You’re making it very difficult for me to be the American Ambassador in rural New Zealand. Whenever I meet someone new, I have to answer the same routine questions. Whereabouts in the States are you from? Virginia. Where’s that? Middle of the east coast. What’s up with Donald Trump? I don’t know. Don’t blame me, please!
The presidential election is more than 14 months away but you guys already have a debilitating case of Trump fever.
I’ve seen the Fox News debate with Mr. Trump front and center, I’ve seen the poll numbers, but for some reason I didn’t believe it was real. Like a holocaust denier, I refused to face the truth. It finally hit me when I read this Think Progress article about his recent “Pep Rally” in Alabama. I can’t deny the pictures. My god. The pictures.
Four and a half hours before Trump speaks, there's already a line outside the stadium pic.twitter.com/oGoCs6jInt
These are the first images I’ve seen of actual living, breathing, sentient — maybe — supporters of Mr. Trump. They have t-shirts! And signs! What the fuck is going on over there, guys??
He doesn’t have a platform. Instead, he uses his skills from years behind the camera of reality TV shows to spew racist rhetoric and propaganda about how he’s sick of political correctness.
America is already filled to the brim with fear, hatred an resentment. We don’t need anymore, thanks. My heart goes out to the Mexican immigrants, legal and illegal, who are terrified of living in America. They just want a better life for their families. I used to work a day labor job installing office furniture and cubicles. Two Mexicans worked with my friend Juan, who is Ecuadorian, and I on a Saturday. They said they have full time work during the week but they can’t take a day off. I spent the wad of twenties I earned on pot and beer and went back to my comfortable suburban home, they took the money home to feed their children.
Meanwhile, the shrinking middle class of blue-collar, god-fearing white people throw their support behind the rich asshole who tells them to blame the poor, hard-working immigrants for their financial woes, when it’s actually the rich asshole’s fault. It’s a classic scapegoat technique. Hitler used it. Stalin used it. Now Trump is using it. They gobble it up like Big Macs and Super Double Big Gulps because they can’t think for themselves because the Bible is the only book they need and because the schools are constantly being defunded by the rich assholes. Add the toxic right-wing media and you have a never ending shit-storm of ignorance and deception. Everyone loses. Except the rich assholes.
Please, I beg you, stop this madness. I know, you feel like you need to “take your country back” and “make America great again,” but this is not the way forward. A President Trump would be a worldwide embarrassment. I know many of you simple Christian Right Americans don’t travel much — you live paycheck to paycheck because of the tax-evading, deregulating rich assholes — and often stay in the small town you grew up in, but please consider the rest of the world when you vote.
I’m getting really tired of explaining the GOP reality show circus to these New Zealanders who are just as baffled a I am.
I never expected to encounter religious zealots or political conservatives in Australia and New Zealand. I thought they could only be found in the wilds of America. But somehow they always manage to find me.
[REDACTED] and I weren’t prepared for the cold and wet of the Adelaide hills. We had been living in the desert for months, where the perpetual dry heat makes life easy. We sought refuge at a holiday park to dry our clothes and gear. I made the short walk to the facilities to put in a load of laundry.
“Good morning! Where are you from?” a middle-aged woman immediately asks me, as if she has been waiting for someone to talk to.
I say the States and she says that’s amazing. She spent time with some ranchers in Oklahoma and loved it. I try to shake her off and get back to my washing, but she appears to be brainwashed or maybe she is a robot because her wide eyes seem blank and her smile is way too big.
Yeah, I love America,” she continues, deadpan. “The only problem is that the military is controlled by the devil.”
The crazy inside of her is no longer able to contain itself and I take that as my invitation to stop giving her my time. I tell her to have a great day as I walk back to the site with a great story to tell [REDACTED].
Then there was the old man in the Auckland CBD who found me on a cold Monday morning. It was my third day in New Zealand and I was sitting on a bench smoking a rollie and drinking a flat white between opening a bank account, registering for a tax number and applying for my driver’s license.
