Where it all began.

Nearly three years ago I got on a plane in Sydney and flew to the other side of the world. I was scared, nervous, excited, terrified, full of apprehension, looking forward to the adventures that were beyond and knowing that this was what I was meant to be doing. I originally planned on travelling for 12 months and then maybe another year on top of that and had a blog called Smidge and Splosh. Just this week I was looking back on my old blog posts and I read my very first post, remembered and laughed.

I’ve copied it here for you to have a read. It was posted on Thursday, March 4, 2010

Hi Everyone and welcome to my blog.

Hopefully you will have time to log on from time to time to read about my travels over the next 12 months.
Here’s a rough outline of my Itinerary:

Oman 5 days
Jordon 12 days
Lebanon 12 days
Egypt, Lybia Tunisa – Tour 26 Days
Morocco 3 ½ weeks
UK 5 days
Turkey Approx 6 weeks
Syria – Tour 10 days
Iran – Tour 15 Days
Bahrain 2 Days
UK 3 ½ weeks (Arrive approx 10th August)

I land in the UK about the 10th of August and planning on spending about 3 ½ weeks before heading to Spain for about 2 months. I’m hoping to have the opportunity to travel to India in November for about 3 weeks. I will be heading to Portugal probably in January for a couple of months, but plans are flexible to allow for any other opportunities that arise.

I look forward to sharing my travel stories and adventures with you all.

Oh how extremely differently it turned out from what I had planned. My ambition of being a single independent female traveler, backpacking around the world did not include falling in love with a Jordanian 2 weeks into my trip.

From the original itinerary my first stop was Oman and then onto Jordan. Lebanon got scraped and I stayed in Jordan. I did make it to Egypt, Libya and Tunisa and from there flew to Morocco for 3 weeks. It was there that the itinerary got completely thrown out the window with me heading back to Jordan and accepting a marriage proposal from Atef. The rest as they say is history.

I thought that over the next few months I might delve back into my old blog and travel diaries and occasionally share with you some of my favourite memories and places that I was fortunate enough to visit.

 

Atef and I at a lookout after visiting Shawbak castle in my first week in Jordan. I certainly didn’t have any idea at this point that I would end marrying Atef, living in Jordan and becoming a mum to our gorgeous daughter Alia. And I wouldn’t change a thing! Oh except for maybe the fact that Jordan is a 20 hour flight from Australia.