer, every time is “why are you living in London?”. For the first little while, we would explain that New Zealand is so far away from everything, and we want to explore the world.
Explore we did, but it was not nearly as much as we would have liked. A quick weekend trip, or maybe a four day holiday. It was not what we had originally planned. One day, I was waiting for Lars at the train station. Being London, there were many trains, and a ridiculous amount of people flowing through the station. The one thing they all had in common was the look of exhaustion and the sense of autonomy as they scanned their Oyster cards, and went out the gate. It was like a very sad conveyor belt. Then there was Lars, he came around the corner, with his little smile, but I could tell that he too was exhausted. I think I can pin point that moment as the time we decided to make a really stupid decision, that turned out to be one of the best we have ever made.
We walked home, questioning what we were doing. We had moved from New Zealand to Adventure, but we were doing the same as back home. I really enjoyed my job, and I could have easily stayed there for a long time. But then we would never have had the experiences that were yet to come, and are still yet to come. I am grateful for the train station robots who inspired our life change.
So, we left our jobs, moved out of our home, gave so many things to the charity shops, put anything else in a storage locker, and went to the airport with a suitcase and a backpack.
The first stop was the Rockies, Alberta, Canada. Lars’ parents had been living there, and we had never been. We spent five weeks, hiking, climbing, swimming, and just being adventurous. It was an incredible time, and we had some marvellous experiences. I pushed myself to the limit, and we continued our passion of climbing to the tops of things, and experiencing as much of nature as possible. Even on the days when I would wake up with one of my blinding migraines, I would still want to continue and explore. I did not want to miss out. When it was over, it was really hard to say goodbye, and move on to the next stop. But, I always need to tell myself to be glad it happened, not sad that it’s over.
The next stop was to be back in London, but in a different area. We were staying in Hammersmith, and able to explore Fulham. It felt as if we were in a different city. The people were younger than in West Hampstead, and the area had much more happening. Every time we came out of the station, there was an event across the road. As I had pushed myself so much in Canada, I completely crashed. Those few weeks were a blur. We lived in a very small room, in renovated Nurse Housing. We lived right across from the Hospital, so sirens would be going off every half an hour, and I was woken many times but the blue lights flashing in our room. I did some days of supply, in some schools in central London. And I would like to erase those days from my memory. They were the types of days that made me want to run far away from teaching, and never look back. Thank goodness I didn’t follow through with that. The great parts of this time were the many walks that Lars and I did along the Thames, seeing the beautiful houses, visiting farmers markets, and finding gems in the charity shops. After a few weeks of this, it was time to catch a plane to Athens.
The feeling of going to Athens was like when a bottle of champagne has so much pressure and overflows with bubbles. We were so excited to do something so completely out of our comfort zone. Although, I’m not sure if Lars and I even had a comfort zone. We spent a wonderful few days in Athens, seeing ancient things and eating zucchini balls. It was fantastic to be back in the sun and soak in the vitamin D.
The next mode of transport was the Blue Star Ferry, it was to take ten hours from Athens to Amorgos. It was a long ten hours, and when we arrived at two in the morning, we had no idea what to expect from our time there.
In Amorgos, Greece, we learnt how to take our time. I learnt how to SLOW DOWN and not care so much about little things that may be stressing me. I still need to work on this, but I feel that being on this island showed me how to make the right decisions to save me from stressing and being worried all the time. The amount of sun that we were able to see was also a great help. Sun rays are really a perfect way to make you feel energised and positive. Amorgos was our first workaway, so the first place that we met lots of wonderful people. As we met new people from different walks of life, we learnt so much from each of them. Either by something they said, or just the way that they acted. It was so wonderful to have a community of travellers, and spend time with an international crew.
On this Greek island, we walked, talked, hiked, drank, ate all of the carbs, and gained a new perspective on how to go about life. Lars and I were already ‘go with the flow’ people, but staying on this island has made us even more so.