“Mind if I join you?” he asks.
I always welcome a random conversation, so I invite him to take a seat. He hears my accent and tells me I must be an American. He says he’s a born again Christian. I get really excited and tell him I’ve studied you, what do you have to say?
I have something very bad to tell you about America,” he tells me, grimly.
Great! Lay it on me. I realize he isn’t the type of person to be straightforward as he begins his exposition. He says in the New Testament, there is a story of the sign of the devil, 666, marked on the right hand of sinners. I finish my cigarette and become impatient. He produces a small copy of the New Testament full of dog-eared pages and annotations and tells me to read the line he is referring to. I finish my coffee. Yeah, that’s great, man. What is this terrible thing you have to say about America?
He reaches into his coat pocket again and gives me a printed off article about Obamacare. It’s from some religious blog and it says as part of Obamacare, all Americans will be required to have a tiny microchip implanted in their right hand. And there you have it, folks, certified proof that Obama is the devil. But he’s not done yet. He tells me Obama is a Muslim at heart and there it is again, my queue to leave.
Looking back on these interactions, it would have been much more fun and interesting if I egged them on agreed with them. I should have taken it further, donned my tin foil hat and thought up some ridiculous conspiracy theory that would make them uncomfortable.
Now I’m in a rural farming town in New Zealand where Christian Farmers don’t pay any taxes and racism toward the Māori, Chinese and Indians is casual. And conservatism is king. Digger’s Father stopped by the farm yesterday morning and we had a little chat.
So, [REDACTED], who do you have for President?” the typical American question.
The first thing I have to say is how the Republican race is a reality show with Donald Trump fear-mongering to get the support of angry old white people. Then I say I’m not a big fan of Hillary, she is too establishment and too boring. I don’t trust her. I’m a big supporter of Bernie Sanders. I’ve been a fan of his for a while now but I never expected him to blow up like this. He is the first politician I’ve ever seen who actually tells the truth and focuses on people, not money.
We talk about this for a bit and he asks me what I want to do when I go back to the states. I tell him I want to be a journalist. I want to talk to people and ask questions and write. That’s the dream, for now.
He says all of the journalists here in New Zealand and way too far to the left. It takes me back to the days of Sarah Palin repeating the words “lame-stream media” on Fox News. I nod and think about how I’ve fallen in love with Susie Fergusen, host of Radio NZ’s Morning Report, and the way she ruthlessly attacks politicians and speaks truth to power. I don’t think of her as liberal. I think of her as trustworthy.
This is the way I see it: It is the job of the journalist to seek out the truth. If the majority of journalism is “liberal,” does that mean that journalists have a liberal bias or does it mean that the truth has a liberal bias?
Next we arrive on the issue of climate change. First it was global warming, now it’s climate change, now they say we are going into another ice age.
I don’t buy it.”
He has read a lot about the issue and looked at it from both sides and decided that it’s all a bunch of bullshit from the UN and Obama to make money. He mentions a guy from NASA who retired and wasn’t on the payroll anymore so he could finally write about how climate change isn’t manmade, it’s just nature. I nod my head and remain silent but what I really want to do is yell in his face.
Then it’s on to Labor Unions, which are huge in New Zealand. Digger’s Dad is an engineer and was on a job one day with a truck driving union member. The union guy assumed they were both on the same page and brought up some recent issue. He said he wasn’t a union supporter.
“Well, what would you do if you thought you weren’t getting paid enough?” the truck driver asked.
“I would talk to my boss and tell him to pay me more. If he disagreed, I would go find another job,” he replied.
That shut him up.”
I think to myself, Wow, what a ridiculous oversimplification of the role of unions. What if you can’t just go to the job store and pick out a new job? And of course Digger was sitting there agreeing with everything his Dad said.
