More Than We Were Ever Hoping For

It’s a crazy year, as we are traveling around the world, and now we have landed in Sydney, Australia. We found ourselves a nice Airbnb, and have settled down as the house’s first non-permanent resident. We found out in this small sector of our journey that we were in for a lot less, and more than we were hoping for. So buckle your seatbelts, and get ready for the ride of envisioning itchiness.

We arrive at our rental home, and find it amazingly homely, comfy, and welcoming. What we didn’t know was that it wasn’t only welcoming us. We stroll into our rooms, which each have a king bed, and lay down on the comforting comforters. Me and my sister both get our own room, which makes it even better. There is a kitchen to cook in, two bathrooms, and a living room. I start thinking, this is too good to be true. We get to bake all day and be comfortable in the night. After the fun-filled day flew by, I stepped into bed thinking, how lucky can a girl be.

One day, two days, three days fly by, and I wake up at six thirty in the morning, spread out across the bed, with both of my legs sticking out of it. I soon become aware that my feet are almost moving involuntarily. They are stomping on each other. I look down and gasp. There are at least ten more bites on my right ankle, leg, and foot, and my left. They are also on my arms, back, and even two on my neck. I point this out to my Dad and say they itch like can’t get any worse, he states that my covers probably flew off me in the middle of the night, and they are from mosquitoes. Then my sister comes down and shows my Dad the same thing. He admits that he has a few too. So he goes to investigate.

While he was down there, my Mom came down. She sat down on the couch, happy as could be. I started baking, while still, my feet were moving like train engines. But then something unexpected happened. A flea jumped on my Mom’s face. She killed it and knew what it was right away. She called to my Dad, and he came running in saying he found bed bugs. That’s when I knew our Sydney experience wouldn’t be as I expected.

We got more and more every day and night, and when we left our house, we were glad. After all, who likes having extra itchy bites? We are now showering 1-2 times a day, and all of our things have been washed and dried three times, and we are planning to have them thrown in there once more. This part of the trip definitely wasn’t what I expected, but at least we learned a lesson. If it looks too good to be true, it probably is.