Saturday, January 22, 2005
phaze two. moving to sydney and starting a new life.
well here i am. no longer in adelaide, or sweden or france, here i am in sydney.
Friday, December 19, 2003
i havent written anything in this blog for months. i guess it is just a travelling blog, or iam only a travelling blogger.
i am now off the east coast of africa on a little island called zanzibar. it was once a grand trading point in spices and slaves, but now is filled with beach resorts and tourists. the water here is a milky baby blue colour, and almost too hot to swim in.
Tuesday, February 04, 2003
new word
kanga-rouge the name of an australian red wine.
a fitting melange for the french traveller back in oz. i have been noting down these "new words" in this blog everytime i have heard some bizzare word that grabs attention (at least for a south australian) i didnt expect to find one on the label of the wine i was drinking. this wine was recently re-released after the originial from the 50s went bust from its such shockingly poor quality. when i tasted the new one, it was still awful, but we all kept drinking it cos it was just funny to be drinking out of a kangarouge bottle. australian and french culture does have its overlaps, but also plently of differences.......it reminded me of another equivalent, but this time a type of beer. "piss" is a type of beer that you, and your mates, can buy and drink in australia. its not for the flavour-that would be masichism-but for the name.
Sunday, February 02, 2003
reflections on being home
coming home is proving much less dramatic than i had thought. after a year of thinking and planning my big return, the one where friends, family and the paparazi were going to bowl me over in their enthousiasm to hear about the trip, the reality turned out to be fairly anticlimactic. and perhpas even more worrying than the lack of celebrity status, is that i am slotting back into this life of less extremes all too easily.
this is reflected in the fact i am not writting so much in this blog. i used to write pretty regularly in this blog when i was overseas, as the experiences i deemed approprate were plentiful, as was the time to write them up. the things that i wrote were partly for people to read that might be interested in whats been going on, when it suits them to. it served as a tool for self reflection-sometimes writing the experiences and thoughts down helped clarify my ideas and sequences of events. finally one day i hope it forms a nice little reminder of some of the things that have been going on in 2002.
so what now?. well i guess i'll keep it going. the reasons above are just as relevant in adelaide as in paris or uppsala. but life is much more automatic when you are a student doing between 6-9 hours study each day, and getting to bed nice and early for the early start the following morning.
i am still counting. today is day 25. i cant help but count every morning that i wake up.
i am quietly enjoying paediatrics too, but i would like to actually meet one kid while i do it rather than spend it all in the lecture theatre. at least it is throwing out some challenges to keep my mind preoccupied with things while giving me time to adjust to all the other changes entailed in coming home. there have been some changes to the course while i was away so that now it is only 5th year marks count for the all important hospital location at the end of the course. effectively my six year degree comes down the marks i get in this one year. good marks in this year=close hospital with good drs to write your references, good registrar job, sucessful career. bad marks=crap hospital ,crap all chance of good job afterwards etc. but it doesnt really bother me yet.
what is really standing out is meeting up with all the returning friends over the weekend. all my 6thyear med student friends arrived to start uni today, and i have finally found some close friends (excluding pippa) in adelaide. it was a really nice to see them all again and we had some good bbq and nights in the west end of adelaide. it dwelled on me though that when you return home after a trip like mine, you need your friends, but they dont need you as much- they have learned to live with one less of thier friends. it doesnt feel like rejection, but i am having to put all the effort in with my closest friends which is weird. its not as simple and easy as they have been sitting around waiting.
and now living back with my parents. it actually ok, and i have as much independence as i want, plently of lushous food, my dog, and ducted airconditioning. nice and easy, lemon squeezy. perhaps i will move out with some random (if i actually succeed in finding someone), or even move down to the house at my parents vinyard if i need a bit of space. that would mean i pass some of the best wine tasting cellar doors in australia each night on my way home from the hospital......
then there are relationships. due to my own doing, i am now without pippa as a girlfriend in adelaide. the reasons are complicated and not really for the blog. in fact, our relationship was not very clear last year, and it is still the same now. but it is now a new adelaide (for both of us) that we have returned to.
Friday, January 24, 2003
i have noticed that the bush fires going on in eastern australia have caught the attention of the outside world. they have been so bad this year that it has even gripped the attention of australia. they seem to occur almost annually now around january, burning down the newly built suburbs of cities that expand into dense forrest or bush land. in the media beat up they have become more and more personified each year: crawling down hills as fast as up, jumping over back-burned bush and huge fireballs with a mind of their own. john howard even used it as a chance to add more fear to the country as he descirivbed it as a "natural terror"-he needs to justify why he is sending australian troops to iraq today. it is scary for those people who have to sit there and wait for this "wall of fire" to come down a hill and start lighting up everything around them. then the police often have to forceably remove them, or threaten to arrest them so they will leave their house. it always makes me think about what i would take in the same situation. after my dog, photos? rowing medals? probably just my toothbrush.
