The First Hit

My name’s Eve and I am a travel addict. For those of you also afflicted by this or any other addiction, I’m sure that you are consumed by both the good and the bad. The excitement, rush and euphoria that comes when you empty your bank account and get a hit and the low that inevitably follows.

There are not many things I blame my mother for in my life, believing that people tend to make their own destiny, but I am confident that my NEED to travel stems from her. It all started when I was 11. My mum had decided to buy a house in the south west of France to rent out to Australians and was going there for a month to set everything up. Being the little miss that I was back then, I was less than impressed that my mum thought she could just take off and leave me behind like that. I can’t remember what the fight we had had that morning was but I was dragged along to my brother’s basketball game and sat there in a huff for the first half. Let me tell you, the second half was considerably better: she leant over to me and whispered “you know you’re coming with me, right?” And that was it…. The rest is history….

That trip turned out to be one of my best. Being the second youngest of 5 children, it was a real commodity to be an only child for a month.

Mum and I caught to train from Paris to Cahors and got straight to business. We proceeded to settle a house, buy furniture and move it all in ourselves, buy produce at the local markets and make friends in the village all with our limited knowledge of French. Actually limited is probably too kind, mum had JE VOUDRAIS FROMAGE down pact but was a subscriber to “if they don’t understand me I’ll just talk LOUDER” school of language.

The month passed far too quickly for my liking with people from all walks of life stopping in to help make the house inhabitable. And so it was time to head back to Brisbane, the trip was over, but not for long…. I had had my first hit and like any addict, I was hooked.