It doesn’t matter what country you are in. People in rural, less educated areas will mostly be conservative. Digger has often told me that he didn’t get into farming because he was good at school. They resent the big university boys from Auckland and Wellington who never worked a “real” job, who take their hard-earned money and give it to the Māori and the other dole bludgers. There are often racist undertones to their political thoughts.
On my first night drinking with real Kiwis around a giant bon fire, these white farmer guys and girls kept talking about Niggers. I had to stop to ask, who are the Niggers? The Māori.
I have heard jokes like: “What’s the best place to hide a Māori’s dole check? Under his work boot.” Māori’s can often earn more on the dole than they can working, which creates a lot of resentment, but calling them Niggers seems a bit extreme. That word has a lot of history to it.
I thought I was traveling through one of the the more enlightened areas of the world, but I guess there are different types of people everywhere. I’m kind of glad though, it keeps things interesting.
I felt a terrible gut-wrenching pain while watching the Fox News Republican Presidential Debate after being away from American conservative extremism for the past year and two months. That feeling returned the next morning while I was listening to New Zealand public radio on my tractor run. Radio NZ’s short coverage consisted of one outrageous Donald Trump quote. He said moderator Megyn Kelly, “had blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever.”
This is the one small piece of American news many people across the world heard today. How sad is that?
It’s not surprising though. The first Republican debate is always a race to the bottom to see who is best at pandering to their conservative base. All 10 candidates came in with carefully crafted one-liners intended to garner the most tweets and shares and likes. It’s a popularity contest. It’s the result of the dumbing down of journalism and online media. Click bait. You’ll never believe what Donald Trump just said. It’s not about the truth anymore, it’s about getting the most page views. It’s all fake. America.
The first debate is always moderated by Fox News, and all of the candidates are chosen by Fox News. They set the agenda. If you aren’t a Christian and don’t believe in God, then don’t even try running as a Republican. These candidates are expected to fit into a tiny box created by Fox News, the Republican Party and the Christian Right. They are all one and the same. The holy trinity.
The status quo of the debate scares me. The way the words “terrorist” and “freedom” and thrown around like they actually mean something. The complete rejection of abortion in all cases. The way God and religion are completely intertwined in a country where separation of church and state is the law.
If you have, please consult a psychiatrist. (Screenshot credit to Fox News Channel.)
I’ve studied the Christian Right and I wrote my senior thesis about their education policy. It all stems from biblical inerency, that the Bible is completely without error and contains all answers to life’s complexities. Everything is black and white. They are simplistic and can’t comprehend that, hey, maybe if a pregnant woman’s life is in danger, or if a young girl was raped or a victim of incest, maybe it would be OK if she had an abortion.
Nope. Not to Fox News.
The Republican status quo on abortion is that life starts at the exact moment when the sperm fertilizes the egg. From that point, the tiny fetus is an American citizen with all of the protections of the constitution. If you are a gay fetus, however, just stay in the womb. You have more rights there.
Megyn Kelly turns to Marco Rubio and says he has favored rape and incest exceptions to abortion bans. She asks, “If you believe that life begins at conception, as you say you do, how do you justify ending a life just because it begins violently, through no fault of the baby?”
RUBIO: Well, Megyn, first of all, I’m not sure that that’s a correct assessment of my record. I would go on to add that I believe all–
KELLY: You don’t favor a rape and incest exception?
RUBIO: I have never said that. And I have never advocated that. What I have advocated is that we pass law in this country that says all human life at every stage of its development is worthy of protection.
In fact, I think that law already exists. It is called the Constitution of the United States.
(APPLAUSE)
RUBIO: And let me go further. I believe that every single human being is entitled to the protection of our laws, whether they can vote or not. Whether they can speak or not. Whether they can hire a lawyer or not. Whether they have a birth certificate or not. And I think future generations will look back at this history of our country and call us barbarians for murdering millions of babies who we never gave them a chance to live.
