My travels in time - from horse and carriage to jetset

My travels started early. I was less than two years old when my parents started to look for a better place to live their life than a small village somewhere in the eastern part of Poland, close to the new border with Russia. It was just after the Second World War and Poland was a troubled country with post-war borders just being enforced. We had a long trip ahead of us. Not so much in kilometers but in duration. It took few days to reach the destination but my mother and me, still a baby, traveled in the comfort of something like a gypsy wagon. My father was a very enterprising man, and he always knew how to take care of his family and how to create a good life for us. We traveled to this Promised Land, and for us, it was a small industrial town in the central part of Poland. The name of the town is unpronounceable, sorry.

I did not like the place because my mother did not like it and she was my role model. It was a small town, but perhaps not so by Australian standards. Even if around 70,000 people lived there, it had a feel of a small gossipy place, and it was full of fumes of the factories around. I was happy and excited to move to Warsaw when I finished my HSC. It was a move a little more to the west again. This time I traveled by train, and it was a great upgrade on a horse and cart of my first life trip.

Then I started my shuttle traveling between the town of my early youth and Warsaw where I studied. Warsaw was a big city, and I had to do many adjustments to fit in. Some were good some not so good. I learned to smoke cigarettes to be more like other students. This part I regret now. But generally I had a really good time in the big city, and after a while, I felt like I belong there. I became a Warsaw girl.

Then I fell in love with a man I met at work. He was Swedish and after few years of being married and living in two different countries, I lived in Warsaw, he in Vienna; we decided to move together and the place to live together was Paris. Not so bad, really, especially that being a true Pole I loved anything French. This is difficult to comprehend as French never treated Poland all that well, but we loved them with love without reciprocity. This time I traveled by car and I recall with fondness our Alfa Romeo sports. I thought it was an upgrade on the train that brought me from this smaller town to Warsaw.

We were very proud of our Grand Turismo Veloce

It was an interesting time, but after the three years of my husband's Paris assignment  and me being a housewife, it was a time to move again. We were looking for an English speaking country and even if Australia was not on our list at first, we were lucky to be directed by fate to come to Sydney. It was 1979, and the new life started then. With some stretch, I could say that I traveled west again and this time by a jet set. Another upgrade on means of transport. 

After being naturalized a few years later, I legitimately call Australia home. Yes, I have my “charming” accent which is rather strong and people sometimes ask me about my nationality, but I feel Australian even if I sound a bit funny for an Aussie.