I’m going to be perfectly honest here and say it… babies freak me out.
Small people, with their wide curious eyes… staring right into your soul… picking apart your secrets with a glee smile…
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Birthdays in Austria – coming to terms with the tears
This year I was convinced that I wouldn’t get sad on my birthday.
Overseas Birthdays – highlight or lowlight?
Birthdays while travelling seem to take place at two extremes. You either find yourself among a bunch of awesome people, and the fact it is your birthday propels everyone into party mode resulting an epic night. Or it’s lonely, in a city among people you haven’t connected particularly well with, which then becomes a half-hearted kind of tragic day.
Growing up and digging in
Damn… what have we gone and done?
After more than a year-long search, and many new discoveries along the way, the inevitable has finally happened – we’ve gone and bought ourselves a house.
An Unavoidable Truth
My 92 year old grandmother recently had a fall and broke her leg. A broken leg is no fun, let alone when you’re 92. But she’s built from strong stock, my grandmother, so she pushed through the operation and is now part-terminator where the bone used to be. It’s easy to joke and look at the positives after the fact, but it was a tense few weeks for everyone as she endured through the surgery and the risks that come afterwards.
Homesickness… hello? Is anyone there?
After returning from my March trip to Australia, I was prepared for the steely-wrath clutch of homesickness. I had attended my brother’s wedding, and with his new bride already knocked up, the whole thing had me weepy and emotional even before I got to Oz!
But wait… where is he? Is he hiding? Is he laying in wait, ready to pounce when I least expect him?
Short Trips – Brighton – a town of food, sea, fudge and lightning
Visiting the London area in the past (eg. When I was living in Australia) was always a bit of a lowlight. Not bad, of course, just not as exciting as the rest of the trip.
It was a place that was easy, where I knew the language and had friends to stay with. It was a rest stop, a place to recuperate. Or it was simply the most practical or cheapest place to fly in and out of.
25 Real Differences between Austria and Australia
To celebrate my 100th blog post (yay) I thought I’d attempt to answer a question I still get asked a lot: What are the real differences between Austria and Australia? And it’s a difficult one to answer, because it’s a kind of same/same but different thing – all the little factors weigh up to create a big difference.
There are the obvious ones – the language, the food, the location, the culture, the weather… I’m not going to focus on those… I’m going to let you in on some of the more subtle differences between Austria and Australia.
Creating the perfect trip = attempting the impossible
Before we went to Australia on our most recent holiday, I made a lot of lists. I like making lists. Lists of friends I wanted to see, things I wanted to do, food I wanted to eat, places I wanted to visit, food I wanted to buy and bring back… the list(s) goes on.
You see, what I was doing, was trying to organise the perfect trip home.
Nothing’s changed – but please don’t hate us when we say it
It has to be one of the most insufferable phrases to come out of an expat or traveller’s mouth upon their return home. I’ve heard it countless times myself and I’ve seen the expressions on the faces of people receiving it. Hell, I’ve even thought it, though hopefully I was able to hold myself back from actually spitting it out.
an aussie in austria 