Great job, Rubio, if you want a crowd reaction just namedrop the constitution. No matter what position he has taken in the past, he has to say he was never in favor of any abortion exceptions if he wants to remain in the competition. All of these candidates have to pander to their conservative base and double down on the extremism. But as soon as one of them wins the bid, they turn into a different candidate so they can gather a wider audience.
“Alright, gentlemen,” says moderator Kelly. “We’re gonna switch topics now and talk a bit about terror and national security.”
Chris Christie says the NSA should be able to run bulk collection of Americans’ home phone records, while Rand Paul says we should only collect information from terrorists.
CHRISTIE: And — and, Megyn? Megyn, that’s a — that, you know, that’s a completely ridiculous answer. “I want to collect more records from terrorists, but less records from other people.” How are you supposed to know, Megyn?
PAUL: Use the Fourth Amendment!
CHRISTIE: What are you supposed to…
PAUL: Use the Fourth Amendment!
CHRISTIE: …how are you supposed to — no, I’ll tell you how you, look…
PAUL: Get a warrant!
CHRISTIE: Let me tell you something, you go…
PAUL: Get a judge to sign the warrant!
CHRISTIE: When you — you know, senator…
(CROSSTALK)
They skate to center ice and throw a few punches before the referees break it up.
The word “terrorist” bothers me. There are definitely terrible people in the world who are committing terrible acts of torture and violence. But there is a serious problem with using the word so casually and frequently. It’s a great strategy, though, if the intention is to keep Americans afraid of a straw man and let their rights slowly be dismantled.
Think of it from all perspectives. If a strong global power illegally invades countries and kills an estimated 210,000 civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, who is the terrorist? It can’t be the Americans, because we are fighting a war on terror, so we are incapable of committing any acts of terrorism.
Americans are extremely self-centered. We are the best country in the world and we are the global police force and it is totally justified to have military personnel in 130 countries and over 900 overseas bases. If we have an ideological (read: economic) difference with a country, we need to invade to protect our diplomatic (read: monetary) interests.
The system is genius. Everything is so well-thought out and the propaganda is so subtly-incorporated into society. The goal is to keep a large class of misinformed, uneducated, poor workers who are passive consumers of media and merchandise on the bottom and a rich, powerful ruling class on top. It’s all good though because this is America, where even if your father was a mailman or a bartender — as Kasich and Rubio were so eager to share — you can still be a presidential candidate. This is America, where there is less social mobility than Canada and Western Europe, I mean, wait… What happened to the American dream? Oh yeah, Reagan killed it with deregulation and lowering taxes on the rich.
The joining of the Republican Party and evangelical churches streamlined this system and changed American politics forever. Now, everyone in the Republican Party is assumed to be a devout Christian.
You can’t force me to serve a gay person at my restaurant, I might get cooties! (Screenshot Credit to Fox News Channel.)
This makes me feel so helplessly sad. That there are actually people, lots of them, who think like this. My gut reaction is to grab them by the shoulders and shake them and make them travel the world and try to talk like that in any other country in the world and see what happens.
Carol Fox brings up the same self-centered worldview I mentioned earlier. White, heterosexual, God-fearing, Bible-thumping, gun-owning Americans are the most important people in the world. We shouldn’t worry about the possibility of gay people being “prosecuted” and discriminated against, we should be worrying about the Real Americans who don’t like these faggots being allowed to have the same rights that I enjoy. I mean, for heaven’s sake, how am I supposed to explain two men kissing to my five-year-old daughter?
Watching the Fox News debate at a time when the only other American media I have recently consumed is the new season of Rick and Morty is like only watching Damo and Darren videos to understand contemporary social issues of Australia. I can’t imagine a politician from New Zealand saying Scott Walker’s quote: “I’m certainly an imperfect man. And it’s only by the blood of Jesus Christ that I’ve been redeemed from my sins.” I know this debate is extreme and it doesn’t accurately characterize what America is all about.
