Coming Home to Perth
As we drew nearer and nearer to the Denver International Airport, I couldn’t help but look out the window at the browning Colorado landscape in quiet contemplation: Did I make the right choice? Was I ready for this? For one of the first times in the weeks leading up to today, panic had begun to set in; the same panic that every life changing decision should evoke. It was all to familiar: the same panic I felt when I traveled internationally for the first time in 2007, the same panic I felt when I decided to do Up With People instead of going straight to college after high school, and it was the same panic I felt when I packed up my life and headed to Philly and to Temple University on the back of my dads motorcycle nearly five years ago. And now I find myself here: an all too similar sense of panic, constant questioning, and yet I could only come to the same conclusion I had come to the past three times: Yes. I was ready.
When you know a pivotal day in your life has arrived, you tend to wait for the climactic moment that you begin to feel the gravity of the occasion. Today, that moment seemed to escape me. We arrived to DIA just like every other trip, I retrieved my boarding pass just as I had so many times before, but this time, the ticket said Tokyo instead of Philly, and I had brought my American passport instead of my Colorado drivers license. Perhaps that is fitting for the circumstance: I was no longer from the city of Philadelphia, where I had spent majority of my time in airports over the last 4 years either traveling to or from, nor from the state of Colorado as my drivers license indicated. I am simply an American in transit to my next home.
First stop, Tokyo
The first stop on that transit, however, was not my final destination. After making it through security, I barley had enough time to snap a few pictures and upload a picstich to instagram notifying everyone that I was heading out of the country for the foreseeable future before I quickly boarded the Boeing 787 Dreamliner at Gate B32 and settled into what would be my home for the next 11 hours and 4 minutes. I awaited takeoff, Dash Berlin blasting in my ears from my IPhone I texted the last of my goodbyes stateside and stared out the window as the other passengers loaded onto the plane. This was it—the moment I had been waiting for, and as we took off, I felt numb to the dynamic range of emotions I was feeling. That quickly wore off, however, and I settled on contentment as I set my in-flight entertainment system to play Divergent and created a game plan in my head for surviving the flight.
We touched down at Tokyo Narita International Airport at around 3:30pm local time the following day. Crossing the international dateline does something seriously strange to your body, however I pulled it all together, grabbed my backpack and purse, made my way through Japanese Immigrations and Customs without a fuss, and found, rather easily, the desk to purchase train tickets to the other airport closer to downtown. 
A major disadvantage to only paying $47.60 for my flight was that my layovers tended to be long and inconvenient. Practiced patience and tolerance were the only things keeping me sane as I tried to navigate my way to Haneda Airport. I had intended on checking in and storing my luggage at the airport and then making my way into downtown Tokyo, but after a 12 hour flight trans-pacific, I was running on fumes, so I decided against it and opted for the Japanese airport food and a small nap.
Second stop, Singapore
Finally, after about three hours of in and out of consciousness, it was time to pull myself together and make it on my second leg of my journey, which also happened to be a red-eye flight, that was going to take me from Tokyo to Singapore. Although it was only half the length of my first leg, it was still a 7 hour flight, but I admit that I don’t remember too much of it, other than borderline cuddling with my Singaporean neighbor as we both tried to catch some much needed sleep.
Before I knew it, we were already descending into Singapore and I was disembarking once again, in yet another country, headed to yet another gate to catch yet another flight, this time finally to my final destination. I had arrived too early in Singapore to walk around and browse the duty free, so I decided to take a backpackers shower, which involved washing up the best I could in the sink of the women’s restroom. It’a amazing how unbelievably disgusting you can feel after nearly two days of flying, but just the idol threat that Aidan might take a flattering picture of me after nearly 32 hours of flight and post it on the internet for the world to see was enough for me to at least try and pull it together.
It’s true when they say that travel is what makes you actually look like your passport picture. My passport picture is NEVER allowed to see the light of day other than to the poor border patrol personnel who have to bare that horror whenever I cross into other countries. I’ll spare the Internet that same horror.
Homeward Bound
My mood as I boarded my final flight from Singapore to Perth changed dramatically, and all of the exhaustion, anxiety, fear, and nervousness were replaced with excitement and a stupid childish smile that I couldn’t rid myself of as I watched us take off. This was what I had been waiting for—the moment that I finally understood what exactly I was doing. I thought of how I had gotten here. I reflected on all of the anxiety over saying no to JP Morgan, all of inner-turmoil I felt when I had to make a decision on what to do with my post grad life, and the panic I felt right before I told my parents that Australia was where I wanted to go. I thought about the goodbyes I had said, the sadness I felt when I had to leave my family, and the final texts I sent to my group-chat with my best friends in Philly. I realized in this final take off before I would touch down in the country that would become my home for the next 52 weeks that I had done it. I had not only done exactly what I told everyone I wanted to do, but more importantly, I had done exactly what I told myself I wanted to do. I was on my way to one of the most beautiful countries in the world with nothing but a few thousand dollars in the bank and three small bags worth of clothes. I was in the midst of what will be remembered as one of the most important flights of my life, and I was doing it all without any idea of what was waiting for me on the other side other than a fellow travel buddy that I happened to meet in the bar of my hostel in Amsterdam. It scared me, but that was exactly what I wanted.
I disembarked from the flight, retrieved my bags from customs, and finally made my way out of the immigrations and customs gate, where I was greeted by a huge hug from behind by a familiar face. 22 hours of flying and 4 countries later, I felt for the Australian sun on my face for the first time as we tossed my bags into Aidan’s ute and headed towards our small suburban house with a white picket fence,
As we pulled into the small walkway of the three bedroom 1960’s house in the suburb of Perth called East Victoria Park, I was overcome by the emotion that I had been waiting for from the start of my trip. I was finally beginning to realize where I was. I was not just across the globe, not just in a different hemisphere, and not just in in a different country. I wasn’t just in Australia, in the state of Western Australia, in the City of Perth, in the suburb of East Victoria Park, on Basinghall Street…I was home.
✈,
Adventure On!
Traveling Kelsey 
