...The End

I thought seeing family would buoy my spirits and carry me through our last few months abroad, but it had quite the opposite effect and I was suffering from a severe bout of homesickness when they left.  We had no jobs, no place to stay and, for whatever reason, the Melbourne YHAs & hotels were all booked up that week so it looked like we were going to have to switch up our accommodation every other day, which was frustrating since it meant out by 10am and nowhere to check into or leave our bags until 2pm. 

Not ones to take anything lying down, we took advantage of the YHA’s policy to allow you to loiter in their common areas and started looking for short-term accommodation for our final few months abroad.  Sadly, no matter how nice it looked online, the places we saw were junk (expensive junk to boot) or people weren’t getting back to us.  With checking accounts running low, we knew we couldn’t sustain staying in hotels much longer so we placed our hopes in one last apartment and made plans to see it.  The guy renting it never answered his phone, only texted, so we were nearly to the apartment the first time when he texted that, oops no one was home.  Annoying but no big deal, we made plans to see it the next day at 3 and, when by 4pm we hadn’t heard from him, I was done. 

I’m gonna be honest; we’d been on the road for months, I was sick of living out of a suitcase wearing the same five outfits day after day, it was Christmas time and I was homesick, so without jobs or accommodation, I didn’t know what we were sticking around for.  We’d seen the country, and New Zealand too, both from top to bottom, there was nothing left to do on our to-do lists so I couldn’t figure out why we’d waste the next four months working menial jobs in a strange city on the other side of the world when we could come home for the Holidays, hopefully find jobs and get settled back into adult life ahead of our September wedding (which was proving to be a nightmare to plan from abroad).  I must have caught Alex at a weak moment because, even though he wasn’t as gung-ho to leave as I was, less than an hour after being stood up, we’d booked same day flights back to the US.   

As we headed out of town that final day we were wistful.  The abrupt end to the trip didn’t leave either of us much time to reminisce about the amazing adventure we’d been on or think about the decision we’d just made to leave.  We both knew we were fortunate for this opportunity and hoped we weren’t being short-sighted by cutting it short, but in the end, it was the right decision for us and I have no regrets.  On our bus ride to the airport, we were left with this one last beautiful Australian sunset that felt like the perfect ending to one hell of a journey that neither of us will never forget.