And so it begins.............

I once read somewhere that writing is a form of therapy and a way to better understand and express yourself. Well I don’t believe I need therapy but I will try out this concept to keep my friends and family up to date with where I am in life and what I’m doing. So this path to self discovery and information updates has bought me to write my first blog. I have no idea what will become of this blog or what experiences I will share but I am sure, as with life, it will be surprising and lead me in directions I never thought I would go.

From the beginning........

2010 has been a great start to the new decade. I found myself running a hotel in Darwin (if only while my Manager was on leave but still a great honour and a huge learning curve), applying for a new job I had no real idea where in the world it was and packing up my life in a matter of hours to get myself to said job. Leaving family and friends was hard but I am a firm believer that when one door closes another one opens and you’re crazy not to step on through, or in my case bolt as if being chased by a pack of angry wolves.

February - April

I find myself in a new country with people I don’t know and trying to understand a language I can’t comprehend. Welcome to Vanuatu! Here I truly experience the definition of paradise and it is literally on my doorstep. I soak up as much as I can in 14 days before jetting off to the US and UK for a 5 week tour. Scratch that – make that 6 weeks. Mother Nature intervened and an unpronounceable named volcano showed the world that hell could literally break loose at a drop of a hat.  The 20-something hour trip home bought me back to Darwin to finalise selling off all of my possessions and start a new overseas. I must make a note here on how lucky I am to have the world’s greatest parents. I know I’m biased but it’s true. I was on a very tight deadline to get over here so they stayed behind and packed up my house and closed the Darwin chapter of my life.

May - present

 So now I’m settled in Port Vila with only minimal possessions from home. I live at the hotel I work at.  I have a king bedded bedroom (never had one before and can never go back), a lounge room with a fold out couch that will get a lot of action in 2011 and two bathrooms. And yes, I have stuff stored in both. As similar as the extracurricular activities here in Vila are to Darwin, my life here has become quite different. I work 5.5 days a week. Who knew that .5 of a day can make so much difference to how fast the weekend goes by?!? Now I merely blink and it’s Monday all over again. The need to cook, clean, wash and iron are of a foreign concept to me now. Certain joys (and perks) of living and working in a hotel. I’m confident I’ll forget how to boil water by the time I decide to return to OZ. I bought a car and her name is Sunny. She is a sky blue Nissan and she hails from the 90’s. We negotiate the hilly landscape together and often fight about the fact she doesn’t play any music I like.

 I moved to this country purely for the work opportunity. The company I work for took over the management rights to the hotel I now call home. We engaged in a full on multi-million dollar refurbishment project but I sometimes feel I’m living in a construction zone rather than a hotel. Things are moving along at their own pace (or more correctly referred to as Island time) and it is my job to field all the questions and complaints that arise amongst many other tasks. I manage 7 departments in the hotel and this has proven to be extremely challenging and rewarding at the same time. Life has shown that you gotta take the good with the bad and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I absolutely love my job and wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.

I thought meeting people here would be hard but as it turns out meeting people isn’t the difficult part. It’s the saying goodbye all too often that gets me. On my first official day in the job I met the person who would become my life line to the social network that is Vila. She has provided the much needed opportunities to meet new people and create a friend base. There is such a big Aussie/Kiwi expat base here I sometimes forget that I’m overseas. I’ve met quite a few people on my own and have created lifelong friendships along the way. More on those people in the up and coming blog updates.

Life outside of work has offered me entertainment, pleasure and relaxation not to mention horrific hangovers and sloth like work attempts. So in many ways this has been my Darwin experience all over again! In recent months my weeks have consisted of working Mon – Sat, accepting any drinking or dinner opportunities that may arise during the week, creating a Sat arvo ritual with a good friend sipping Oyster Bay on Erakor beach and scuba diving each Sunday morning with some of the best people I have come across before watching a band or enjoying a fine Sunday session at the local pub in the afternoon. And then like I said, I just blink and it’s Monday all over again.........

My life truly is extraordinary at the moment and I am enjoying every minute. I have managed to squeeze in two quick trips home to the farm during my time here and as I look toward 2011 my social calendar for the first half of the year is quickly filling up with trips I planned for overseas and people coming to visit. If you’re reading this and you’re not on the list of people visiting next year just know that my fold out couch welcomes you any time to come and experience the island way of life in the South Pacific.

I live in a place voted the ‘world’s happiest country’ and there is no way of denying it – I’m very happy.