welcome!

It was quite difficult for me to refrain from titling this introductory blog, "G'Day!" so I hope you all appreciate my sacrifice. Just popping in to reserve this space for my upcoming blog chronicling the four-ish months I will be spending in Sydney, NSW, Australia at the end of this year. Having just graduated from college, and spent my entire life either living with my parents in Los Angeles or traveling with my parents further afield, I think it's important and appropriate for me to take some time off to be on my own before I return to L.A. to start my career.

I will be leaving on August 30th, and probably not posting again until closer to that date, and my intended return date is January 9th. Why so long? The other major goal of this journey is to work on my writing, and while four months is hardly enough time to get a complete project completed in any way, it is certainly plenty of time for me to at least get a few of them off the ground.

Why Sydney? Well, I spent a considerable amount of time there throughout my childhood, and it has always been a place that's made me feel very much at home. I know I could be challenging myself more by going to a non-English-speaking country, but I mean - Sydney's bloody far away, after all. Still a challenge! And there's vegemite! Bleargh! I've never gone anywhere on my own, and I know it made my parents and I all more comfortable about this because I am familiar with the city, and we know that it's about as safe a place as a traveler can go (except Bhutan, of course). Also: koalas.

Why this blog? Well, I want to make an account of the interesting things I'll see and do, and especially the interesting people I'll meet. Everyone loves a travel journal, right? Also, I want a place to host tiny snippets of any writing progress I may want feedback on, or any little videos I may make. This will hopefully end up being a multimedia blogspace, so that I can come back with a compendium of info and stories in a variety of formats.


So, until then, farewell. I will continue to be working on my entertainment blog http://katexmachina.blogspot.com indefinitely. Enjoy!