In the early hours of 4th November, I said goodbye to Mum at the entrance to security at Christchurch Airport, and stepped into the unknown. At best, I would be back in 2 years, and at worst, I might be back in a matter of months. I was embarking on a voyage of travel and discovery, to see a different part of the world. What I never expected was that 2 years would stretch into almost 4, it would involve living in another country and at the end I still wouldn't have returned to live in NZ - and that along the way I'd have become a different person than the one who stepped into the unknown that 4th November morning. It had taken me a very long time to even get to that point of embarking on my Overseas Experience. For the longest time I only ever envisaged my OE to be a long holiday in Europe, I had no desire to live and work there. I had too much going on in NZ that I wanted to be involved with and do to consider upping sticks and leaving it behind for a while. I'd even twice started seriously intending to embark on such a holiday, and planning it to a certain extent. The first time, I intended to go do a 5-week Contiki Tour followed by a week travelling around the UK around August 2009. I remember being a bit annoyed at some of the "silly countries" that the itinerary included seemingly at the expense of other more interesting countries but nevertheless that's what I wanted to do, and follow in many respects in Mum & Dad's footsteps as they'd done a Contiki Tour in Europe - that's how they had met. I started planning this in and around August 2008, but in February 2009 I moved to Wellington. Setting up in Wellington ended up using any funds I had for such a holiday, and I definitely didn't have the leave. It got postponed until August 2010, but even then it got shelved for lack of funds. In 2011 I dusted the idea off and started planning anew, aiming to visit the UK for 2-3 weeks in 2012 and maybe a brief foray into Europe - all of this by myself and not part of any tour. I had a friend who was working on steam trains in Wales and there was an opportunity to visit him and the railway, and get hands on. I started saving, and had the leave. But in early 2012, I got into a relationship and as that developed, the trip became unrealistic and was shelved. By early 2013, that relationship failed and I started to dust off the idea again. By now, visiting my friend in Wales wasn't an option, but I was a lot more open to the idea of going and living and working in the UK. Using the UK as a base from which to conduct travels around Europe did seem like a very good idea, and I'd see vastly more that way. The more I thought about it, the more I warmed to the idea and ultimately decided to do it. Saving began again in earnest (previous funds had been spent elsewhere such as a replacement car), plans formulated and when to go decided upon. It even encompassed a holiday to Sydney and Melbourne in October 2013, which was used as a "practice OE" where I simulated what travelling around Europe might be like with just a normal sized backpack. I slowly wound up my live in NZ throughout 2014, getting rid of everything save for some things I wouldn't be able to re-acquire which went into storage at Mum & Dad's. I only planned to be away for 2 years, but I was disposing of my assets in case something came up and I never returned. The OE started off pretty easy and simple - I was going to Australia for a week-and-a-half as a kind of follow-up to my trip the prior year, doing things I wasn't able to do that previous time. It was in the departure lounge at Sydney Airport, waiting for my flight to Abu Dhabi in the UAE where I discovered that I was going to learn a lot about myself during the OE too. I felt pretty confident boarding the plane from NZ to Aus. Now, about 20 minutes from boarding, an enormous wave of anxiety emerged. I am not too familiar with Anxiety - I only started feeling it for the first time in early 2013, and for a couple of seconds mid-2014 when I felt like I still had too much to do to disestablish my NZ life. Walking onto Big Bird for the flight to Abu Dhabi was the real leap into the unknown - into the Northern Hemisphere and a foreign language country for the first time and way beyond anything I'd done before. If I'd listened to the anxiety, I wouldn't have left that seat until after the plane departed, but I got up, walked down that jetbridge, took my seat and buckled in. The anxiety didn't go until 15 minutes after takeoff, but I was on my way. I'd never felt it that strong before and I hoped I wasn't going to have constant problems with it throughout the coming months Luckily I didn't and in fact I don't recall ever feeling it since, though I could have quite easily. I arrived in Abu Dhabi late at night, with a set idea of what I was going to do the next day but when I woke up I threw that out the window and changed it. I discovered I had no cellphone reception on my NZ Sim, and none of the UK ones I had were activating so I travelled around Abu Dhabi on prior research and offline maps. The next day I caught the bus to Dubai for the day - and noticed I was the only white person on the bus. In Dubai, I discovered my research hadn't been as thorough as I needed - I knew how to get to the Burj Khalifa, but not into it; I didn't realise you're best to buy tickets in advance