The Travel Bug

I've never had the travel bug.  Not really.  I like seeing new places, but I love going home.  I'm a homebody at heart.

This month's blog prompt is, "Tell us about the first time you were bitten by the 'travel bug.'"

So let me think.  Perhaps I can tell you about some places I've been.  The first time I was on an airplane was just after I graduated from high school in 1990.  I was 17 years old and I flew from Lafayette, Louisiana to Phoenix, Arizona.  Then I took a shuttle van down to Tucson to meet my best friend.  I'm pretty sure that's correct!  I ended up staying with her in Arizona until I met my husband, Mr. Smith.

He and I moved to Long Beach, California just a few months after we married in 1994.  We spent almost 8 years moving around California before heading to the east coast in 2001 ... Connecticut, to be exact.

My aforementioned best friend's dad generously treated us to a Caribbean cruise in 2002.  That's the only cruise I've ever been on (so far).  It was a lot of fun with no queasy stomachs or viral diseases.

Since then I've only been to Las Vegas, Chicago, Singapore, Malaysia, New Zealand and, of course, Australia.  Sure ... a bit of traveling, but always back home until now.

I vaguely remember when Mr. Smith suggested that we accept an offer to take a 3 year assignment in Sydney.  It was exciting to think about and I'd never lived outside the US.  We took a trip to visit Sydney to see if I'd like it.  But if you've ever lived in a different country other than your native one, you know that it's one thing to visit a place and quite another to live there.

Sydney is great on the whole, but so very far away from family.  I've only recently suffered yet another death in the family.  It's quite stressful.  If you haven't been through it, you couldn't possibly understand.  I know that it was our decision to take on this challenge, but sometimes you just want to scream how unfair it all is.

How on earth did I get to that???  LOL!  Anyhoo, that's my "travel bug" story.  Thanks for staying awake.  :)