The diary I was reading was from when I was in Switzerland and looking for work at the beginning of the ski season and finding it impossible to survive without a lot of money. I was constantly ringing my parents reverse charges to ask them to top up my credit card and feeling so guilty because I couldn't get a job in an unseasonably warm start to the season. I was with a good friend whom I had met in London and we had an instant connection so we had each other in this weird and freezing little town of Interlaken and then finally after weeks of waiting around we got a job in a ski village called Murren. I wont go into the details of Murren but let me just explain that in my diary I mentioned that there weren't many good sorts in Murren and also everyone's last name seemed to be Von Allman so there may have been some inter-breeding of some sort going on!
This is the chalet we worked at for 4 months. ( I think scnee means snow)
Anyway it was 4 months of absolute hell as we were dish hands in a restaurant at the top of the mountain and we had never worked so hard in all of our 18 years! (plus Swiss people are just plain unfriendly)
After reading this diary I am embarrassed to say that I may have been slightly promiscuous whilst I was travelling overseas and I was definitely having a lot of fun as well as being homesick. The main aim for us seemed to be to drink our way around Europe and we also seemed to smoke a lot of pot which is something that I never did at home and never do now but when you are not in your own environment and everyone is doing it you certainly jump on that bandwagon.
Looking back now on my trip it was truly an amazing experience and even though I should have made some better choices along the way I certainly don't regret it. The reason I'm thinking about my trip now and not just because of finding my diaries but because my niece is heading to Europe in a few weeks and she has asked me where I would recommend for her to go. I rolled off the usual suspects like Rome, Paris and Austria and also said you cannot miss out on Greece, Paros Island in particular which is an island where both her father and I spent a lot of time but I also started wondering about what it is like over there now for a young girl to travel to. After the atrocity of the young British soldier being murdered on the street in London a few weeks ago and with so much unrest in the world because of religious beliefs is it safe for our kids to do the usual backpacking trip to Europe anymore?
I have always told my children that I want them to travel and see the world before they settle down but now I'm worried that by the time they are old enough to do that will it be too unsafe in some places for them to go at such a young age? When I was there in 1990 I worked at Heathrow Airport Terminal 3 for a few months and this was the terminal where the planes left to Iraq, Iran and the middle Eastern countries, we had soldiers there on guard with machine guns and sniffer dogs and I used to shit myself on a daily basis just walking past these guys. But this was the only thing we ever witnessed that may have been in the least bit scary,there was no protests or violence and we never felt scared on our travels. This may have been because we had the innocence of being young Australians and had never witnessed anything in the least bit scary in our lives growing up.
Now we have September 11, the Bali bombings, the London bombings, the recent Boston bombings just so many awful and tragic events that have taken place in the past 20 years its just way to scary to even think about my kids travelling overseas without me or armed security guards in tow! Of course I realise people are still doing it and we cannot stop our adventures or stop our kids from learning and experiencing the amazing world that is out there but its just something I'm glad I have to wait at least another 10 years before I get told that "I'm doing an overseas trip mum,wish me luck!"
In the meantime I can only hope my niece stays safe and has an amazing adventure, she is only going for 4 weeks so at least its no way near as long as my poor parents had to worry. I really don't know how they did it!
Katie
xx
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| Me at the leaning tower of Pisa |
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| I was so lucky to experience this, was truly amazing |
