Bonus Episode - Why Vacations Don’t Erase Problems: Van Life in Australia, Honest Travel Talk & How Change Keeps Us Growing

Roula (00:00) 

Hello? 

Goodness! Hold on, hold on. it's recording. Great, great. 

Rosie (00:06) 

You're 

so tanned! 

Roula (00:09) 

See? So I thought I'm gonna just... for the show, just for the fun, I'm wearing these ridiculous summer necklaces. 

Rosie (00:19) 

Love it. 

Roula (00:21) 

And yeah, yeah, so I can't wait to talk to you. I missed you so much. 

Rosie (00:28) 

missed you! I've done like this. This vacation business. 

Roula (00:33) 

Oh goodness, it was just 14 days but it felt like a month or so. 

Rosie (00:41) 

Now the question is, did you come back relaxed? 

Roula (00:46) 

Yes, you know, Rosie, this is the first time I think ever that I come back from my vacation and I don't have to do office work that I don't have to work for a corporation to go to the office, catch up on emails. Maybe this is a second time, but I'm reflecting on it more this time. 

Rosie (01:02) 

Yeah! ⁓ 

True. But how cool! There's not the stress of, I gotta catch up at work and what's been happening. 

Roula (01:14) 

No, also, 

and I think this is why we're recording this episode, right? It's going to be a bonus episode talking about how these two weeks of helped us reflect. What did we do, et cetera? Because one important thing you grab my attention to, Rosie, is that it's not summer or vacation time for everyone. So while I'm on vacation, I have two weeks summer. 

Rosie (01:30) 

You 

Mmm. 

Roula (01:44) 

going away, blah, blah, blah. It's not vacation for you. It's not vacation for my family. Yes, it is school vacation in most of the places, but doesn't mean everyone is going on vacation. 

Rosie (01:55) 

No. 

Yeah, not everyone's like you, Roula ⁓ 

Roula (01:59) 

⁓ 

how was your I want to start with you. Because you've seen my pictures, I've seen a little bit of you on TikTok. And I know there's a lot of progress 

Rosie (02:04) 

Okay, okay. 

Mm-hmm. 

The last two 

weeks definitely haven't been a holiday but it's so exciting because I'm making progress on the van. I've started installing my new electrical system that I've been crowdfunding for the past eight months. I can see you're using your Rosie and Rula mug. I love that. I need to get one and today I built a wall, yesterday I built a bench seat. 

So things are happening and I decided I am leaving this caravan park tomorrow. I have had enough. The van is not finished but I'm sick of this shithole and I'm leaving. And that is that. 

Roula (03:06) 

What a decision! Hold on, hold on. So much. Okay, first I notice you're sitting differently. There's a daylight behind you. 

Rosie (03:08) 

Right? That's it. Mm. Sick of it. Mm. 

There is, yes. 

Roula (03:20) 

And it looks awesome! Yeah! 

Rosie (03:22) 

You like it? Yeah, well, 

this isn't. Yeah, I don't know. I don't think this is going to be the permanent setup, but I don't have a table. So I'm sitting on my bench seat the wrong way round. My laptop's on my bed and I've opened the sliding door to let light in because I haven't hooked the lights up to the battery yet and I forgot to charge my battery powered light. So we're using sunlight. 

Roula (03:29) 

Alright 

Okay, okay, it looks good, it looks good. And the only reason why you can leave tomorrow to another park is because you, with your own two hands, fixed the van to drive again. 

Rosie (04:03) 

True, yeah! How cool's that? 

occurred to me why am I staying here? Like the van's driving now, I've started the electrical system, I'm building stuff and I can go somewhere else and continue to build stuff and finish the van because I'm doing a refurb. A place called Catherine it's about three hours south and yeah we're just gonna see what happens. 

Roula (04:22) 

So where are you going? 

What kind of place is it? 

Rosie (04:35) 

small town it's near Catherine Gorge which is beautiful and there's I don't really know there's natural springs there I think and I don't really know I'm just gonna rock up and go hey it's me. 

Roula (04:47) 

Yeah. 

This is such a wonderful news. Like my heart is so excited. I'm so excited because so much can happen in a fortnight. 

Rosie (05:06) 

Right, yeah, none of this was here two weeks ago. 

Roula (05:09) 

No, never talk. You never 

ever mentioned leaving the caravan park where you are now until like two months or when you finish fixing the vans. This wasn't even a conversation. 