I actually have a lot of hope for America. Future generations won’t look at us as baby killing barbarians as Rubio predicts. They will wonder why we didn’t legalize gay marriage and allow women to have control over their bodies earlier.
Historians are going to look back on the Obama years as a transformative time for America. He will be remembered as one of the best Presidents of modern history. He is the first African-American president, elected a short 50 years after the Civil Rights movement. He passed comprehensive health care reform resulting in millions of Americans having access to affordable health insurance. He ended one inherited war and scaled down another. Gay marriage was legalized under his term. Recreational marijuana was passed in three states.
America is changing and it is only going to get better. We are becoming more diverse and our national skin color is getting darker. We are changing our minds on social issues and economic justice is becoming an issue that cannot be avoided. It doesn’t matter what Donald Trump said today. What matters is how he will be remembered: as a gigantic asshole.
I feel extremely lucky to be from the United States. No, I don’t think it is the best country in the world. There is alarmingly high income inequality. Racism is ingrained into the social and economic system. There are regular mass shootings. Health care is privatized. Corporations are people. Money is speech.
I feel lucky to be an American because I can travel around America whenever I want. No visa required. I can stay there for as long as I want and do whatever I want. It’s so exciting.
Before I started traveling, I thought everyone hated America and Americans. After 13.5 months of meeting people from all over the world, working behind bars and espresso machines, living in hostels and flats and staying at friendly houses, I’ve realized it’s quite the opposite.
Everyone wants to go to America. People from all over the world have watched American movies their entire lives and they want to see Times Square, Hollywood, Las Vegas. They ask me if I’ve seen any movie stars and do I own any guns. Then they tell me about their aunt or brother or step-father who lived in Chicago for five years or they want to talk about how dangerous it is but it’s OK because they could easily disarm a man with a gun.
Usually if an older Australian or New Zealander has traveled to America, they do it big. They are the grey nomads who roam the world after retirement. They tell me they rented a camper van and traveled from Washington to Nevada to North Dakota to Louisiana to Virginia to Maine. They comment on how very few Americans travel, even to their neighboring states. Sadly, I’m guilty. Tennessee and Kentucky are adjacent to Virginia, but I’ve never been. These nomads remind of how little I have seen of my country.
Caravan park full of old people in Port Vincent, near Adelaide.
I’ve traveled all over the East Coast. Family in the North East, ex-girlfriend went to Clemson University in South Carolina, and my grandparents — of course — have a condo in Florida. I’ve visited some family in Oregon and took a trip to California after my little sister was Miss Virginia and we had to go to the nationals. I’ve skipped over the entire middle area. There is so much land there. I need to see what that’s all about. I feel like it is a foreign country.
I’m lucky because traveling and working in America is very hard if you don’t have a US passport. The United States only has reciprocal working holiday agreements with five countries: Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Singapore and South Korea. That’s a lot less than most other developed nations.
Last night I talked to Hannah, a German girl who just came over to New Zealand after her Australian working holiday visa ended. She made me realize that travelers who want to work and holiday in America have to get creative. Hannah is looking into working as a summer camp counselor. There are programs that hire foreigners for three months to play team building games with little American boys and girls. The summer camp organizations apply for the work visa, pay for flights and accommodation and include three weeks of free travel time. These opportunities, however, are much more complicated than applying for a working holiday visa and hearing back in three days.
Europeans like Hannah have the benefit of easily traveling around the Eurozone, but there are 50 unique mini-countries I can choose from. The only downside is that Americans inhabit all of them.
Working in hospitality in a tourist town in Australia has taught me that Americans are by far the worst customers. They come in busloads to see Uluru and I can spot the yanks from a mile away. It’s the pure white New Balance tennis shoes purchased the day before the flight, the mispronunciation of Melbourne, and the general disregard for manners. Stereotypes are dangerous — there are plenty of considerate Americans — but this one is usually true.
