Only 22 months later....

Dear all,

My last blog post was in October 2015 after my arrival in Australia, I still can’t believe everything that has happened since then. After almost 22 months I finally sit down and write something again, which I’m really happy about. I would have loved to continue to write my blog and I had enough to write about and I did plan to do it but it never happened, until now. I really want to document my experiences not only to keep my friends and family up to date but also for myself so I can read it all back one day (I’m aware this is more a note to myself to address the importance of documenting adventures). 

So I was debating a small recap of the past 22 months so everyone sort of knows how I got where I am now. So I will try to keep it as short as possible, I might elaborate some things more in the future but for know I will quickly run through it.

So I left of a month after my arrival with my first impressions of Sydney and being there as an au pair. I ended up working as an au pair till the end of January and got to visit Japan and surprise my parents with a totally unexpected visit for about 3.5 weeks, I then returned to Australia with only little money so I needed to find work as soon as possible.

After spending an awesome week with a friend from the Netherlands (Maya) I left Sydney and went up north to work at a hostel for free accommodation (on the east coast in Agnes Water). I ended up staying there for 3 months and working both in the hostel and full time in a restaurant. All this hard work made it possible for me to travel New Zealand in the last few weeks before my flight back to the Netherlands.

I must note that during all of this I had made the decision to start a new study, this time in England, so there were plans for September. I met so many amazing people on this whole journey, which had ups and downs and brought me so many new experiences, which I am really grateful for. When I got home the 13th of July we had a family road trip planned 1.5 week later through Denmark, Norway and Sweden. After these three weeks I spend some time at my parents place planning a huge Party in September, so only ended up having little time to prepare moving to England and starting studying International Development at Portsmouth University.

This totally different but still new adventure was something different. Studying at university in a different language, a new country, not traveling anymore, being around students instead of backpackers and writing real essays with loads of references for the first time in my life. I can say I survived the first year; it was not easy when traveling to the Netherlands a lot not always for fun as both my grandparents passed away during that year. I was glad I was able to travel back home, as England is not that far from the Netherlands.

Due to the long summer break at universities in England I had the chance to go abroad again and discover two new continents, so that is what I did and the great thing is that I combined it with getting more experience in the field of International Development. I first started with visiting friends I met in New Zealand in their home country Mexico and after that I flew to Peru to work as an English Teacher for around 2 months in the Amazonas in the North of Peru.

That is where I am now, in a very small town in the mountains of the Amazonas. I have not yet started teaching as I have only been here a few days but I did get the chance to walk to one of the tallest waterfalls in the world and it was amazing, I have posted some photos of this precious moment on my Instagram and Facebook if you would like to have a look!

Before this blog is getting to long I promise I will write a post soon about what I will be doing here exactly and where I am etc. I will also dedicate a post to my amazing time in Mexico seeing my friends again including photos I still have to post. Also let me know if you would like to write more about some things that have happened in the past 22 months. A lot of promises I know but I really would like to do this all and continue to share my adventures, I hope you enjoyed this recap of my life (really recap, so much more happened but now you are all more up to date I think ;)). 

Lots of love to all of you and I hope to hear from you!

Lara