Rosie (05:20) 

Yeah, yeah, I thought I'd be here 

a while. Yeah, it was just so today's Thursday. It was on the weekend. I think Saturday. I went now. That's it. I need to get out of here. There's just lots of negativity with the people here and I've had enough. Agreed. Too long. Yeah, that's right. Moving on. 

Roula (05:34) 

You've been there too long. It's enough. Yeah, Too long. 

All right, so you're packing tomorrow. You're packing today, leaving tomorrow. I can't even imagine how you will be getting ready to leave. 

Rosie (05:46) 

I'm a little, I'm a bit stressed 

because I've got all these building materials outside so I'm gonna have to play Tetris and just put everything in the van. It's chaos ruler, absolute chaos, but it just, it feels exciting. Staying here has not been exciting. 

Roula (06:04) 

Yes, I'm so looking for Rosie in a new place telling me all these stories, going for a walk with Tilly. Have a new scenery. It will refresh both of us. It will help the podcast too. 

Rosie (06:11) 

Yeah 

Oh definitely, definitely, I totally agree. And I actually had a friend come to visit me over the weekend and it was so cool. We just, we rented an Airbnb which was very unclean and the oven fell out and nearly crushed me but that's a whole other, whole other story. But it was just nice to spend time with a friend. I haven't hung out with a friend ruler in person in over a year. 

So I was like, human connection. And it also made me realize, my God, what am I doing at this caravan park? Why am I putting up with this? Being with someone in inverted commons, normal, went, wow, I'm in a very strange situation here. Driving around an old man to appointments, basically being his carer, putting up with weird and inappropriate comments from the neighbor. All these things, I'm like, what am I doing? Get out of here. 

So in a way, I guess it was a vacation. It was a vacation from my negative thoughts, you know? 

Roula (07:24) 

I'm so grateful for your weekend away with your friend. Yes, probably this is something that you can put on your planning that you don't stay so long without human connection with people you love. I mean, the distance is a problem, of course. But I hope that you will go to places and make new friends that they will fulfill you while you are in that wherever you are. 

Rosie (07:35) 

Yes, stop. It is, yeah. 

Yeah. 

Yeah. I just got to get better at making friends. I'll work on it. 

Roula (07:57) 

And be picky. There's nothing wrong about being picky. Yeah. Yeah, not picky. That's picky blinders. picky. Yeah. 

Rosie (07:58) 

Be picky. All right. Be picky. That's true. We've got to stay. 

Tell me, Roula, how was 

this holiday? 

Roula (08:12) 

Well, you know, I don't feel like talking about the holiday as a holiday, like what we did and what we see, because there's nothing special about me going on vacation. Tons and tons of people go on vacation. I don't want to talk about that part. And also, I have not posted too much on Instagram, maybe one message or two that were really coming from my heart, because whenever I had Wi-Fi and I went to social media, I felt disgusted. 

Rosie (08:18) 

Mm-mm. 

Okay. 

Mm. 

Roula (08:42) 

And I don't mean it personal. I don't want people to feel like a ruler. But some people might agree. People posting this perfect vacation pictures. And I felt. I can't do this because they say, all right, when you're not posting about your work, you have to post about your personal life and what you're doing. And I was like, I can't do this. 

Rosie (08:50) 

You 

Roula (09:08) 

I will in no way ask my husband to spend half an hour trying to give me the best picture or video to put on Instagram on vacation. And the reality is different. I was in a place with full of families. 

Rosie (09:15) 

Yeah. 

Roula (09:23) 

And it was a beautiful place, but it's not something to go and brag and talk about. see mothers exhausted in the first few days and then fathers playing in the swimming pool with their children for hours. And this filled my heart with joy because we don't see this. And this is what I saw in my vacation. I saw families trying, parents trying to do their best to give a great time for their children. 

Rosie (09:27) 

you 

Yeah. true. Yeah. 

Roula (09:52) 

take them on a holiday, swim with them, have some fresh air and play and be so worry less at that moment. And at the same time, when I was sitting there on my bench waiting or swimming, whatever, I heard people talking about their problems. And that was for me a thing is that I could understand so many languages there. My head couldn't rest. 

So if people are speaking French, I can hear their conversation. If they're speaking 

German, I can hear Dutch, English, Arabic. My brain was constantly working and I could hear people talking about their problems, having a phone conversation that is really upsetting them. So much going on in our lives while we are on vacation. 