They think because their tour includes a free breakfast, they can blow right past the “Please Wait to be Seated” sign and somehow completely ignore the guy standing behind the desk asking for their room number.
As soon as I started to criticize American tourists, my co-workers suddenly realized they can speak freely.
Why don’t they ever say thank you?” Sonny, my manager, would say.
“They think they own the world,” said Maureen, the morning supervisor.
The problem is simple. Americans are used to their waiters and bartenders being forced to either give good service or go home empty handed. The two dollars an hour they earn in their fortnightly paycheck is a pittance. If they forgot to bring that bottle of ketchup table eight requested 15 minutes ago, they just lost money.
Meanwhile, here I am staring at my phone behind a pool-side cafe in Australia, getting paid $24.60 AUD ($17.97 USD) an hour regardless of whether if I serve one cappuccino or 20 cocktails. If I’m slightly rude or inattentive to the occasional customer, my paycheck doesn’t change. The American tipping system, however, forces the waiters and bartenders to resent their co-workers and teaches the customer that they are the center of the universe. It’s capitalism at its finest. They have been trained to think they are entitled to everything and if something is different from the way it is back home, they don’t like it.
Umm, excuse me, what kind of bacon is this?” It’s the kind of bacon that won’t cause you to have a premature heart attack. It’s what the rest of the world eats.
Americans don’t like none of that fancy espresso coffee either.
“I just want a regular cup of coffee!” No worries, sounds like you want a long black. No? You just want a regular black coffee? Uhh, all we have is espresso. Can I please just make you a flat white? You’re not at the Waffle House, try something new.
Leigh holding the last cup of coffee I made in Australia.
They are loud and they have no self-awareness. There was an American woman with a slight southern accent who barged into the restaurant to refill her water bottle during the lull between brekkie and lunch. The general manager was having an important meeting with a client near the bar where I was polishing water glasses in silence.
“You don’t look Australian! Where are you from?” she asks Rena, the unsmiling, overworked and under-appreciated morning chef in the open kitchen. We can’t hear her response from the other side of the restaurant — I assume she said Sri Lanka — but everyone is taken aback by the loud American.
How’d’ya end up here?” she asks. This became my go-to annoying American tourist impersonation phrase.
It is certainly not the Americans I’ve met abroad who have changed my mind about the untouched homeland, it’s everyone else I’ve met along the way. It’s the adventurous Aussies, the curious Kiwis, the happy-go-lucky European backpackers on a gap year, the incredibly brave Asian travelers a who barely speak english: They all tell me they want to go to America. If everyone else wants to see this country I grew up in, shouldn’t I?
I would have never viewed America as such a diverse land with amazing landmarks and opportunities if I never left. I’ll just have to make it my mission to find the state with the least annoying people.
Two years ago I studied abroad in Ireland for six weeks to finish my remaining two university courses. I wrote the following reflection paper on my last day:
July 23, 2013
Dublin, Ireland
This is the first time in my life where nothing is planned for me. My future is a blank canvas. The thought excites me. I honestly have no clue where I’ll be in two weeks or two months or two years. I don’t know what to expect or what will happen or where I will work or what I will do. My life is mine to be molded. I’m ready to find out what I want to do.
I’ve always thought I would get a job in the D.C. area and eventually move out of [REDACTED] when I have enough money, but I don’t have to limit myself to that. Ireland has opened my eyes to the world. There are so many opportunities to consider. I’m willing to try anything and everything. Maybe I’ll look into seasonal employment or some kind of work experience abroad. I just don’t think I’m ready for a 9-5 for the rest of my life.
Ireland has renewed my love for nature. My favorite times on this trip were spent wandering through fields and mountains with cows and sheep. I want to hike part of the Appalachian Trail as soon as possible. I don’t need much to be happy. I’m a simple man. Hopefully I will find something to do that satisfies that desire to be outside.
Getting lost in Connemara. July 10, 2013.
