Me with a literal boat-load of Australians.

“You haven’t been to Australia?! You have to go!”

That was the chorus line of my summer. If you work in the young persons’ travel industry, there’s just no avoiding the Ozzies (Aussies?). Of the 28 people I trained with for my tour guide job, 21 were Australian. Of the 51 seats on my bus on any given day throughout the season, around 40 would be occupied by Aussies (Ozzies?).

Why?

Because they’re the only ones willing to spend money and time on travel. To most Americans, taking two weeks off work and spending a couple thousand bucks on a trip with a jam-packed itinerary to multiple European countries would be a major trip. We’d travel those two weeks with ruthless efficiency then get back to our jobs back home. But those from ‘stralia will quit their day jobs in order to travel for four, six, even ten-month vacations. They’ll save for a year or so — an easier feat considering their wages. A normal bartending gig can pay $20/hour in Australia. (The same gig pays $8/hour in The States.) Ten month trips aren’t enough though. This whole Two Passports adventure I’ve been up to isn’t so crazy to them. It’s nearly a right of passage to spend two years abroad for Australians. They can easily get two-year working visas for anywhere in the EU. Some estimates put 1% of Australia’s population in London at any given time due to this work visa situation.

All this is a way to say: I have met a LOT of Australians in the past eight months. These guys can’t stop talking about how great life is in their country. Beach culture, the great weather, the barbie, the laid-back atmosphere — I’ve heard it all. Of course, after convincing you of their country’s awesomeness, Aussies will spend a half hour telling about about the five most poisonous snakes in the world (all of which live in Oz), the deadly shark attacks and the ever-present threat of Drop Bears. (Gotta watch out, those Drop Bears will getchya.)

So why am I telling you so much about Australia? Because after months and months of hearing the familiar chorus of “I can’t believe you haven’t been to Australia!” I’ve decided to finally see for myself.

On January 25, I leave Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport for a flight so long that I’ll never get to experience January 26, 2012 — we cross the international date line at around midnight so i literally will never get that day back.

I never would have thought Australia was in the cards when I started traveling, but before long I’ll be in a country where a Devo song is revered when played at bars, where “Oi!” immediately gets everyone’s attention and where the toilets flush in the opposite direction. Australia, here I come.

The first picture of me after arriving in Ireland two years ago. Does my expression reaveal my true feelings of "Ohshitohshitohshit what have a I done?"

Two years ago today, I first set my foot on Irish soil with the intention of living there. That dream was nearly hampered by a grouchy customs agent and myself, a naiive and underprepared world traveler.

Wait, scratch that. I was never supposed to be a world traveler. Two years ago my future-self was supposed to be back in the U.S. by November 15, 2010. I was supposed to be making an honest living. I could never have imagined that I’d end up here: Working as a tour guide, getting paid to travel and feeling more comfortable abroad than I do at home.

Wait, scratch that too. I have no idea how it will feel to live at home. This is the first time since I moved abroad that I am returning to The States with no return ticket to Europe.

I guess that’s the problem with anniversaries. It’s as if it’s trying to get me to assign meaning and a bookend to something that might not be ready to end. I feel far from finished with adventuring. Yet, with my most recent gig, I do feel something. A culmination.

Unless they suffer a dramatic injury, most professional athletes need to make a determination of when to retire. As countless examples show us, professional athletes’ best season is seldom their last one, and why would it be? Why would you want to quit something at the moment you’re the best you’ve ever been on it? The problem is, life doesn’t follow a traditional Greek dramatic structure. Major League Baseball players don’t finally win the Pennant only to retire. Only years later do they realize that their culminating moment is in the past.

And that’s how I feel at my two-year anniversary. I’ve culminated. I’ve taken all the skills I’ve learned from living in Europe and applied them to my last job. Two years ago my lack of self-confidence nearly defeated me before I even began in Galway. The John of 2009 spent a week building up the courage just to drop off a CV at a coffee shop in Ireland. I actually remember standing outside a cafe window, CV in hand and walking away because I was too scared to ask for a job. That person seems like a stranger to me now.

I now have the ability to find the cheapest plane ticket to any destination in the world, but also the knowledge that saving that much money probably won’t be worth it.

I’ve gained the courage to fly to a city without the faintest idea of what I want to do there — as I type this I’m on a train to London Heathrow Airport for a four-day trip to New York City with no plan other then where I’ll sleep. If this doesn’t sound like a big deal to you, you have to understand that when I was 13, my mother once typed up a FIVE PAGE ITINERARY with a schedule down to the minute of which place we should be going to — in Disneyworld.

I’m not at the terminus point of my globe-trotting adventure, but I do see my current situation as a direct result of the previous two years, and I’m proud of that. Every time I feel I’ve culminated — whether it be working in retail in Galway or at a hostel in Cardiff — I move to another adventure. Denouement is not for me. That’s why after the holidays I’m planning a new experience altogether different from anything I’ve done so far. I dare not say it here for fear of jinxing it, but with a little (more) luck, I’ll be able to build on the experiences and lessons I’ve learned so far.

It’s been a good two years.

Hackescher Markt, where one anonymous man's final moments played out.

In my job, arriving to our destination is always stressful. We provide transport but not accommodation to our passengers, and even though we drop off at a hostel, only about half of my passengers end up staying there. They all need help finding to their hostel/the nearest cashpoint/the toilet, so it ends up a busy few minutes that I’m happy to reach the end of.

That’s why is was such a shock to the system the other day in Berlin when one of my passengers approached me twenty minutes after I’d clocked out for the day. She was older, around sixty years old. Although I’d spent the day on the bus chatting with her and finding her to be quite cheerful, now tears were streamed down her face as she sat next to me. She tried but couldn’t get the words out. Something terrible had happened.

Only twenty minutes before I had sent her to the Berlin’s Hackeshermarkt S-bahn station, and now she had returned. Between sobs she explained to me what had happened in Morse-code-style strings of phrases as she tried to contain her emotions. “I bought my ticket…and he just…jumped in front of…” she interrupted herself with more sobs.

After some coaxing I discovered the horrible truth: After purchasing her train ticket, this woman had the misfortune of witnessing a man right beside her fling himself in front of a passing train. In shock and unsure of what to do, she returned to the only person she knew in Berlin: Me. I helped her find closer accommodation and get a taxi there, but I couldn’t help but feel a certain amount of hopelessness. Nothing I could say would erase this terrible memory from her brain.

As the week has gone by, I haven’t been able to erase the memory of an event I never witnessed from my brain, either.

I can’t help but feel anything but anger toward physically healthy people who kill themselves. In one violent act they transfer their life turmoil to everyone around them — people they don’t even know. How could this (presumably) German man know that an Australian woman would see him in his final moments on earth; That she would return to her home, halfway across the world, scarred by that fleeting moment when he threw his body into oblivion? How could he know that that Australian would go tell her American tour guide, who would take this painful memory around Europe and back to North America with him?

A few hours later, I went to the Hackeshermarkt S-bahn stop where it all happened. The world had moved on, the station was open and people were jumping on, not in front of, the train, totally unaware of the traumatic event that had happened just a few hours earlier. As the train pulled away, the only sign that remained was a large patch of white powder covering the remnants of a bloodstain on the tracks below. I should feel sadness and remorse for this recently deceased person that I have never met, but instead all I can feel is anger.