Rosie (10:36) 

Mmm. 

True? Yeah. 

Roula (10:44) 

So life doesn't stop. 

Rosie (10:46) 

⁓ yes, life doesn't stop. Right, you can be on vacation and still be stressed. Yeah? 

Roula (10:53) 

Yeah, yeah, even 

my husband and I, we had a very important conversation about something that is critical in our life. And we both felt that this going to upset us. So let's not talk about this. no, we decided to turn it into something positive so that we don't spend a few days of the vacation ruminating on the stuff that is painful for us. 

Rosie (11:18) 

Mmm. 

Roula (11:20) 

Yes, this is this is my reflection on my vacation. And of course, while I'm there, well, my family is in Lebanon and they're not going anywhere on vacation. I felt really blessed to be able to go. My son have seen a new part of the world when he was spent to Lebanon and he's seen poverty and he's seen people, you know, like you can't drink water from the tap or you don't have electricity all the time. 

Rosie (11:35) 

Mmm. 

Roula (11:49) 

⁓ But he was young. This time he could see the poverty. He could understand. Well, children were working when we went on excursions in the country. He was very sad that children his age are working and selling bracelets and working on boats, being 

Rosie (12:02) 

Mm-hmm 

Roula (12:10) 

barefoot. ⁓ It took him a few hours to to try to get over his sad feeling. 

Rosie (12:18) 

Wow. 

Roula (12:18) 

And this gave me an opportunity to also talk to him how blessed we are, how good our life is, but the world is not like this and that 

he needs to think about what can he do to help others to feel like he's contributing into what's going on in the world. So it opened so much conversations to us. And it gave me also the opportunity to tell him in countries where women are not allowed to work, there is poverty. 

Rosie (12:29) 

you 

Roula (12:48) 

and children are working instead of going to school. So I wanted them also to understand that part of poverty and not growing is keeping women 

inside, not letting them out to work. 

Rosie (12:58) 

Look at you, you're 

on holiday and you've somehow teaching your son these huge life lessons, broadening his horizons about the world and you know different living conditions and like whoa, it just brings back home what you said before, life doesn't stop just because you're on holiday. ⁓ 

Roula (13:21) 

Yeah, this tie us to 

our episode about travel. I don't know if we published this episode or not. I don't think so. I don't think so. But in this episode, we talked about traveling. Does traveling make us a better person? And while I was away these two weeks, I really felt ⁓ actually what a bad person I am. Also. 

Rosie (13:25) 

Mmm. 

I don't think so. 

What? 

Roula (13:48) 

because I grew up in a war. I've seen poverty when I go to my family in Lebanon. My family has it good, but everything around them is not good. And I feel that I've seen enough. I don't have to go to travel somewhere to see this again. I would like to help from far, contribute from my other place. 

Rosie (14:13) 

from the comfort of your home. 

Roula (14:16) 

Yes. And this made me feel, am I a bad person that I don't want to face these things, face the poverty or face the harsh life that people are living elsewhere? I don't know. This is also something for me to figure out. 

Rosie (14:31) 

⁓ That's some big questions! 

I just want to say though, I don't think that makes you a bad person. The fact that you're recognising that shows that you are reflecting on it and it's your truth. That's just your truth. You'd rather help from afar. What's wrong with that? 

Roula (14:54) 

Yes, let's see maybe this would be some new career path for me that I'm start exploring in September. 

We haven't talked about that either. 

Rosie (15:09) 

No! What is this bum shell? 

Roula (15:12) 

Yeah, you know, I have to start thinking of what am I going to work because I don't do office work. We do the podcast. I'm dedicated to the podcast, but I do have to start building a career. And I will have the opportunity in September to start working on looking how to what are the options for me if I'm not an accountant, if I'm not in finance, what else can I do? And yes, I think I would like to contribute and help. 

Rosie (15:35) 

Mmm! 

Roula (15:42) 

I don't know, maybe refugees or women do this kind of social kind of work for trustworthy ⁓ places rather than corporation earning money to pay their shareholders. 

Rosie (15:45) 

Wow. 

I did not know this and I love it. I can definitely see you doing that kind of work. And then you were like saying a couple of minutes ago, am I a bad person? I don't think so. 

