Wake Up Sydney, Three Years Later

Almost three years ago I was sitting on this same couch at 1am, watching my friends construct a furniture/foosball table fort around a barefoot drunk stranger who had passed out in the middle of the lounge room. It was my first time in a hostel, and I remember checking into the six story building with a bar in the basement, receiving a key for an 8-bed dorm room, and reading the slogan “Wake Up Sydney: Wake Up Next to Someone New!” thinking “oh. My. God. What have I gotten myself into.”

I had no idea at the time, what this place would be the beginning of: an incredible adventure tour across Australia, the beginning of a relationship, a handful of long-term friendships; the future crossroads of both my college memories from the past, and my present career path which has brought me all of the same elements in a completely different context of life. 

Walking back down the hallway to the bright yellow door of my dorm room, I can’t help but see flashbacks of Maddy and John leaning against the wall laughing hysterically, quoting Anchorman and yelling for us to come see the pictures they took on their cameras. A few doors down, I remember Annie with the beautiful flowers her now-husband sent from overseas, all the girls in the room oogling them and chatting over curling irons and piles of makeup, getting ready for a night out. I’m laughing to myself in this quiet hallway, remembering the boys singing “whiiichhh wayyy shall we gooooo” from the common room, imitating a group of Irish guys they heard coin the phrase. It doesn’t seem like that long ago, but standing here, I realize that I haven’t talked to many of the people in my memories since then. Our lives moved on from there, back to our respective real worlds. That crazy month together is all we really had, but if we ran into each other now we’d still at least have that in common. 

Returning to the room now, the crossover really begins – I open the door to what three years ago was my “fam”: a group of good friends sharing my age, stage of life, endless inside jokes and an excitement for the shared experience of travel and exploring a new country together. Friends whose lives I still think and hear about every so-often from facebook, whose connection I still relish in, the few times life lends us to catch up. But now, the room is filled with a new “fam” – a group of fellow recruiters whose lives are as crazy and unpredictable as mine. Two partners who I’ve spent months sharing meals, rental cars and hotel rooms with, a group of people who can recite verbatim the same lines from our meeting script, can understand the exhausting effort of classroom announcements, and in some unexplainable way share the same brand of crazy that brought us all to this point in our lives together. All, in past and present, people I would never have met if weren’t for that life-changing summer that started this whole adventure. 

So when I say my “ISV family” now, it means a lot to me – more than I ever thought it would. It means my memories from that summer – the people I still keep in touch with, who’ve shown me Southern hospitality, shared my first love, counseled me through difficult and uncertain times, and still remain some of the closest or most pivotal people my life. And it also means the family I’ve grown within the organization – my fellow recruiters from all over the globe who make me laugh until it hurts, who inspire me to keep traveling and be out of the box, and who understand and relate to me at a level beyond explanation. 

So I think at the end of the day what I really want to say, is that I’m thankful. Even beyond thankful, for life and its amazing opportunities that have brought me back here in different shoes. I am thankful for the people who have colored my world and fostered my optimism that lives in the memories of this place – in the fact that I’m even back here in Sydney, writing this right now. Three years ago I naively signed up for a summer volunteer program that I found on google, and dragged my best guy friend to go along with me. Now, this program and organization is my life – my job, the places I travel to, my closest friendships, and even my boyfriend have all grown from that one decision. So I am thankful for my unpredictable life and the beautiful people in it, and for making that choice that landed me here in the first place, waking up in Sydney once again.