We decided to stay in Greece, but move back to the mainland. You would think that the two areas wouldn’t be that different, but they felt like they could have been on opposite ends of the earth. South Attica was in the middle of a storm, and it rained nearly every day, and was freezing! We had to build a fire to keep us warm. This Workaway experience was on an eco farm. This meant that the food was all vegan or vegetarian. There was a couple from Israel, that were exceptional chefs; they would make us meals from scratch, and they never used a recipe. They would just trial something, and it was tasty every single time. Here we were able to experience something that we didn’t think we would be able to do – Olive Picking. It was an incredible experience to go from picking the olives to tasting the olive oil, after two months we are still having it on our toast for breakfast. We saw the back streets of Greece, were greeted by many dogs (in a growling, barking, not so friendly way), and were able to see many more stunning sunsets. Even though it rained nearly our whole time there, it seemed to always stop when the sun was going down. Which Greek god controls the weather?? My favourite part of this experience was going to the garden, searching for the peppermint over the spearmint, picking the leaves, and then drinking a perfect brew of peppermint tea.
The next stop for us was Budapest, a quick trip for my birthday. It was amazing to be the two of us again, making up our own rules. We went from picking olives, to snow in a matter of 24 hours. We spent each day exploring the city, in all of our layers, and finding out that we were madly in love with a city that we knew nothing about! Hungary has so much history, and we felt so naive and ignorant that we didn’t know about it. But, learning the history of new places is such a big love of ours. Thinking back on Budapest, the first thing that comes to mind is the feeling of having a frozen face, my eyes watering in the bitter wind, and walking over so many bridges. Being in Budapest ignited a flame, to travel to other countries that we still don’t know about. This way, we can learn even more history!
After our flying Budapest trip, it was time for our next Workaway. This time we were going to the (not so ) Giant Mountains in Czech. We had found this Workaway while working a late night at the Hotel in Amorgos. It felt strange to be actually reaching the snow. The bus left Prague and the scenery became progressively snowier with each blink. In Budapest, there had been a sprinkling of snow, but this was more snow than I have ever seen. Our Time in Czech felt like it was much longer than three weeks, each day felt like a week itself. We meet so many amazing people, some that we have seen in other countries since. As we were all trapped up the top of a mountain, we spent a large amount of time together. Working, eating, playing in the snow. A great bonding experience was also the complete outrage and disbelief of how unorganised everything was. We all had to sort ourselves out, and band together when the management were treating us poorly. What I learnt most from this experience was that I do not appreciate being pushed around and talked down, to and I let quite a few people understand my feelings and opinions. In the past, I would never have stood up for myself. In Czech, it was hard to try and stop me. I feel that this is a huge improvement in my confidence. I look back so fondly on Spindl in Czech, a point in our lives that we will never forget.
We made our way back to the Big City – Prague. We were to have 10 nights in Prague, to explore the sights, eat the amazing food (but not dumplings, we were sick of those), and just relax in a city. It was amazing to have My Mum and Sister with us. As we have different interests, we went and saw sights that normally Lars and I would not visit. We were there for Christmas, so Lars looked up the traditional Czech Christmas Meal, and made us an interesting meal indeed. A mixture of fish, sausage, potato, red cabbage, and some very strange potato roll things. Normally, the people in Czech will get a live Cod Fish and keep it in their bath tub until Christmas Eve, when they then prepare the fish for dinner. We did not want to do this, so we bought already prepared fish. Being in Prague was such a lovely time, it was cold, and we found the world’s best Hot Chocolates!
For our New Years Eve, we were in a small Czech Town called Karlovy Vary. It was so very colourful and quaint! The decor inside the buildings were intricate wood carvings and strange fruit pictures. It was amazing to be in such a place that was different to home. We really relaxed in this town, some walking, some waltzing around the main town area. It is a place that I will always look back and remember… and then wonder how on earth we ended up there!
Over the five months of travelling, we had to really find ingenious ways to wash our clothing. Many of the times we would have to wash them in the shower. Either, there was nowhere to wash our clothes or the washing machine was in a complete other language, and we couldn’t figure it out. Each day we would have to check which clothes were clean enough to wear, and many times I would end up wearing Lars’ giant socks, because mine had all gone! It is an adventure, but I really do love the luxury of having a washing machine!
To all who we met in this chapter of our lives, we are so glad we met you. And we hope to see you again soon!
– Laura
Two Travelling Kiwifruits 