saturn returning

i am coming home in a few weeks. yes that's right, i am heading back to my beloved melbourne. it's been almost one year since i chucked the city life in and moved to a quieter, and some would say somewhat confusing, little hamlet called heidelberg. don't get too excited mum and dad, i am only coming back for two weeks before heading off once again to my new adopted hometown. in flight terms, that's 14 days i'll be out of germany and three or four of those days will be spent travelling. (i still haven't worked out time zones and flight schedules. there's a reason i studied english lit and publishing and gave my old nemesis math the boot.) so all in all, i guess i'll be home for about ten days. it's good enough for me, for even though i love germany and the whole european thing (my on again/off again love for germans not withstanding) there are a few things from australia, particularly melbourne, that cannot be beat.

1. i love my coffee and german coffee is not that good, or at least no where near as delicious as melbourne coffee.

2. oh how i long for things such as cordial, a sausage roll, a lamb roast and a good ol' fashioned aussie bbq. (i went to a french bbq here one weekend and was disgusted. there was no no meat, just little bits of chicken wings and no real beer. who has a bbq without 2 slabs of beer and half a cow?)

3. family and friends. even though i've made some brilliant friends over here who i love and i will be friends with for a long long time, there is no substitute for those nearest and dearset who you've known for what seems like forever. plus, not having any family here has been hard at times. not too hard, cause they're only a phone call away, but a voice on the other end of a phone is one thing, an actual face is another.

4. my foriegn dvds. i know it's a trite entry, but i have gone a year without being able to watch anything that isn't in english. i can't watch my asian martial arts movies, manga/anime, french and italian horror movies and i can't even watch anything in spanish or portugeuese that alexis wants to show me, cause the germans either dub everything or only have german subtitles. grrrr... of course this would be sort of okay if i actually could speak german, but even then i don't want to have to pause a film to reach for my dictionary. (although i did watch a film that was half english/half german a few months ago and i didn't do too bad. i understood what was going on, not explicitly what was said, but i could follow it.)

5. and of course my dearest love melbourne. god how i miss that city.

but all of this will go away the instant i get up the morning of my flight. as i board the train to frankfurt i know that i'll start missing heidelberg, maybe not as much as melbourne, but there'll definately be a little something in my heart that's left behind here. even if it is for only two weeks. or ten days.

some words of little comfort

if you hate christmas shopping like i do, then a word of caution - i have just discovered that no matter which country you are in, no matter how picturesque the landscape or view, christmas shopping is shit. i have just come home from spending an afternoon shopping down the hauptstrasse and i hate myself for it. my legs hurt, my brain feels like mash, i am not in a happy mood, and the next person to nudge, push or stop directly in front of me will feel something hard and sharp in the back of their skull.

i love shopping. i used to work in the CBD of melbourne and i loved it. i could go shopping if i needed to after work or before if i could get my lazy arse out of bed. when i first got here i was in love with the sheer joy of walking down a huge shopping district still looking like it was back in the 13th century. my first trip to france (which i still haven't blogged about! sorry!), was a shopping dream. as was my first trip to mannheim. (mein gott, the jackets!!!) now, after spending the entire afternoon dodging pedestrians and pushing my way through crowds of, what i can only call, motherfuckers, i hate it. christmas, you've ruined one of my favourite hobbies. although i shouldn't say that, last year i wanted to kill everyone and the year before i wanted to kill everyone, but i soon got over it and enjoyed shopping once more. my only saving grace is that i'm heading to berlin tomorrow and i can't wait. hopefully the christmas 'spirit' wont attack me there, as i'm in a new place and somewhere i've always wanted to go. ah berlin... home of burlesque and cabaret, new home of marilyn manson and home of the hardcore euro beats and clubs i've been craving. ich bin berliner!!!

in other news, after five tries at getting my 'working holiday permit' i finally have it!!! the crazy thing is the woman who's been alternatively nice and the devil, didn't even check anything. all she asked for was my insurance paperwork. she didn't even look at my bank statements. she didn't care that i hadn't filled out the form completely. nor did she seem to care about my living arrangements or when my plane leaves. to be honest, i'm not even sure how many months my bank balance would let me stay for, but she didn't even calculate that! i think frau halter has been into the gluhwein and i got her in the right mood. i wonder if i had gone in asking for citizenship would she have just giggled and gone, alright? but who cares?!?! i'm now allowed to stay until october next year!!! maybe now i'll actually focus on learning some german, instead of just looking blankly at people with the look of a startled deer in headlights. but first things first, berlin, party party party, then i'll get a job and then i might learn some german. or maybe i'll try the german learning thing before the job. who knows, but things are looking up mein freunds. i even found a place that serves melbourne style coffee and i know how to order it! ein milchkafe bitte... (even if i don't know how to spell it. hehehe...)