Pick Up A Weirdo - The Beginning

You are never to old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.

– C. S. Lewis

Perhaps I should start with an explanation of what led me to travel. 

At this very moment, my friends and family simply ask where I intend to go next, but it wasn’t always like this, I think I really took them by surprise at first. Except my mum, she always saw right through me and my adventurous spirit. She knew, for example, that in order to get me to do something she would just need to flap her arms and yell “chicken, chicken, chicken” and that would get me to do whatever I was afraid of doing. But the others? They saw me as a little shy girl that liked to sit in a corner with a book.

I didn’t like to talk to strangers, I spent a lot of time in my room and I didn’t go out much (not exactly what you would think of the free-spirited). 

But I did like travelling. I was my mother’s faithful companion, while my siblings complained of tiredness and boredom when we watched “rocks and more rocks” I was always eager to learn more and see more. So that was the beginning.

When I was nineteen, I was overwhelmed with a sense of not-belonging, of not wishing to be home. I didn’t like what I was studying, I really didn’t want to go out with friends and I felt a sudden urge to run away. So I did, with my mother’s permission and support of course. I moved to London to study a knew field and leave in a new place, somewhere where I could start fresh and finally live the adventures I was looking for in books. 

I started by moving into a house possessed by a ghost who was trying to kill us by making us all fall down the stairs. Or so my housemates said. He must have taken a liking to me or maybe he enjoyed the fact that I had a predisposition for supernatural things, because he (or she ,let’s not be sexist here) never pushed me down the stairs – although there was that event when the vacuum cleaner fell down the stairs and onto me.

Later, feeling better but still not feeling like I belonged there I decided that I wanted to learn Spanish and the best way for me to do it was if I went backpacking through South America. I met amazing people, and not so amazing. I saw old friends and family again. I had great experiences and some bad ones... But I finally started feeling that sense of belonging.

And so began my story…