Even if I do end up working and living in the D.C. bubble, I will definitely still want to travel. I’ve realized that traveling can be easy and affordable, if you know what you’re doing. Nothing is stopping me from going wherever I want. Well, maybe money, work, bills and commitments. But that hasn’t hit me yet. I’m still a college student for one more day.
When I walked out of my last final exam in May, I felt a strange sensation. Of course I was happy that I was done with finals week, but I felt empty. I wanted to keep learning. My time in Ireland has made me realize that learning out of the classroom is just as important as formalized college classes. Traveling through Ireland has taught me how other people live. I’ve learned more than history books could ever teach me.
Ireland has been everything I needed it to be. I wanted to travel and find adventure, and I needed a break before I start working. Now that it’s over, I’m looking forward to finding my place in this world. I’m ready for the next chapter.
Past [REDACTED] certainly was bright-eyed and optimistic, Present [REDACTED] thinks, looking back on the past two years. I was completely broke when I started working on Terry McAuliffe’s campaign for Governor of Virginia — earning a monthly salary which amounted to less than minimum wage — a few weeks after I left Ireland. For the next 11 months I became entrenched in job applications, failed interviews, unpaid internships, temp jobs, suits, ties and endless commutes around Northern Virginia and Washington, D.C. I was too lost in trying to save enough money to move out of my old man’s house to even think about traveling.
As months went by my resume and job experience grew stronger. I was getting used to the formulaic interview questions and was firing off answers from the hip. I walked out of every interview feeling like they would be crazy not to hire me, but as the rejections started crowding my inbox I thought they must be going for candidates with a stronger personality or better qualifications.
My spreadsheet filling, key-word searching temp job at the Bipartisan Policy Center was set to end on Friday, May 30, 2014. My Dad, with the new Step Mother, told me he was kicking me out of the house on June 1, 2014.
I had been Facebook messaging my long-time friend, [REDACTED], who was living in Alice Springs, Australia. His Dad got a job at Pine Gap, the super secret satellite tracking station in the middle of the desert, and relocated there about three years back. [REDACTED]moved there in January 2014 to get away from some legal trouble in the states and found a bar tending job at the casino hotel resort.
May 13, 2014
[REDACTED] : my new boss is Scottish and tonight was his first night and he got so drunk he had to be carried to his hotel room by security lol he is like 50
Me: is he like craig ferguson? cause hes a really funny Scottish man and that who Im picturing
[REDACTED] : actually he looks quite like him it was just funny to watch this guy it was his second night in alce first night working and he got fucking trashed with all of us the F&B workers plus i got to hook up with this french chick which was dope lol
Me: hahaha thats awesome congratulations on that. im jealous man it sounds like youre having a good time. im getting kicked out of my house at the end of the month.
[REDACTED] : wtf?!? r u serious
Me: yea I dont fit in with andrea’s ideal life
The Step Mother was constantly complaining me slamming the front door and the kitchen cabinets. I never noticed I was doing it and it wasn’t on purpose. She sat up in her jewelry studio and said she was startled whenever I left the house or made some food. One night I was watching a TV show in my room. As she was going to sleep she told me to turn it down, a very reasonable request. I was in the process of getting out of bed to lower the volume when she naggingly told me to turn it down again. I walked out of my room and slammed the door as loud and hard as I could. She did not approve of my flagrant act of rebellion. I was so frustrated with her constantly asking me and my family to change. Why can’t she change? It was clear we could not continue living in the same house.
May 30, 2014
Me: so ive had 5 job interviews in the past 2.5 weeks. i got 2 rejections yesterday and im like 95% sure im gonna get rejected from 2 others. so now i have one possible job that i have a chance of getting an offer from. so im pretty much fucked. how is it in australia? easy to find a job?
[REDACTED] : man two days and y can find a job
Me: really?
[REDACTED] : really and 22 dollars an hour
Me: do you need a visa or some shit?I think they are going to kick me out this weekend so im trying to think of my options and going to Australia seems like a pretty good option.
