Homeless

They were right all along. The whole time. I have to tip my hat to you, for somehow knowing it already when I was still a child. One day I would become a homeless, alcoholic, drug addicted serious criminal and good for nothing. As it turns out today, that was the self fulfilling prophecy so accurately placed on that little boy 40 years ago. Family, you simply have to love them. Okay, that may be a bit exaggerated. At the moment I am only homeless, I can still work on all the rest, there is still so much potential in me.

Homeless, yes indeed, you read that right, I am without a home. Oh my God. And before I start getting Facebook friend requests out of pity again, because “they” are reading along, no thank you, I do not need that. I could have used a helping hand back then, 40 years ago, when I was a child trying to find my way in that environment some people called a family home. One marked by conflict, discord and violence, that a little boy was exposed to. Back then your pity would actually have been useful, instead of your demeaning predictions about my future. Right, that is enough of that. I do not need to spend any more time on it, or on you.

What I learned back then, as a little boy at the tender age of 6, when my small, intact family world imploded, when I consciously experienced violence for the first time, was self reliance. When everything fails and the mechanisms that are supposed to hold you up are missing, then that is what it takes to survive. Survive is a big word, and in this context it means the psychological survival of situations. My childhood and youth made me self sufficient, independent of others. Always carrying this knowledge within me, that I can rely on myself, unconditionally. That ability is important, and it is also the very thing that sometimes makes it far too easy for me to let go, because I know I have myself, and I can rely on myself. As great as it is to manage on your own, that trait unfortunately also makes you lonely. That is just how it is, no feature comes without both sides, double edged swords.

Now, I think I am jumping around a little and probably leaving out a few crucial points. Quite right. I will surely have the chance to speak about the details another time. For the moment, I am simply keeping up the suspense and will say only this much: after even I finally realised last spring, meaning September, October here down under, that I had not gone on ahead at all, but was simply here alone and would remain alone, and after the Eurotrip truly made me realise what I miss, the variety, and that in truth I never really wanted to emigrate, it was never actually on my bucket list, I started to consider one exit strategy or another. And what can I say, here we are.

Since things here come with one year rental contracts, I will get to that at some point as well, and since I wanted to take a different path anyway, I thought it was time to try something new: digital nomad, before I get bored again. Why not, really? At least for a while. I am not getting any younger, I have not seen everything the world has to offer, and now I have a bit of time to see more of this place down under. So I packed up the boxes again and shipped them off into the blue, thanks Dani, sold the devices, got the apartment back into shape and then just like that, out and on the way to Sydney, because my passport was actually ready for collection at the consulate much earlier than predicted, despite the Iran conflict. I was thrilled, because when I started planning I still thought I would be stuck hanging around here at least until March 23.

Of course I had to ask myself whether I should take the bike with me, and I went back and forth on that for a long time. A really long time, thinking through different scenarios. It is not as though there is ever only one alternative, and these days I do not really leave the house without a Plan C. Not even now.

The decision to travel without the bike was made at the very last possible moment, when the removalists were already standing in my garage. The deciding factor was greater flexibility. They take this biosecurity business very seriously here, and I did not want to have to deep clean and dismantle my bike all over again at every transit. And then there was the thought that I wanted to try something new again. Backpacking. I do not know whether it played a role that I simply could not handle the QLD climate, I was not putting in the kilometres here the way I am used to. Maybe I really am slowly getting old? Who knows what is still going on subconsciously inside my little brain upstairs.

So with a heavy heart I sent my bike off in the box as well. Yes, I could have left it with friends in Brisbane, but I did not want another anchor tying me to a place I would have to return to. I took from my gear inventory what I needed, and bought the rest.

On Monday I cleaned the apartment one last time, after that the bond cleaners came and were quite astonished, not really knowing what there was even left for them to clean. It was much the same for the removalists the Friday before. Everything already done and ready for transport, including an Excel spreadsheet. They were genuinely disappointed that everything was already organised and finished. Oh well, that is just how I am, one has to live up to one’s reputation as a German somehow, right, otherwise they might start getting the wrong idea.

I still let the two of them into the apartment, I needed the invoice for handing over the place, and while the two guys were giving the apartment a final polish, which I did not even witness anymore, I had already taken the keys to the real estate office and was sitting on the plane to Sydney when the message came through that the apartment had now been cleaned. Timing is everything.

The next morning I picked up my passport straight away on the 17th floor, in and out, no appointment. Nice little thing. For the next ten years I have a passport issued in Sydney. Who knows where I will get the next one. I have a suspicion, but perhaps I should ask the prophets again, they seem to know everything else. Actually, I do not even need to ask, they volunteer it anyway.

Not even five minutes later I filled out the NZeTA application in a café, I could finally apply for it with my new passport. Maximum waiting time 72 hours. I thought long and hard about whether I should book all three days in Sydney and decided against it. I wanted to take it day by day. Which turned out to be quite clever, because the application was approved less than 26 hours later, exactly at the moment I started writing these lines.

So one more big round through Sydney, sightseeing, and taking a look at some of the suburbs as well. What can I say, I had to do laundry and was standing in a dry cleaner here in Mascot to pick up my new, now freshly washed backpack clothes, since my washing machine had left a day too early. There I was, standing in a laundromat and staring out at the street, while a man was standing at the window of a car yelling at the honking driver, first in English, then in French, then in Arabic. Why were they arguing? No idea. The Asian laundromat owner only said to me in her broken English something along the lines of this being how it is every day here with these foreigners. I think she may even have put some kind of insult in front of foreigners, but I do not quite remember. For me: situational comedy at its finest. For me, just a normal day on the road. I will probably be visiting laundromats more often soon enough. I enjoyed the day in Sydney. One more evening in front of the Opera House. A truly beautiful city, well worth seeing.

Today, of course, gym and the gallery where I am sitting right now writing these lines. But now it is finally time to sort out the next few days and turn the planning into reality. With that in mind.