China

The flight was from Shanghai to Sydney. We had been living in Shanghai for 3 years. By the end I had gained a good number of friends who were all very different. There was the artist, the musician, the girl (she fills out all female stereotypes), the sporty etc. (you know who u are) the one thing we all had in common was that we were all bonkers, completely mad but we were great friends.
I guess I say 'were' because its not likely I will see those idiots in a while but I do hope we stay in touch. Anyway my dads job had finished and he wasn't allowed another for 6 months. Some weird business thing that meant he wasn't allowed to work incase he tried to steal his old customers. So we bounced a couple ideas around for what will come next. We had ideas from traveling for the summer then coming back for school when it began in august to traveling around Australia. In the end we decided after 3 months that we would travel 4 different destinations of our choice plus Australia and Italy.
We started planning with heads up and hopes high about a fantastic world tour. I mean what more could u want. Any place in the world that you wanted to visit out of 200 countries and you had 4-5 weeks to visit a selection of them. After this first burst of happiness the cold hard truth dawned on us, we as in me, my sister, dad and mum had to plan 5-4 weeks of activities in a couple of countries. We had to plan airplane flights, hotels, activities etc. Fine I'm exaggerating a bit. We didn't have to plan every second of every day, but we had to know where we were going, where we were staying, what selection of activities we would do there and how we would get there.
It was even more annoying cause i was freaking out and my friend Cohen couldn't stop saying how lucky I was and I kept having to remind him that a semester in YCIS costs more then 6 months travelling. And while I was freaking out about the next step we still had end of year exams to worry about.
Its odd because no matter how stressed, exited, sad or annoyed you are it doesn't matter. 7 billion people aren't gonna stop to give you space. 7 billion people aren't all gonna feel bad for you if you fail a test. Your mum might of died but the world keeps spinning. It like we are a colony of ants if one of them gets squashed the rest aren't going to stop working.
Now thats enough philosophic wisdom for a day.
As day to day life continued I started my research. Dad and I were the only ones and dad wasn't doing much. I went down to our library (more like a badly organised bookshelf) and found all the travel books and slowly (as in very slowly) I started ticking the boxes.
It was slow. I chose an area (the Caribbean) and I chose a couple of activities. Hey cut me some slack for a lazy fourteen year old thats quite good and I've done more then my 9 year old sister. I really shouldn't feel proud of doing better then a nine year old who can't dress herself without looking like a hobo.
When we were reaching our final week before leaving I was getting stressed (every one was getting stressed, mum was like an elastic band that was just about to snap) not only because of the trip but also cause of what it meant. It meant I would be leaving and after that I would be boarding if I got in and it meant we had to pack up. Twice as hard as it should be when u live with my mother. Think of a  normal size house and the things in it. Should take you 2 days with the packers at most. Then think of a normal house but triple the amount of junk in it. That is how much crap we have in our house guess how long it took. 6 days. To be fair it was only my mum Alessandra and 5 packers.
Luckily Saffi (i.e. Saffron) and I were on that plane bound to Australia a week before mum started the main packing (but we still had to pack our rooms and get rid of the unwanted). Dads company paid for the flight so we went in business and we landed only a bit in delay but the trip had officially started once we got off that first plane