be more adventurous

Since my last entry, I traveled back to Perth, Australia.
We had a lovely house at a beach and I managed to make it through three temporary positions where I learned more than I could hope for. Yes, my dreams of LA blew over, however the other experiences I had instead were just as rewarding and fulfiling… this year, my life took a little U-Turn, when I went back to Europe.

I love traveling and have actually now found a position at my Business School, which is located in Antwerp, Brussels, Zurich, Madrid, Valencia and Barcelona. What a fantastic place, surrounded by people who are so diverse, each from different backgrounds, most of them speaking at least 3 or 4 languages fluently…
The energy my students have are completely amazing and allow me to see “cold, freezing” Europe in a different light.

Since July 09 I have seen…

1) Perth, Australia (the one year work-holiday visa)
2) Berlin, Germany (the parents)
3) Lyon, France (Quality time with the Mum)
4) Saeuritz, Germany (country side..)
5) Basel, Switzerland (the best friend)
6) Barcelona (this time not to study, but to teach for the first time)
7) Metz, France (the church, the town, the countryside)
8) Antwerp, Belgium (my new home)
9) Paris, France (only 2.5h by train from Antwerp)
10) Amsterdam, Netherlands (only 2.5h by train the other way)
11) Prague, Czech Republic (for photos of course)
12) Leuven, Brussels, Gent; Belgium (all towns completely new to me)
13) Planned Christmas Trip: Indonesia
14) Planned trips in Brussels: Brugge

The possibilities little Belgium offers are endless, a quick flight to London is my next little dream after that.

Instead of partying away and spending my coins in booze bars, every month I can just duck off for a trip to an other culture.

I love the new work, as well as discovering new places by myself. My camera is extremely happy. I am learning French and hopefully Dutch soon, all courtesy of my lovely new work place.
Who would have imagined that work could be so much fun.

Oh how very exciting, today is San Juan, which is celebrated with fireworks and plenty of booze (so I hear) at the beach in lovely Spain.

This Thursday I am playing photographer for my graduating class (first official gig for myself) and on Friday Shakir and I wanted to drop into the massive 1 weeks Psychabilly Festival at Pinida del Mar.

Also my boy has good news, a new job with a very generous boss who wants him to come and visit for a week in France. We get to stay in one of his lovely gites… Well, Shakir is going to work and my camera will have a field day.

Oh joy.

Exciting things coming up :)

I have been having an interesting time in Barcelona. – Nearly long enough here to take it for granted… YOU’LD THINK! Guess who got her second ever sunburn last Friday.
I look like a over grilled shrimp, but in fact it is more than fascinating to me to peel like a German potato.

While I have been here Shakir and I romanced in Rome (my very first time in Italy) and I had the opportunity to grab my favorite French guy Alan from class, plus our Russian power-football girl and wander off to Marseilles for the day. WHAT A DAY!

At the moment I am cooling the whole travel business – these small plane companies have some serious ideas of holiday prices! WOW. I suppose this calls for a road trip through Espana. Let’s hope we get the money together.

My Spanish is horrible, but I got myself a little cheer-up “Man’s Health” to learn a couple of words from. Lots of improvements and changes.

By September I should be back in Australia! This time it will be Perth. I will get to meet my boys family and friends… Till then I will practice to rival them with my home-grown (rahter German) Aussi accent. :)

Wish me luck ;)

Here I am, in Barcelona.

It is dirty, gritty, dusty and wild. I can’t speak the language and within only 2 months I can locate the junkie corners and realize that there is no way to make a big loop around them to go and visit my boy. What else can I say, – I love it.
My boy actually packed up all his things in Australia and came over to be with me. Romantic? I’d like to think so.
We found us a really beautiful on-top-of the roof apartment for relatively little money for Barcelonian standards.
It is perfect for writing music… the seemingly only quiet place in this city.

I am adoring university – It is very small with less than 50 students. They come mainly from Belgium, the Netherlands and German speaking regions. We even have a French dude with an awesome accent. It always brightens up my day when we have Spanish class. Everyone gives it their personal, ridiculous little accent.

And I thought English was hard to pronounce…

Where to begin…

I am a myspace user and I have been too long to pretend I think it is a terrible, terrible thing.
One day i receive once again one of those ‘Check out my music and tell me what you think’ emails. This is how I met him.

The band he was in happened to write a song called Christine and from a marketing point of view it made sense to contact a couple Christine’s who might like it.

We started chattin about God and the world – in the spirit of my last rather adventurous Thai holiday I thought ‘I got one more month in Australia, why not visit Melbourne’. After my suggestion there were a lot of pro and contra talks – what if one of us was a psycho? Hmm? Just in case I was a tubby, bold white man HE gave me a call. I made a booking the same day for and 12 hours later – only one week after talking off and on with HIM – I jumped onto the next available plane to Melbourne.