the australian tennis open is also pretty important, and the cricket finals going on are too. but the other thing that has caught the news recently in adelaide is the beginning of the Tour down under-australias equivalent of the tour de france. it kicked off three days ago around rundle street in central adelaide and will take riders from all over the world around the south australia. i was on my way to see a film francais two nights ago when i saw the first criterium race that began the event. the fans lining the streets everywhere. it was my first time in a publique place since i have been back-and i lasted 100 meters until i saw someone i knew (adelaide), almost died of heat exhaustion (australian summer), and got called a poofter by some passer by cos i was not wearing thongs and a tanktop like him. (wanker).
so bush fires, sports and wankers. ahhh, back home again.
today it is another 41degree day. i just arrived back home from the hospital, and somehow managed to avoid having my classy new shirt and tie becoming soaked and stinky in the car. but i managed to walk around for half an hour wearing my hospital badge on my belt. its days like today i crave the snow of a swedish blizzard.
before one of my lectures on "psychiatric disorders in paediatrics", riveting stuff, one of the cool young emerg drs sdpoke to us about an optional excercise that sounds a bit more interesting. following the attack on bali, and the general increase concern that australia could be the target of a direct attack, the dept of emrgency has decided to do a mock trial of a terrorist attack in may. a bomb laced with a chemical or biological agent is going to go off in an as yet unnamed part of the city. the firedept will arrive, police, specialists and doctors, and over 200 hundred volenteers will be rushed to all the central hospitals of adelaide. they have asked the medical students of my uni to participate as the patients, since we are meant to know something about symptoms and signs of emergency. i signed up straight away. not only will i potentially get a free ride inside a racing ambulance going thru the city streets, mum may get to see me on tv.
they will give us a sheet of paper with a common diagnosis for a emergency situation following the "bomb", and we will have make up done, and have to fake all the symptoms-i hope i get to play someone with a heart attack so i will resusitated by some nice young registrar. sh sh. then again, i might have to play someone with central nervous system damage, in which case a PR (finger up the but) is mandatory. nooooo!
Sunday, January 12, 2003
Australia-Day 1
As the plane flew in from singapore, two things struck me: the dry brown sunburnt grass in th parks, and THE GUM TREES. how could i forget two things soo australian? then i had never noticed before how flat adelaide is: except for a few small "skyscrapers" in the centre, buildings are rarely over two or three stories. i cant help but look at the place with a new "travellers eye" for details. then was strange to be around a place where each thing has the echo of old memories. each suburb, each place or shop, has a memory that sometimes goes back for my whole life. nothing this last year has lasted more than about 6 months.
at the airoport, the mutter, that is my dog called trstarn, recognised me-but not initially. for the first minute, he refused to look straight at me. it looked like he was thinking, "there is somthing familiar about this guy, but who is he?- i better not be too friendly". then he smelled my hand, and i yelled at him "STAY " and then ran across the other side of the parking space and called him over. when he arrived i said "GOOOOD". now he is back to his usual veg, sleeping and food orientated self.
later, in the usual burrell tradition, mum dad and tristarm and i stopped off at a italian cafe on rundle street. it was so conforting, so familiar, i had to ask my self, have i really been away for the last year?
i went home, then went straight to mclaren vale. 37 degrees is so hot that it doesnt matter were you are. later on i am going to give one of the few mates that are actually in adelaide (they have all gone overseas-selfish bastards!)
so far, coming back home in adelaide has so far been less of a big deal than i thought. the practical things are more important than the spiritual.
Friday, January 10, 2003
so, finally the day has arrived. the end of the year away from home. the gap in my gap year year away is closing around me.
i leave for heathrow in three hours.
when i left for sweden or for paris it was for something new. a new beginning. the future offered so much that i almost didnt have the chance to think of the past.
both times i was kinda numb, going thru the motions, almost looking at myself doing the actions from outside of my body as it executed all the organised steps that i had arranged.
its more of a mixed feeling this time. between looking at the past year, and the big endless future. (i dont even feel like i am in london and could be anywhere in the world other than here, as i am so far removed from this present moment) i am very excited to be going home. amoung the first things i will do that i have craved the most will be ask tristarn "have you been bad while i was away" and see if he looks guilty. i will go sailing in the milang to goolwa yacht race in south east australia with my dad, and feel the oppressive south australian sun and wind and dryness again. from the aeroport i will be seeing the people, the accents, and outside the colours, the glow of the sky, the clean air etc that have been removed from my senses. afterwards i also get to see how i myself fit into this, will i be different, the same, will i still feel connected, like home or be frustrated and restless.
these make up half of my thoughts. the others are looking back over the year. already thinking of the things i was doing yesterday in paris like they are a story i will tell in the pub in six months time. i am trying to hold them close so what i have done this last year feels real.