Roula (16:12) 

Yeah, because I 

Yeah, I'll see. I have the opportunity to work with a coach to help me figure out where I can place myself and maybe do some apprenticeship in some places. I have a friend, a good friend, and she's a teacher. She teaches art and theater at Refugee, as a school for refugees children. 

Rosie (16:30) 

Mmm. 

Mm. 

Wow. 

Roula (16:49) 

She tells me that she is experiencing and being face to face with harsh reality, but also with so much truth. She loves contributing and she knows that some will never learn, will never grow, and other will learn and grow. And I think having looking at her standing strong in her shoes and accepting the reality teaches me also a lesson that 

Rosie (16:53) 

you 

Roula (17:18) 

We sometimes go with our, it's so sad. We are filled with sadness that we 

are not rationally rationale. I don't know. You know what I mean with with. ⁓ Logic helping others, yeah, yeah. 

Rosie (17:31) 

Being logic. We're not thinking about it rationally. Yeah, yeah. 

Mm. 

Roula (17:39) 

Were we talking about vacation and the van life? And look where we are now. Talking about next day, next month. 

Rosie (17:44) 

I know. It kind of feels, it kind of feels weird 

coming back to recording. 

feel like this is a new chapter in the podcast. feel like things are shifting. You're looking at building a new career? I'm moving location? Things are changing. 

Roula (18:06) 

Yes, but this is this is also us growing and podcasts growing with us. And when I say growing, I mean, life changes, life changes. It's not the same every day. I wouldn't want to be the same every month, every week, every year. 

Rosie (18:13) 

definitely. 

Yeah, 

no. Yeah. 

Roula (18:26) 

We're exploring. 

Rosie (18:29) 

Yeah, you and I are explore- ⁓ 

Roula (18:30) 

But I do have a of topics. I do have a lot of topics 

in my notes as we start recording next week for new episodes. 

Rosie (18:39) 

Yeah, 

it's all exciting. But listeners, send us in your questions. What do you think about holidays? What was like something that stood out to you in this episode? Something that keeps coming into my head is life doesn't stop just because you're on vacation. I don't know why I find that so ⁓ poignant, but I do. 

It's true, we think, ⁓ yeah, go on vacation, know, all your worries go away, just switch off, no responsibilities. Yeah, right. It's not a bad thing, but let's keep it real. 

Roula (19:19) 

Everything piles up when you return. And I feel so much compassion and support for my friends, my family, anyone I know who has a job. And when they come back, they will feel overwhelmed and feel like, the fuck? It's like I haven't been gone anywhere. But then, Rosie, I think it's our responsibility to stop doing things this way. It's our responsibility. 

to stop allowing all these emails to pile up and all this work to pile up. 

Rosie (19:51) 

Yeah, yes, it is our responsibility. 

Roula (19:56) 

By throwing them away, fuck it, start a new day when you return from vacation. 

Rosie (20:01) 

Yeah, fuck it. Right. You were on holiday. You don't have to look at those emails. I mean, you kind of do, but I guess in a work setting, have an autoresponder. If you email me, all emails received during this date will not be responded to. Please direct all inquiries to this person. Because then you come back, you don't have to read anything. You have set a boundary. 

Roula (20:06) 

Ha ha! 

No, we don't want 

to redirect to persons because then people will be overworked every time someone goes on vacation. If it's not a matter of life or death, wait until I return. 

Rosie (20:29) 

Okay, Drew, contact me at this date. 

True, yeah. 

Roula (20:36) 

And if your boss is being an asshole, tell him to take a vacation or her. 

I have some rage in me on this topic, so let's wrap it up. 

Rosie (20:46) 

love it. I like this is big. 

Let's 

wrap it up. Okay. This was a very laid back episode. I enjoyed it. It's, it's, we're just easing back into recording episodes. 

Roula (21:01) 

Yeah, my goodness. Hold on Thursday. Next Thursday, you will be at a new location. 

Rosie (21:09) 

Yeah. 

Roula (21:12) 

can't even imagine. I'm dreaming about visiting you. I'm dreaming about you visiting me. I talk about this so much lately. 

Rosie (21:18) 

Wouldn't that be cool? Really? 

It's gonna happen. It is going to happen. It must. 

Roula (21:27) 

yes all right we're gonna wrap it up i'm gonna take off my summer necklaces because they are ridiculous all right all right listeners bye 

Rosie (21:34) 

your best shells and you got a little starfish there and beets. 

very cute. Bye!