[REDACTED] : yes u need a visa i got a work and holiday visa it took me like three days to get it it wasn’t hard but ye man really consider it we could get a place some jobs and we could just see the world money is great here jobs are everywhere its paradise
Over the next week I was offered a second interview for Communications Assistant with Chesapeake Public Strategies, and first interviews for Assistant Press Secretary at NextGen Climate and Communications Assistant position with American Farm Bureau Federation. I declined. I was so close. I gave up. I was sleeping on my college buddies’ couch with no job, no car, no savings.
June 3, 2014
Me: ok so ive been homeless for a few days and Ive talked to kerri and my mom about going to australia and they both said they dont want me to go and i was hoping my mom would pay for my plane ticket and i dont think shes willing to do that. i think im going to stay here and apply for jobs and work at my moms house shes gonna pay me to help with her kitchen and other jobs around her house and ill do that for a week or so and i really want to do a trip on the AT like a ten day hike or something. sorry man but i dont think australia is in the cards for me. if i wasnt dating kerri and if i had more money it would be a no brainer though.
[REDACTED] : mannn no worries just know uf u come over here things would be dope man but do whatcha gotta do bro but it was funny tonight… wait so i fucked this tiny lil asian chick pretty cute but today i found out she has a girlfriend and literally today a gir came up to me and told me back off her woman it was one of the most backwards things i have ever experienced
Australia felt like too much of a stretch. I couldn’t leave my girlfriend who, I thought, was O.K. with our current arrangement. She was, is, a nurse and she was, maybe still is, living an hour away. Sometimes our work schedules overlapped and we couldn’t see each other for a week or two. We didn’t communicate well. Our personalities were too similar. Opposites attract.
Deep down I knew it was inevitable. That it wouldn’t work. One night she called me and we talked and cried and expressed what we had repressed for so long and at the end of the conversation I asked, “Did we just break up?”
“I think so.”
June 7, 2014
Me: I’m coming to Australia. Kerri and I just broke up so I have nothing here for me.
June 9, 2014
Me: i dont know what the fuck im doing man this has been the craziest week of my life. i just want to get out of here for as long as possible
[REDACTED] : man i get what u are saying before i came over my life was going fucking insane an honestly this place has given me an incredible amount of self worth and purpose plus i got to get away from the most fucked up situation in my life. to me this place is an eden man its perfect i get that u don’t really know what is good for u but this place…. its perfect if u focus urself on coming over here it will be rewarding in more ways than u can count i promise
I felt so lost at this point. [REDACTED] was my best friend and he told me he found paradise. I would be crazy not to trust him. Reading back on our conversation I realize that everything he said was right. Alice Springs is good for the soul. Especially for someone who was content with spending a total of three hours and $15 a day to catch the bus to the train to arrive at an unpaid internship for a United States Congressman. Life is easy in Alice Springs. The arid heat, the diverse travelers, the hardened locals, the misunderstood Aboriginals. Transplant anyone, from anywhere, there for a year and they will grow into a better, more complete person.
I realize now that being forced out of my childhood home — the most difficult decision a parent can make — was the best thing my dad has ever done for me. He gave me a beautiful gift: Freedom.I remember walking through the kitchen checking for any leftover possessions. The kitchen where years ago my Father, Mother, older Brother, baby Sister and I recorded a home video of a peaceful Saturday morning making scrambled eggs and bacon with smiling faces and laughter. I will never be with family like that until I have my own wife, children, house, scrambled eggs and bacon.
I stood in that kitchen for the last time and thought about the far off possibility of going to Australia. I felt an incredible wave of euphoria pass over me. The Past [REDACTED] on his last day in Ireland knew exactly what Future [REDACTED] would want. Now the Present [REDACTED] is in New Zealand wandering fields with cows and sheep still thinking the same thing: Where will I be in two weeks or two months or two years?
stories from a drifter 