my last week in paris was really fantastic. got battered with everyone, regularly, and said my good byes to the simple thingsin my world that until then i was taking for granted. like walking down boulevard st Micheal each morning to the veiw of the seine et la concierge. chatting in french. making omlettes at szjanas place, and watching people on the metro while trying not to look like i was watching them.
i said alot of good byes which actually started to get to me as it made me aware of one thing about this visit. paris will be the same. it has essentially been a similar place since the second world war and nothing should be different in the two or three years it will probably take me to return. but the people i know, not least me, wont be the same anymore. most of my friends at the sorbonne are international drifters, between uni and the rest of their important careers. we were all care free, moment by moment, young, free and without responsiblity. in sweden it was the same, but it took me 6 months to be able to live like this. even in three or four years the same group will be different.
on my last day i manically ran around organising things. it was my second night in a row with very very little sleep, and i had a shocking hangover after we had exhausted a brazilian bar at republique and a hip hop club at bastille on thurs. but finally i found some spare time after everything was done.
i found myself saying good bye to paris in notre damn cathedral. i dont really know why. i have been quite a few times this last three months when i have been looking for space to think. this time i walked in and sat in an empty area and shut my eyes and just listened to the sounds of paris, france and europe for about one hour. it was the first time i felt anything emotional about leaving throught this entire past year. i have been happy in europe, and i was having to say good bye to a happy time.
i like notre damn cos the histroy of paris is everywhere. it was built in 13th century as one of the very first gothique cathedrals in the world. it has survived many ups and downs, and was almost brought down and left to disarrary after the revolution. but it is not only the history of the place, but that history lives on today. the services in french and and latin, the over-the-top-but-amazingly-beautiful scupltures, the blues and red of the huge stain glass windows on a bright day. on this day i felt connected to thousands of other souls who had ever experienced anything similar to how i was feeling.
then my dreams were woken though by a young group of school kids who assembled infront of the alter. they were singing some beautiful church music, though in a undisicplined and unprofessional way. just being kids. one guy couldnt stop scratching his crotch after each song, and seemed unaware that the gathering mass of tourists who watching him were horrified. the next generation was moving in to the role of the generation before. things were going on as they have for hundreds of years.
i was ready to let paris go. cos i have to. and i am ready to head home, but i still miss everyone already. if there is one thing that sticks out- i was really happy.
Thursday, January 09, 2003
i was thinking
adelaide weather for 9/01/03 - 37 fuckng degrees. it is forcast for 39 when i return on sunday. today it was -5 in paris with little clumps of snow in the gutters. 44 degree difference. oh la. and no one in europe wants to give me sympathy. " at least you will get sun".
i was reading about the terroist threat after traces of a poison were found in an appartment in london. what did i do about it? i jumped on the eurostar and came to central london myself.
so far so good, although the security around the train was creepy. i think the only reason i wasnt searched is cos they felt sorry for me with so many bags. which i will be about 40 kgs over. incidentally i checked with singapore airlines the rate they charge for excess baggage. from london to adelaide, a cool £30 per kilo...!?!
according to this rate, my 85 kgs should should cost me £2550 for one way back home. at least they charge less money per kilo for humans than for excess baggage.
i never noticed before but the tube station you arrive at from france to england is waterloo-the name of the place in belgium where napoleon was finally sent into history by the allies (inclduing of course the english). how cheeky !!!! how excellent. no wonder the french and english continue to keenly eye each other across the channel.
Wednesday, January 08, 2003
germany was alot of fun.
i am worried that the only memories i will have will be of night clubs and bars.
it was like i was already back in adelaide after meeting up with everyone in frankfurt for nye.
it was nice going to a organ recital on christmas eve in berlin.
after almost 12 months, i am down to two days.
Tuesday, December 31, 2002
the beginning of the end
i am on the computer in pia´s room. its new years eve in frankfurt. nick and james are reclining on the sofa. james is still coughing. pip is reading. ross is eating some two minute noodles. here is a sample of the dialogue.
i feel fuckn all right. nick
i am just wanting to crash. ross.
what, yeah sure. nick
man, move over, this sofa is now a three seater.
play house records are wicked. do you know this track?
pip is reading.
its about four hours before we head out, but the party has already began at pias house. the club tonight is called robert johnson, and is the home to some very renoun techno and electro labels. you have to be a dj to appreciate just how famous, so i will save the enthousiastic description from nick for another time. after the four course meal, we are gong to move the tables to the side of the dance floor, and the djs are going to get to work. the decks are open, and some of germanies best minimalist and techno underground djs are going to take their turns.
it has just passed over to the new year in australia. happy new yeah to them. we have to let the earth spin for another 7,5 hours before we can do the same here in germany.
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