Sydney Life

Unlike many aspects of life, the cost of travelling is inversely proportionate to how many relatives one has. Five hundred relatives in Penrith will not even help you in New Zealand. Therefore, I must at this point recall the immortal words of Paris Hilton in her bestselling book ‘How to be an Heiress’ - “Rule Number One: be born into the right family”. Please note that I am not as rude as Paris and have no intention of simply parading my superior family ties. You see, the “right family” in travelers’ terms extends beyond all known extensions. The only condition is that somewhere down your ancestral line someone got jiggy and bore the child of someone deep down the ancestral line of someone living in another country. A’ight?

Estonia: a land with its own bagpipes, sauerkraut (known as hapukapsas) and blood sausages. The only country in the world with TWO (kaks) bars devoted to playing the music of Depeche Mode. Where the men are strong and manly and have good honest names like Ants, Ats, Arvi, Arvo and Argo. A land where, to quote one museum, “every farm has its own small beer”. A place where people learn to drive in winter by skidding in a treadless-tired car on an ice road, and Home and Away is enjoyed overdubbed by one emotionless man. A country smaller than Tasmania, and one that I might never have heard of had it not been for one surprising year in Eurovision and my extremely wog-ly grandparents.

Actually, it was a country I had little to no interest in until I finally went there this year. Considering my only knowledge of it stemmed from the Eurovision song contest and two of the craziest old people I know, this is perhaps forgivable. But I digress. My point is this – I am positively exploding with gladness that I went. I met innumerable relatives, all of whom were either lovely or sufficiently insane to make a good anecdote. I was exposed to a dark, incredible history that had previously been no more than a passing reference in a textbook for me. AND I got to eat bear, dried moose, blood sausage and hapukapsas. Admittedly I probably wouldn’t eat any of those things ever again. Most importantly though, the only thing I spent money on were postcards. New-to-University students take special note: trips that are extremely cheap are extremely worth looking out for (except when “trips” refers to the metaphysical).

My friends, Romans and countrymen – this blog is intended not to incite envy, but to inspire. Dig out a family tree and find your roots. It doesn’t matter if you find that they’re more Moldavian than Milano if it means your own free locals?