1:45pm, Uppsala, Sweden, 9 October 2009
Sincerest apologies to Eddie DeLange and Louis Alter...wherever you are.
Despite promising myself I would post at least every fortnight – mostly to spite Joe, who said I wouldn't manage it – I have failed you all after just six weeks. In my defence, quite a lot has been happening, and the Wednesday-Friday period at the end of the fortnight when I usually write these posts was filled with exams, rehearsals, dinners and performances.
For those who are just wondering what I'm up to, here is the condensed version: Bought a tailcoat, mended it myself. Protested climate change. Learning Swedish. Ate too much. Drank too much. Watched Let The Right One In. Baked many cakes, biscuits and slices. Made friends with people using same as bribes. Took part in production of a Bacon Explosion. Dinner-partied with corridor-mates, played drinking games with VG international students, cards and the Holy Bible. Partied with bad hair for Inken and in Tailcoat with Men's Choir. Sat four hour exam in Swedish Politics. Probably passed. Got a cartoon published. Changed to Winter hats. Sang on bended knee to a random woman on her birthday. Sang to a statue in a park. Sang to room full of screaming young women wearing clothes made from tinfoil. Sang to a beautiful girl on bended knee. Dressed as a Bedouin and went “Alalalalalalah!” a lot. Celebrated Kannebullens dag. Had way too much Fika. Experienced Matcoma. Tried to see the UN Secretary General. EPIC FAIL. Went to a movie instead. Movie in Italian with Swedish subtitles – fried brain trying to interpret both at same time. Wore my studentmössa a lot. Played the grand piano in the ballroom and sang Tim Minchin songs for an appreciative audience of one. Ate soup. Ate Meatballs. Won a pub quiz. Wrote a blog post. Turned into a jet. Bombed the Russians. Crashed into the sun. LIKE A BOSS. Damn Right.
I'm deep in readings for my second subject – Swedish Economic and Social Development from 1700 to the Present – so I don't have time to make it up to you just yet with a full-length post. Instead, I offer you this short post, a list of the sometimes unexpected things I'm missing here in this far-off magical kingdom.
1.) Double Cream – cream here is thin and runny and used for cooking or making whipped cream. The thick kind, which my father and I have been known to enjoy smeared thickly on freshly-sliced white bread with blackberry jam, is not only unavailable but apparently utterly bizarre in conception to everyone I ask...except for the Poms of course.
2.) The ABC Radio News Theme – whenever I hear this, I just somehow know that everything will be alright. Go on, have a listen. It soothes the beasts within...
3.) Don Don, GiGi, Shanghai Dumpling, most of Victoria Street – in fact, cheap, tasty, widely-available Asian food in general. I think that Europeans must do something dreadful to their Asian migrants that makes them forget about their traditional food culture and produce things like stir-fry without any vegetables in it. The Horror.....
4.) Trams – probably not a surprise to anyone, but it's the sound I really miss. The squeal they make going around corners, the “PZSHH...fzzzzzt...zzzzZWCK” of the pantograph leaving the overhead on a rough bit of track and then smacking back into it with sparks flying. I have lived beside tram lines for about a decade now, and getting to sleep without the gentle trundling noises in the distance is always a difficultly.
5.) Sausage Rolls – Sweden doesn't have them. This is an issue.
6.) The Age – yes, it's a pinko rag with increasingly questionable standards of journalism, but it's my pinko rag god damm it. I miss having a stack of them on the table going back weeks that I can pick through at my leisure, safe in the knowledge that whatever horror news story I'm reading about has probably been resolved by now. Also, I miss Kenneth Davidson. He is my hero. I miss doing the huge weekend general-knowledge crossword with my parents. And I miss the comics, but not the stupid one with the penguins. Does anyone you know laugh at that? This morning at breakfast I read a copy of Thursday's Wall Street Journal – Europe Edition that I won in a pub quiz last night. NOT SAME.
7.) Espresso – I know I hardly ever drink it at home, but the omnipresent nature of drip-filter coffee here is killing me not so softly with its delicate palate of sand, ash and bitterness. And of course no espresso machines means no proper Hot Chocolate either, and that DOES bother me.