Melbourne Airport
So he picked me up in his spunky 70’s car. It was cute. Both of his arms were tattoed and I wanted to touch them during the entire drive. But I didn’t. Self control, Christine – self control. 7 years in Brisbane, Ausralia and I meet him NOW?!

It all began from there :)
I had no intention to fall in love. Just an other adventure. Plus I was going to leave Australia in 3 weeks.
3 days after my arrival HE sold his amp,... a day after that his car…

It is true. Within 3 days he made his mind up – he is coming – leaving everything in Melbourne behind. His friends, his things, his job, his band, his apartment, his everything.

Berlin
Today is the 1st of August 2007. I only met him on the 4th of July.

Here at my parents house in Berlin I finally have the time to think about all this and I am truly excited. If I hadn’t started this entire mission to be adventurous I would have never hunted snakes in the Australian bush, gone to Thailand or met this wonderful person in Melbourne.

I am glad that geographical boundaries no longer exist for me. Every dream is only one flight away. It has enriched my life in so many ways.

In 6 weeks I’m in Barcelona. And he is coming too. AAARGH!
:)

swoons

For more swooning here’s my myspace: www.myspace.com/tinylittlemiss

Last Tuesday I became for the first time a little depressed about my rather futile efforts to meet my daily goals. Everything seemed to go wrong that morning. I tried my best to think of positive things and not let myself get down by one or two mishaps. Forcing myself out of the house the first thing that day which brought me some happiness were sentimental cute poems written on fridge magnets in a card shop. That’s as good as gets. Or at least that’s what I thought.

At 4pm I got a call from a friend who is notorious for spontaneous ideas. A trip? Why not.

2 hours to pack my (for a girl rather small) backpack. 1 hour to find my passport – A mission all in itself. And off I went to destination unknown.

We left that night at 2am and made our way to Sydney with a rental car. 1000km drive. On the way we visited a little Koala sanctuary and the boys (my friend and his cousin) bought gifts for their little ones at home.

12 hours later… – Sydney airport

We jumped on a plane to Thailand and sat through 9 hours flight to get to Bangkok. The humidity hit you as soon as you left the airport. I LOVE IT.

This turned out to be the most random week of my life. I went Parashooting, cuddled tigers, watched snake and crocodile shows, learned how to drive a little dirt-buggy, shot guns like an amateur and went diving.

The nights were occupied with markets, watching the hussle and bussle on the mainstreet, walking along the beach, only 10min. away from my hotel and jumping on little scooters which are referred to as ‘taxis’ over there.

It was mad.

The dream ended too quickly, only 7 days later I was on my way back home.

This experience has left an impression on me, so that I find my life to a significant degree changed.

Life’s been kind.

After a long night out I was really tempted to just let the Sunday take care of my hangover.

Instead Peter took me to the Gold Coast and we went to a laser labyrinth, which gave me plenty of inspiration how I’d like my own place to look one day. :D It incorporated lots of mirrors, awesome music for every room, huge bouncing balls and funny feeling water bed floors…. and lasers of course.

After that surreal experience we had some Korean, grilling our Chicken Bil Go Gi (photo) on a hot plate on our table. Delicious!

I do not know how he came up with it, but we ended up going Mini-Golfing, which I hadn’t done since I was shorter than my dinner table. My skills haven’t improved over the years, but nevertheless it brought back really fond memories of my childhood.

Went to the Mt Cootha park and took photos of ducks and lizards :D

The adventurous park is probably climbing over fences and sheepishly avoiding the gardener, so I could get as close as possible. :D

Removed this annoying light, which is shining into my bedroom by balancing on the gutter. – Although I am a little scared of heights.
Encouraged by a friend (photo)we both attempted to remove it without dropping the security plastic,... it fell down the building and we had to go and get it… twice. Rather a long walk, than a short fall, huh? Mission accomplished.

Alright, I admit. All I had to do was to be invited.
:P My first Niueen 21st attendance.
It was crazy.

For the first time in my life I got to witness a hungy (ist that how you spell it?).

1mx1m holes are dug and river rocks are being burnt to smoldering heat for an hour or so. See Photo After that food wrapped into in aluminum foil and banana leafs is put into those holes with the hot rocks (in this case a pig, sweet potatoes, corned beef with tomatoes, onion and coconut cream, as well as whole chicken).

Food and rocks are then covered with wet newspapers and potato sacks. After 4 or 5 hours… Voila! Done and Done!

It was a feast! And for the first time in my life I was surrounded entirely by Pro-Rugby-League sized men and women :)
The kids were massive too. Crazy, crazy :D

There were beautiful speeches, prayers and everyone was thanked for coming from all the corners of the world. The celebrations lasted nearly 3 days. I am surprised I wasn’t hungover this morning. :) An adventure indeed.