and virtually all tickets had been sold out; I didn't know Dubai wasn't set up for walking, and had to run across 8-lane roads for lack of pedestrian crossing lights at intersections; and I didn't know where my bus left from to go back to Abu Dhabi. All of these things I managed to overcome, but were mentally exhausting (and physically exhausting in the heat). My ingenuity and problem solving skills were so far keeping me from getting fully unstuck, but only just. 6pm on the 14th November, I set foot at Heathrow Airport. I was in a rush to meet up with Jeremy on the other side of immigration, and then hot-foot it to Euston to catch our train to Liverpool as my plane had been late. Following that weekend away, it was time to concentrate on getting set up in London. I had a place to crash thanks to Jeremy and Rachel, but the first month-and-a-half of sending out job applications with literal zero response was demoralising. Demoralising too was the grey and cold London autumn weather, and a large city which was crowded and busy. My first foray out into London by myself didn't fill me with confidence at being able to cope, but the 2nd outing to see "Fairytale London" left me feeling much better. I was leading a delicate balance - while job searching, I had time on my hands that was best spent going and seeing things, but seeing things required spending funds. The quicker my finds were used up, the less time I had to search for a job. At some point I might run out of funds, and so I'd run out of time and have to go home. But there was a risk that even if I never went out, my funds might dwindle to nothing and I'd go home without seeing or doing anything. Uncle Wayne had warned me that I may not get many bites prior to Christmas, but it was more likely to get some in January. But in the lead up to the new year, I'd had zero bites. Come the new year, suddenly I was being flooded with responses, and to the point that by the end of January I had not only landed a job, but I'd already begun working there. It was a good job, doing exactly what I'd been doing in NZ, paid what I had been hoping for and was a permanent position - so would last until the end of my Visa. Shortly after, I managed to get a room in a 3-bedroom house in South Wimbledon - this was no crowded terraced house of dubious quality, but an actual stand-alone house, fairly modern with large rooms. I had the two major things I needed to stay and succeed in the UK - now I could look at furthering travels in the UK and in Europe. The first trips were doing things that I really wanted to do, and generally were harder to do too because they were a bit niche and therefore off the beaten path for most people doing their OE. I learned to trust my instincts when it came to being confronted with uncertain situations, usually in a foreign language country and at that stage no recourse to the internet. I discovered I was learning things about myself and my ability to cope in certain situations, but moreover by my Big Germany trip in April 2015 I discovered I wasn't the same person I had been. I always sought re-assurance when I suspected something was wrong, yet I was on a train I thought I was supposed to catch except my destination wasn't on the screen and I just went "Oh well, let see what happens" rather than resort to checking on expensive cell data. I was risk-adverse, but after missing my train connection through no fault of my own, I opted for the much more risky of two alternative train options to get to Nuremberg. I had done a lot of research, but somehow overlooked that the Museum I was going to in one town would be closed on the day I was there and I didn't trust a lot of the other research notes I had for the rest of my trip as a result. I was usually very structured, but found myself changing my plans on the fly as I felt like it to suit, and as options presented themselves. I had fully expected to broaden my horizons through travelling, but not grow or evolve as a person myself - and certainly not to the extent that I did in those first 6 months. In fact April 2015 had a big effect on my OE and my life in general, because just prior to that Big Germany Trip I met Sasha. We met at a Kiwi's in London event, and then again 2 days later with people from Britbound to watch the Oxbridge rowing race. A few months later, we were dating, and then when Sasha's flat wound up in March 2016, she moved in with me at South Wimbledon. Things had been going well, and we'd travelled together and worked well travelling together - we'd co-plan trips, I'd work out the transport arrangements (my forte), Sasha the accommodation arrangements (her forte) and the rest we'd work on together. But her UK visa ran out before mine - hers in June, mine in November. When we landed in the UK getting sponsorship would have been a formality - but thanks to the lead-up to the Brexit vote, it became an impossibility for the likes of us. She wasn't ready to head back to live in Australia, so she'd come up with a plan of getting a 1-year German visa, move to Germany and wait out the nearly 6 months before my visa ended in the UK. At that point, we'd move back to the Southern Hemisphere (either NZ or Aus). But I didn't want to be apart like that, so instead we both got Visa's for Germany and moved to Berlin when Sasha's UK Visa expired. These visa's were