This Week in America - The Part of Daytona I Didn't Expect

This week in America, a trip to Daytona Beach for Georgia’s final dance competition of the season turned into something I wasn’t expecting.

What started as a week of dance nationals, beaches, airports and sightseeing became a reminder that the things we remember most about travel are often the people we meet along the way.

From conversations with a Haitian taxi driver, a Jamaican maintenance worker and a Ukrainian family serving pavlova in Florida, to spending time with the dance families who have quietly become part of our lives, this trip left me reflecting on community, belonging and what eight years in America has really built for our family.

I also share a simple evening on the Daytona boardwalk with Brianna, a steakhouse dinner overlooking the Atlantic, and one of those moments every parent experiences when they suddenly realise their children are growing up.

Sometimes the best part of a trip isn't the destination at all.

It's the people you remember when you get home.

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Thanks for listening. Hoo roo maties.

Transcript

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This week in America saw us flying between Florida and Tennessee. We landed back in Nashville after 10 days in Daytona Beach, where Georgia competed at her final competition of the season, the Showbiz Dance Nationals. Like most trips, I thought I knew what I was going there for. Competition, the beach, maybe check out the speedway, spend too much money on restaurants. The usual things that people put on holiday postcards. But as I've been unpacking suitcases and catching up on sleep, I've realized none of these things are really what I'll remember from it. Because when I think back on the trip, I don't find myself thinking about the competition or even the beach. I keep thinking about the people. You better take cover. So the trip started with a missed flight out of Nashville and an unexpected amount of time sitting around airports. Normally that's the sort of thing that drives me absolutely crazy. But airports can be funny places. Everyone's in between destinations. Nobody is where they're really trying to get to. And because of that, conversations happen that probably wouldn't happen anywhere else. Now, this year the World Cup is in full swing. So airports are full of supporters wearing jerseys from all over the world. I ran into people from Scotland, Croatia, and Japan. Everywhere I turned, there seemed to be another football conversation just waiting to happen. And that continued almost as soon as we landed in Daytona. We caught a cab from the airport to the hotel, and I got chatting with the driver. He was originally from Haiti, and he told me he worked for a Haitian-owned cab company there in Daytona. And like seemingly half the people I met that week, he was a huge football fan. He was loving watching Haiti compete in the World Cup. And I remember thinking how strange and wonderful that conversation was. As we'd barely been in Florida for half an hour, and already I was sitting in the front of a taxi talking football with a bloke from Haiti. Then a few days later, there was the Jamaican maintenance worker at our hotel. He spotted my Sokaroo shirt and stopped to talk. And it turned out he'd always been fascinated by Australia. He'd watched Australian TV shows. He knew far more about Australia than I expected. He even knew what a bogan was. In fact, he told me I was the first Australian that he'd ever met. Eight years ago when I first moved to America, I never imagined I'd be standing in a hotel corridor in Florida talking about Australia with a Jamaican man because of a football shirt. But that's how travel seems to work. The best stories are rarely the ones that you plan. A few days later, we found a Ukrainian restaurant. And again, the thing I remember most wasn't just the place. It was the people. The food was so good we ended up going back twice. It was owned by a Ukrainian family who had immigrated to America around 15 years ago. Their daughter worked front of house, and her mother, well, she was the cook. What really surprised me though was seeing Pavlova on the menu. Naturally, we had to order it. And we ended up talking about the Australian version with passion fruit and kiwi. So here I was in Australia in Florida discussing Pavlova with the daughter of Ukrainian immigrants while eating amazing Eastern European food. Probably not the sort of thing people put in holiday brochures, but it's exactly the sort of thing that I remember. That theme just continued all week. At one point, we found ourselves eating at a Japanese hibachi restaurant with a Guatemalan chef cooking for us. And by that, all of this international fusion just felt very normal. One of the things I've noticed as I've gotten older is how often reality turns out differently from what we expect. During the trip, there were people that I'd assumed I wouldn't have much in common with who turned out to be pretty good company. There were conversations with people I'd known for years, but never really spoken to. Even on our final night, I ended up chatting with one of the dance dads about the World Cup. We've seen each other for years, and yet we'd never really had any sort of conversation. It made me wonder how many people sit on the edges of our lives that we never really get to know. And sometimes familiarity isn't the same thing as actually knowing someone. So the biggest surprise of the trip though wasn't any individual conversation. It was something much larger. Over the course of the week, several people mentioned that they'd heard that we might be moving back to Australia. And a few said they hoped we wouldn't, and some seemed generally upset by the idea. And I think that really caught me off guard, not because people were being kind, but because it made me realise something else. When Georgia started dance years ago here, I thought we were signing her up for dance classes. But what we actually joined was a community. And some of these families have watched Georgia grow up. They've watched Brianna grow up. We've spent weekends together in theaters, convention centres, hotel lobbies. We've shared wins and disappointments. Long drives, expensive coffees, and kids that can't quite handle too much sugar. And some of these people I talk to regularly, and some I only ever see at the comps. But they've quietly become a part of our lives. I don't think I fully appreciated that until this trip. One evening I found myself sitting on the boardwalk with Brianna and she had a lemonade. I had a beer. We watched the waves roll in, pelicans drifting across the water, and people wandering past us just enjoying the beautiful evening. It was one of those moments where you realize happiness is often surprisingly very simple. You don't need big achievements or milestones. Just being present with people that you care about. Having a drink and a conversation, a nice view, having someone that you love sitting beside you. And sometimes that is enough. On our final night, we took the girls to a fancy steakhouse overlooking the Atlantic. Georgia ordered her first ever Shirley Temple. She cut her own steak and we watched a strawberry moon rise over the ocean. At one point, some of the dance families wandered over and we ended up talking for a while. And even the farewell dinner somehow turned into another reminder of the people that are around us. And then before we knew it, it was time to head home. And the flight back was made much easier because another dance family happened to be on exactly the same flights from Daytona to Atlanta and then Atlanta to Nashville. So we chatted at the gates and shared travel stories, killed time between flights. The girls decided to go and buy another five squishies. Like, what's the go with that? The kids really handle the whole journey like seasoned travelers. They're excited when they see seatback TVs. They ask flight attendants questions and they navigate airports with confidence. They use airport bathrooms without requiring an international rescue operation from dad. It's funny how those little moments just tend to sneak up on you. One day you're carrying everything and stressing about changing diapers in an aircraft toilet, and the next day they're just doing things for themselves. And you realize they're growing up. So what will I remember about Daytona? Not the competition results, even though Georgia danced her best solo routine of the season. Not the beach or the speedway tour. It's the conversations that I remember. The Jamaican maintenance worker or the Ukrainian family with Pavlova on the menu. That connection with the dance families. The people who made me realize that over the last years we've built a life here that runs deeper than I sometimes notice. So I thought I was going to Daytona for a dance comp. And it turns out I came home remembering the people. And sometimes that's the best kind of trip. That was this week in America.