Travelling

I’m going to the other side of the world in 6 weeks.

I’m excited.

I’m also scared.

I’ll get to see some of my friends that I haven’t seen since July, get to explore Australia’s East coast and New Zealand, get to make some fantastic memories.

The trip’s going to be great, we’ve planned to do some really cool stuff without spending a ton of cash. We’re going to go into the Daintree Rainforest, see the Great Barrier Reef up close, climb glaciers in New Zealand. I’m so excited for it all. For my birthday I got a polaroid camera and I’m planning to take a picture (or more!) every day of the trip. I’ve no idea what I’ll do with them all when I get home, I’ll probably make a scrapbook. Even if I do nothing with them, it’ll be a cool project to work on.

The photography aspect of the trip is something I’m really looking forward to. I don’t have a great camera, just a 5 year old point-and-shoot but it can take some pretty decent photos. My phone camera’s also not half-bad. I love taking photos, I just don’t often go out and take them.

We’ve booked some of the places we’ll be staying and its a combination of budget hotels and youth hostels. The hotels are fine, the hostels are making me nervous. I’m scared of gendered situations because whether I pass or not is really hit and miss. The rooms are all mixed, so that will be less scary than entering a girls dorm but the thought of interacting with strangers…I don’t know whether to introduce myself as my birth name or not.

I’m probably going to end up using public bathrooms a lot too, seeing as we’ll be outside for most of the day. At least I’m with friends, so that until I judge which bathroom seems safest for me to use I can go with somebody into the womens to (hopefully) reduce the hostile looks. Unless I can find a gender-neutral bathroom, or a disabled one (although I hate doing that).

Seeing as I’ll be gone for almost exactly two months I’m half considering coming out to my family before I go or just after I’ve gone, to let them process it before they have to see me again. I’m also thinking about asking my friends to use my new name on our trip- asking them a few weeks beforehand so they can get used to it before having to use it in person (they all know I’m questioning my gender and are accepting of it).

I’m going to the other side of the world in 6 weeks.

I’m excited.

I’m also scared.