only for 1-year so effectively I was forgoing 6 months of living in the UK in exchange for an extra 6 months of OE overall. I had no qualms about moving to Germany - it was my most-visited country, and we'd both really liked Berlin. Berlin had a reputation for a lot of tech jobs and also a lot of spoken English so seemed like the most ideal place. And of anywhere in Germany, that definitely was the place for us to move to. But we did move to Germany in a bit of a fog of ignorance, and didn't realise quite some of the hurdles facing us. Things like registration, how difficult setting up bank accounts was, that the hiring process typically takes 3 months for any given job, and that there is a profound housing shortage in Berlin. We found these things out as we went along, and slowly but surely made progress towards clearing these hurdles only to find another one. I wasn't even convinced we'd make it in Berlin, but we were going to give it our best shot - but I did want to set "Go Home" date markers, which if we hadn't gotten a job by then, we were to pack up and leave. We set the first one, and then I got a temporary fill-in IT job in a Berlin School. It brought in a little income, and enough to re-set the goalpost a bit further out. As it happened, Sasha secured her job before the initial goalpost, and I followed soon after. A place to live was much harder though - we spent a year moving from one temporary let to another, before finding one where we could stay as long as we wanted. Oh and our workplaces sponsored us on new Visa's, so we could stay longer. So that spurred further travels, meaning we ended up seeing a lot more of Europe. Our time in Germany came to an end for two reasons - Sasha got made redundant, and her visa was tied to the employer. She could have gotten a new job and a new visa, but around the end of 2017 we got news that Sasha's Mum Pam had a tumour, which turned out to be cancer. While she seemed okay and the news seemed to be it was treatable, we decided we'd take it as a cue to move back to the Southern Hemisphere - Adelaide initially at least. With Sasha's redundancy money we decided we'd travel around Europe and the US on our way back Down Under - I always wanted to go via the US when leaving UK or Europe as it was just as long as going the other way, and why not circumnavigate the globe? We packed in a hell of a lot in those 4 months, and with Pam's situation we always knew there was a risk we might have to cut the trip short and head straight to Adelaide. Everything sounded largely fine, up until we hit Los Angeles and got the news Pam was in hospital and the long term prognosis was not good. As soon as we practicably could, we made a beeline for Adelaide and had our rather hard landing there. And with that, the OE ended - and a new, separate chapter in my life began. And that is how 2 years managed to stretch into 4 - a journey of travel, but also a journey of personal growth. I left NZ not running away from anything, but rather seeking to travel, broaden my view of the world both literally and figuratively, and I guess maybe see if I can learn something about myself along the way. Not only did I learn many things about myself, but I grew on a personal level also. I never expected the personal growth aspect, but in some ways I guess it was inevitable - but certainly a lot of that growth happened fairly quickly in the early part of my OE. I ended up seeing far more than I intended, doing far more than I expected, and staying away longer than I anticipated. There's always more to do and more to see, and never enough time. Sometimes I ponder what we might have done travel wise had we stayed in Germany another year - would we finally have done Russia? Probably would have visited Israel and Jordan. But that was never really going to happen, and although the thought of more potential destinations was a nice one by the time we left, I was ready to leave. It wasn't too short, it wasn't too long, it was about right. It felt right to go and do my OE, and it felt right to call time on it too. Without a shadow of any doubt, embarking on my OE was the most challenging thing I've ever done in my life. But I wasn't doing it because it was easy, part of it was exactly because it was hard. And I succeeded in my OE - in fact it was far more successful than I ever even imagined possible. I am also a different person in many ways than the me that boarded the plane to leave NZ. I am more open to a lot of different foods than I was, I drink wine which seemed unthinkable when I left, I have a greater understanding of different countries and cultural expectations, and also know what it can be like to be a foreigner in another country - in fact, 3 times over now. It's been a journey of discovery, a journey of learning and a journey of experiences. This blog charts that journey, and also the journey from "I" to "We" - because woven in between these blog posts is not just the story of my OE, but the story of how I met Sasha. Without question, leaving my life in NZ to do my OE living in the UK was the best decision I ever made - it wasn't an easy decision to make, but now I can't imagine having done anything else and I am so, so much better off for it!
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August 2019
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