ReachOut's 20th Celebrations recap

I ended up being over east for a grand total of 36 hours (excluding the 10 hours combined of flight time) which was crazy but I had so much fun and packed a decent amount in!

I arrived Wednesday night and checked into the hostel, the flight itself was uneventful and I just watched movies and tv shows on the inflight entertainment to pass the time. As I was the first person arriving (and the only one arriving that night) I got my own private room which was really nice. The hostel room felt more like a hotel room, as it had it's own ensuite and was nice, bright and clean. I also got decent views which was pleasant surprise. I unpacked and tried to go to sleep but the time difference (3 hours ahead) made things hard.

Thursday morning I had free time until 11.30am when the others (a mix of youth ambassadors and forum mods) would arrive, so I grabbed some toast for breakfast and decided to explore. I left the hostel at 7.30am, not realising that most things in the area don't open until 9.30am or later! But I decided to explore the area and go for a long walk (ignoring the advice of my Dr to take it easy!), I was walking past a café and decided to call in to get a second breakfast of Belgian waffles (with ice cream and chocolate sauce) which were amazing. I walked down laneways, saw some tourist spots (and admittedly felt like re-enacting some of my favourite scenes from Dance Academy haha!) and just took the area in. I grabbed a lemonade and people watched for a while before exploring a few hole in the wall shops that were finally open. I then headed back to the hostel for 11.00am and changed before meeting up with the others and heading to the RO office.

The dress code was smart/neat casual so I took an everyday outfit for me and glammed it up with the
sparkly shoes, make up, wore black jeans instead of blue and picked a more dressier top.

At the office we had lunch, before doing some afternoon workshops and meeting the CEO who was super nice. I got to catch up with the staff I had met during my last trip there and was almost tackled to the ground by J who works in fundraising (I'm pretty sure I'm her favourite volunteer!), it wasn't super intense which was nice and a lot of fun. We then had 15 minutes to finish getting ready before going in taxis to the party venue.
All of us were allocated jobs to do and mine was going around and asking people if they would like to record a piece of advice that they would tell their younger selves. I was chosen for the job because I love to talk, though it was still nerve wracking it was great meeting people who had all been connected to ReachOut in some way.
The rest of night was spent catching up with people, chatting to staff, eating and drinking. It was a beautiful venue and everyone was enjoying themselves. All current staff members and volunteers wore a special ReachOut pin which was a way for people to identify us as those currently involved with ReachOut. I'm currently loving pins so to get a ReachOut pin was amazing and I intend to wear it with pride everywhere.

We all ended back at the hostel and went to bed after a very crazy day. I rang my family up as due to the time difference it was early evening at home and then tried to sleep. I will be surprised if I got a combined 8 hours for both nights as I felt like I was existing on minimal sleep the whole trip.

Due to the various flight times we were separated into two groups who left at different times the next day. I was lucky enough to have an 8.25am flight which meant I got to leave the hostel at 6.00am along with 5 others. At the airport I sat with 3 others who were flying on the same airline but different flights (once again I travelled the furthest!) and we each grabbed something for energy, and chatted for a while. My flight was the first to board and I was thankful that breakfast was included which was nice. After a long 5 hour flight I arrived back home and met my dad at the airport and headed home to put my ankle up and relax after a full on past few days.

There is honestly not much I would've done differently this time round, I think it helped that I knew kinda what to expect this time round and it had been less than 6 months since I had flown over for the Mod Workshop. I got to see more this trip (despite it being shorter) and made sure to document it, I tried to be flexible and go with the flow and I just embraced every experience I could. Yes I had minimal sleep but I had prepared myself for it and made sure to get decent nights sleep leading up to the trip.
The only thing I would've changed was not having a sprained (well technically a minor fracture) ankle which was annoying more than anything else!

I had a great trip and I hope to return next year to help ReachOut celebrate their 21st :)