Why would you come from one of the biggest cities in the world, London to Calounda? Well the answer was remarkably simple, at least for me.

I lived in London for five years. Most of the time I worked 6 days a week and 12 hours a day, spent hours travelling to and from work and what was even worse I didn’t have a proper holiday during all that time. So, one day I said to myself, “You’ve had enough…it’s time to enjoy yourself,” and that was it!

The money I had saved allowed me to go anywhere for a year and do nothing and because I always wanted to learn how to surf the only logical choice was Australia.

All of my Aussie friends kept telling me, “Just don’t go to Sydney, it’s too expensive,” “Go to Brisbane instead,” and so I did.

When I arrived in Brisbane I bought a car and started to travel. Every day I spent a few hours lying on the beach or swimming and I just loved it. At the same time I knew my time in Australia would come to an end and that I would eventually have to start the English course I was planning to do in Brisbane. The problem there was that there wouldn’t be any swimming or lying on the beach. So I started to dig around for another place to study and a few days later I came up with a town called Caloundra.

It’s rather a small town but that’s exactly what makes the town so special. What I appreciate the most is that you don’t feel stressed or the tension you do in a large city, the lack of noise, traffic jams and thousands of commuters.

I study 4 hours a day at the language school, the teachers are wonderful and everybody is so friendly. I’ve got lots of free time and the closest beach is just five minutes away from where I live which means that I can go to the beach every day.

In my opinion, I couldn’t have chosen better!

Jiri Jiritse (FCE)