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The First Month Away - Gap Years to EuropeTHOUSANDS of Australians, South Africans and New Zealanders leave the comfort of their familiar and secure lifestyle every year to take a walk on the other (and often wild) side of the world. It is often the first month after departing home, sweet, home (as it is remembered after sleeping on the floor and eating almost-stale meal deals) that makes or breaks the adventure. The most likely factors to hinder the road to happiness are trouble finding a job or house; missing the other half left back home; having no money; or for those really scraping the barrel, a depressing mixture. For one little Aussie battler, the first month was filled with more drama, mishap and misfortune than a season-ending episode of Neighbours . Kim Smith retells her ordeal (guaranteed to be comforting to others who have had or are experiencing setbacks in succession), which could have led her to begging for money at Heathrow for a plane ticket home. It all started in the first few hours at Tullamarine Airport in Melbourne , in-between saying goodbye and working out what to take out of my overloaded pack, which had five too many kilos for the scales' liking. Minor details compared to the $500 dollars flogged from my account after I left my card in the airport ATM. In my excitement, I didn't realise what I had done and subsequently, although I didn't acknowledge the ATM's offer, the person (mongrel) after me said a big “yes please”. It wasn't until I went to purchase my duty free carton of Winfields that I realised I didn't have my fantastic plastic. But there was no time to investigate, all I could do was make a quick cancellation call to the bank and jump on the plane where I sat and sulked about it, and the ciggies still sitting in Duty Free. “Excuse me waitress, I'll have a double vodka please.” In transit to London , I stopped in Thailand for a week to spend quality time with the beach and hotel swimming pool and bronze up. At the end of my stay in Patong, I ended up with some great colour, a stolen wallet (yep more replacement cards to be organised), and an ugly red spotty rash on my backside. It was time to move on. A few promised days of rest for my weary, slightly burnt and itching body were soon dismissed once arriving in London , and I found myself pub-crawling down Fulham Broadway. An ex-boyfriend I hadn't seen for three years was living in Tower Hill, so I also invited him and his mates for a drink. By the next day I was extremely hung-over, without my mobile phone, and in my ex-boyfriend's bed. Ugh! With no-way to contact my friends as someone had done some early christmas shopping in my handbag and stolen my phone, I cracked open another beer. The next two weeks I became a yo-yo. I went from slumming it at cheap and dodgy hostels to dossing at a friend's house in Wapping, which was swimming with seven messy boys, beer cans and bed bugs. The highlight from this week is hard to award. Either when two of the guys - each with a loose grip of an ankle each - dipped me out the third-floor window after a get-drunk-quick game of cards; or dying all my precious Kookai whites blue. House hunting soon became a number one priority, and a large share-house in Whitechapel with other like-minded travellers was soon found. Things started to settle down slightly, but by the end of the month I had still managed to lose my new mobile phone and another wallet; end up stranded in Lewisham at 2am on a Saturday night after a dodgy taxi driver took all my money to take me from the Temple Walkabout to the middle of no-where; be mistaken for a prostitute on my way to a fancy dress party and accused of dressing in a misleading way… and…that's only the beginning! Funny enough the positive events that have happened far outweigh these mishaps, but I won't go into them, because people enjoy hearing and laughing at other people's misfortunes (so far about $2000 out of pocket in lost and stolen money and merchandise).
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