NCL-DXB-BNE

After frantically selling/throwing away all of my personal belongings, moving out of our house and packing and re-packing a 30kg suitcase we were ready to fly to Brisbane.
We had a lot of emotional goodbyes, especially my boyfriend's parents, 'You're leaving forever' 'We'll never see you again' - cue guilt and stress! But we reassured them we'd be back, we were going on an adventure, to try it out, nothing was set in stone and who knew if we'd even like it!
We relaxed a little on the plane and excitement took over, our next stop was Dubai!
Dubai was incredible. I loved it so much and it was a great start to our adventure. We stayed at the Intercontinental which was insane.
We went to the Burj Khalifa, Wild Wadi water park, old town Dubai, Bubblicious brunch and on a sand dune safari.
Brunch was my favourite thing ever; all you can eat international food stations and unlimited cocktails and champagne! The dream!
In true Brit style we got wasted and ate way too much. We went back to the hotel and scoffed a Birthday cake that had been put in the room for my sister's boyfriend, did drunk gymnastics/head stands and tried to drink even more. This culminated in me waking up to the sound of my boyfriend filling the bath with vomit and sicking on my bikini and towels. What a time to be alive!

Although it was super muggy and hot in Dubai, I loved how lavish everything is. The hotels, malls and restaurants are all huge and expensive and we really felt like royalty at the Intercontinental.
Before we went to Dubai, I read about the cultural differences and respecting the culture: you can't hold hands or kiss in public, you have to be covered up and people had told me when they'd visited they'd felt a cultural difference which made me skeptical about our trip.
I have to say I didn't really feel this difference. I thought I would feel restricted and I didn't at all. But then again snogging in public and wearing skimpy clothes aren't really my forte.

So after our amazing trip in Dubai came to an end, we boarded our flight to Brisbane!
We were met at the airport by my cousin. One of the main reasons we chose Brisbane was because my cousin and his wife live here. They said we could stay as long as we needed while we got sorted with jobs and a flat. This was amazing to have, I don't think we'd have been able to move to another city knowing we'd have to pay rent straight away and having the comfort of being with family made the move easier.
We lived there in the suburbs for a few months, going on day trips, flat hunting and enjoying our time off work. We always knew we'd live in the city, but living in the suburbs cemented this for us, we needed to be near the action!
We moved to a 5* newly built hotel in Fortitude Valley, close to great restaurants and bars, a short walk into the city and it has a pool, gym and looks onto the Story Bridge. Oh and IT'S A FIVE STAR HOTEL!!
We were very excited!
Downsides: I HATE flat viewings and our flat came unfurnished so we had to buy our furniture off Gumtree. Cousin had to get van, pick up stuff, move all stuff to city = ball-ache.
We've lived here nearly 5 months now. It's the first time my boyfriend and I have lived just the two of us and we love it. :)
Although the job hunt hasn't exactly gone to plan...

Re-Rewind

So let's go back to where I left off in 2014: final year of uni. One of the hardest years of my life, so much work, so many decisions. I remember feeling like I didn't want to do it anymore, not just because it was hard, I starting thinking what if fashion's not for me, do I really want a job in fashion?
My placements hadn't given me much faith in the fashion industry and I wasn't really aware of what options there were for me.
But if I am anything, I am persistent! I had put in so much hard work over nearly 4 years of uni and wasn't about to quit. So I finished the year with a 2:1 which I was so over the moon with! But I was also a bit dead inside haha
I was really pleased with my accessories collection and when I look back on it now I'm really proud of it, even though then I was sick of the sight of it!

http://www.northumbriafashiondesignandmarketing.com/annarichardson/

The Mercury bag, based on liquids, made with screen printed liquid satin.

So then I started applying for jobs. I couldn't get a job in retail as I had no retail experience and there are hardly any other fashion based roles in Newcastle; confusion once more! Do I move? WHAT WILL I DO?!

After waitressing for a bit at the hotel my sister worked at, I applied for a job at Handbag Clinic, a handbag repair workshop just outside of Newcastle.
It was a dreary 45 minute bus out of Newcastle, in an industrial estate in the middle of nowhere.
But it was in fashion right? The place was okay and the people were nice and I got offered the job the next day.
The job was as a stitch technician, repairing handbags by hand-stitching; stitching ripped handles, linings, pockets, making new parts and attaching hardware.
Although we had targets to meet, it was pretty relaxed, I was enjoying not having to talk to customers and I made some great friends. The job was easy enough and enjoyable and I was getting some practical fashion experience.
I had been there almost a year when they asked if I'd like to work in their retail shop in Newcastle as an in-store stitch technician as they had one in Chelsea and it worked well.
I was chuffed to be asked and also super grateful as it meant I could walk to work and not have to get the awful bus super early in the morning. And I got a huge pay increase!
It was all top secret and I wasn't allowed to tell anyone I worked with as they were firing some people for me and someone else to swoop in and run the shop. This was so difficult, I literally left the workshop one day and never went back.
But then I had a great year in the Handbag Clinic shop, gaining customer service, retail and sales experience. I was a lot happier, walking to work and interacting with people on a daily basis, managing my own time and workload.
And then I decided it was time to move on, our house contract was coming to an end so we thought instead of renting again we'd just move to the other side of the world...

Twenty-Eighteen

So it's been a while since I wrote: about three and half years!
I've been reading through my past posts and realised how much I love to write and it's great revisiting past memories. (Good and bad!)
Most of my previous stuff started as I'd moved to London, strangely enough I am re-starting my blogging from Brisbane, Australia where I moved to 6 months ago.
Apart from the obvious similarities in moving away from home, starting a new life and job in a strange and far away place (a lot further this time!) I guess as in London, in Brisbane I find myself alone sometimes and needing a hobby; hence the blogging.

I have far too much time on my hands at the moment for thinking. I listened to a podcast with Fearne Cotton and Matt Haig (Reasons to stay alive) and they were explaining how writing is a therapy and makes your feelings tangible. As much as you don't want other people to know what you have been going through, it's important to tell people as you just become introverted and it's as if those feelings don't matter as you've just kept them bottled up.
I'm learning that I need to express myself more, I've seen a huge change in myself over the past three years. I'm no longer as care-free, maybe that's just something to do with getting older and knowing more and being more aware of what's going on around me, but I feel I'm struggling a bit more than a few years back.
But I'm kinda okay with that, knowing that I can get through hard times and see a brighter future ahead. It's just trying to get there that's the issue!

I'm starting to wonder whether I run away from things and think I'll find something (or myself) away from home, but obviously all of my baggage just gets carted onto the next place.
I'm looking for work in Brisbane which I'm not having much luck with and I find myself feeling lost and without purpose. I'm applying for all these jobs that I really don't care about! I have no idea what I want to do with my life, what job I want to have, which I guess most people feel at some point but I need to find a way to discover that.

So onwards and upwards with self discovery...