It was 2016 when Tizian and I started talking about it. It started out as a joke, or at least I thought it was, at first. I still remember vividly the moment when Tizian, my boyfriend, threw me a proposal. It was a lovely evening in Vienna, we had just left a club and we were walking home, his place or mine, I don't remember that. We were chatting, we started dreaming about places to see and suddenly he proposed "Why don't we go to Australia? Let's take a trip and stay there for a few months. We could even start in Asia, visit different countries by land and sea and finally arrive in Australia". I didn't hesitate to say yes, but I didn't take it too seriously. And yet, if you take dreams seriously, they can even come true.

I actually wanted a breakthrough. I was working as a full-time theatre painter, it was an activity that had given me a lot at first, but at a certain point was taking me more: creativity and freedom. We talked about that trip a second time and then a third, and then I realized that Tizian was not joking and that I certainly did not want to back out! So we started to put money aside, because we were going to need some. The project was this: to go away for at least 6 months, we wanted to cross all the countries that divided Mongolia from Australia, to move mainly by public transport and sleep wherever we could. In some places we would stop more, in others, we would be passing through. The leitmotif would be the following: Wildlife. Nature would accompany us all the way and we would visit some wildlife conservation centres.

By September 2017 I was ready. Backpack on my back and a lot of fear. Luckily Tizian was not afraid and I will be forever grateful to him for being the person he is for me: an enthusiastic companion in life and who sees in every new situation a challenge to face and be thankful for. We arrived in an already cold Ulaanbaatar, It was my first time in Asia! Outside, in the steppe, the big city is just a distant memory. There are only hills, forests, and vast spaces that dominate the landscape. You meet some rare human settlements, where nomads live in yurts, "gers", where inside burns the fire that restores the cold night. The first night in ger, under countless layers of blankets, I began to realize everything: how far I was from home, how much time we still had ahead of us to know, learn and enchant ourselves. That night I slept well.