As a baby I lived in a flat in Fitzroy with my parents. My parents bought a house in Black Rock when I was two, which I lived in until I was 18. I went to Black Rock Kindergarten when I was three and four. I then went to Black Rock Primary School from Prep to Year Six and Mentone Girls’ Secondary from Year Seven to Year Twelve.
I have some memories of going to kindergarten. My mum tells me that I was incredibly social and was always wanting to ask friends back to play. I established a friendship with a girl called Jess and we were best friends growing up. Our parents were also really good …show more content…
This was my first trip overseas and I was so excited. We arrived in Bangkok in the middle of the night and I remember the extreme humidity and some very strange smells. However, on that trip was where I really fell in love with travelling. Eating new foods, meeting new people, seeing amazing sights… it was a trip I will never forget. We spent some time in Chang Mai and my dad had heard of a village he wanted to visit. We had been on an organised tour to a few villages but my dad wanted to get off the beaten track and go to a village he had read about so we hired a car. At some stage we got lost and then ended up asking a soldier and his friend for directions. They were heading to the same village so we drove them. When we arrived they were holding a funeral service for a young boy. It was the tradition of the village to lay out the body in a small tent and have lots of smoke inside. I remember them asking us to come in to pay our respects. I went in to be respectful but didn’t let my eyes leave the ground. That was quite a confronting situation. I think my parents didn’t plan for that to happen and they didn’t know what they were getting us into, but visiting such places also made my sister and I appreciate the lives we had and everything we had back