You’ve busted your tushie off for months. You’ve read at least 14 pages of Karl Marx’ manifesto, for reasons still unknown to the general public. You skip out of the freezing lecture theatre of your last exam. Perhaps you didn’t do as well as you had hoped for (Netflix arrived to Australia this semester, its legit, don’t worry). You stop and spend your weekly food budget on a freshly squeezed juice from the fruit carriage on campus. But, hey, it is A-OK, you don’t care. Why?
BECAUSE YOU JUST FINISHED ANOTHER SEMESTER, AND IT IS TIME TO GO HOME.
This year my pitstop was a week in Torre del Mar, Spain – to visit mi padre
The winter (summer, if you’re European) holiday is upon us, and you’re booking the cheapest tickets you can find, because you literally have $50 to your name. You call the airline to see if you can have a standing place on the plane for a few bucks. No? Ok, what about a horizontal spot in the overhead compartment. That’s not gonna fly either? Ok, give me the cheapest seat you have then, please.
Then, it is one day until your 48 hour long journey begins, touching down in all the continents, a quick stopover in Siberia, it’s ok. You write a list of all the things you need to bring. You pack only your nicest shorts and summer dresses, perhaps you’ll need that new swimsuit from Target, and, oh yeah, you definitely need that book you bought before the semester started that you still haven’t opened (apart from reading the last page of course, standard procedure). Actually, you pack nothing that was originally on the list. You continue by messaging all your high school and childhood friends on Facebook – “wohoooo, (insert name of home town), HERE I COME! Meet for a coffee on Tuesday?!”.
Then the day comes, and you stress your way to the airport, you get a mini heart attack when you realise the price of a taxi ride there. What even is “airport toll”? You decide to take the train. Holy guacamole, $17 for one way?! Ah well, that’s just gonna have to do, you are getting to that airport on time, nothing can stop you.
You embark on the longest journey on the planet, you run through airports and security checks, you show your passport and boarding card about 153 times. By the end of it you’re so tired and mentally disorientated you even show your passport to the cleaning lady in the restrooms. You buy a $10 water bottle at the gate because the security people wouldn’t let you bring in any fluids. Dang flabbit, my shampoo and conditioner too? You say farewell to your $3 coles shampoo thats been by your side for months, faithfully keeping your hair nice and frizzy. #studentlife
You still just cannot fathom that it is always sunny above the clouds
Then, finally, the moment you thought was never gonna come: you disembark your last plane. You frantically search for your luggage, is it gonna come? Is it not? Its a game of chances my friend. In Norway we have a saying: “unlucky in games – lucky in love”. Well, at this point I think I’ll choose my luggage over love, thanks. You wait… everybody else has gotten their luggage, one by one. You’ve screamed at at least three people, accusing them of taking your suitcase. Not a successful project so far. You wait some more… then, you’ve had enough. And just when you put your not-washed-in-three-days dirty hair in a bun and make yourself ready to firmly march over to the airline counter to give them a proper mouthful for losing your luggage… you see it. There it is! It is sliding smoothly up the luggage carousel, without a care in the world. It just glides, elegantly, with a few scratches and a broken handle. You bust your way through the crowd, knocking over a few people, you don’t care. You reach for it and pull it off the track in the most clumsy, inefficient way humanly possible. It sort of bounces a bit when it hits the floor.
You proceed to the exit. You’re so excited you’re speed walking. You nervously go through the “nothing to declare’ tunnel. You actually don’t have anything to declare, you’re just nervous anyways because of the scary bloke with the scary dog standing there, staring everybody in the eyes, trying to reveal who is smuggling kangaroo meat through. But he doesn’t stop you. You look so tired nobody would believe you could be mentally capable of pulling off a smuggling scheme from across the world, na ‘ah.
And then, the smell of fresh air, for the first time in three days. You look around in the crowd for a familiar face. You cant see it. Oh my god, my mum has forgotten me. She has forgotten I am her child. I am alone in the world. Where is she? WHERE IS SHE?!!
“Emilieeee, yo’hoooo, over here!”
Congratulations, my friend. You are officially – home.