8.) Weetbix – the 'Weetabix' available here are somehow slightly off. Can't put my finger on why...it might be the rounded ends. I swear that makes them taste different.
9.) Water – Sweden might have it over us in purely quantitative terms, but if quality is what you look for in your water, you just can't beat Melbourne. I've just about got used to the taste of the water here – in that I don't wince when I drink it anymore – but it's difficult to truly enjoy consuming something which has an aftertaste resembling talcum powder...
10.) Fish & Chips – oh, the things I would do for that satchel of goodness. 'nuff said, I think. And yes, I am aware that most of these are food and drink.
11.) And ten thousand little details: breaking crusty bread at Sunday Roast with Grandpa and the family. Trying to finish the crossword AND the Sudoku in the MX on the one weird evening express between Melbourne Central and Riversdale. The serenity of the System Gardens on a spring afternoon. The bagpiper on the Princess Bridge who only knows three tunes and always plays Auld Lang Syne when I walk past. Walking through the Old Quad in the evening and whistling the Harry Potter theme. Standing on the end of St Kilda Pier at 4am watching the milk crates you threw in float gently back to shore. Chocolate Brownies at Max Brenner. Sour cherry muffins at Castro's. The grandiose charms of Victoriana, in brown and grey and white and red and cream. The LaTrobe Reading Room in the afternoon light. The nationwide echoes of “Oh do shut up Malcolm!” when the Oppositon Leader appears on TV. The unique and musical calls of the Big Issue sellers (“GeeeeEEEAATchaBigIshewOnleeFIVEDollarrzzzuPOORTthe
HomelezzenLongtermUnemplOYED...”). The Yarra at night, reflecting the city. The smell of eucalyptus, of Chinatown, of fresh-cut grass in the Royal Botantic Gardens, of the sea. The seasonal changes of the day. The remarkable, unfathomable light.
12.) And of course, all of you. Awwww.
And that's the kind of drivel you can expect from me in the future I suspect...
I should get back to work now, but I will try to put up something else soon, to make up for missing a fortnight.
Showing posts with label Homesickness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Homesickness. Show all posts
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Leaving on a jet plane...and arriving on same.
9:30pm (Stockholm time), CityBackpackers Hostel, 29th July 2009
I'm not sure if it has really sunk in yet, but I am going to the far side of the world. I'm already there, actually...
I confess that I felt quite homesick for a hour or so my first day in Stockholm. Just wanted to pack it all in and come home. It's not a good feeling – akin to depression in some ways. It probably didn't help that I was hungry and extremely tired from being awake (or no more than half-asleep) for such a long time: 14 hours awake in Singapore + 13 hours flight + 2 hour transfer at Heathrow + 2 hour flight to Arlanda + 8 hours of wandering Stockholm = 39 hours without decent, proper, lie-down-in-bed sleep. I actually cheered myself up with whacky schemes for cheering myself up: having Hannah kidnapped by hired goons and shipped to me for company, somehow getting adopted by a kind Swedish family, hopping over to Old Blightey and borrowing a Tardis from the BBC...the list goes on. It actually made me feel better, silly as it sounds. The pizza helped too though :-)
I'm not quite sure how to write about leaving Melbourne. The actual physical process is bizarre to be frank: simultaneously exciting and routine. Successfully completing it on time and on target is reassuring, even comforting; the realization of the finality of the act is quite terrifying and unsettling. You walk through that door, down that air-bridge, and you're not going back. You can't, really. And from that point on, anything could happen, but certain things wont – Sunday Roast with the family, doing the Age quiz with friends over coffee in Union House, falling asleep holding your girlfriend close against you, walking home from work over Princes Bridge in the evening listening to the skirl of Auld Lang Syne from that piper who only seems to know three tunes, riding a tram into the junction for sausage rolls from Jenny's. And for these things you exchange the prospect of adventures as yet unknown. This absence and presence of possibility is exhilarating, but also sad and a little scary.
So all in all, I wont describe the scenes of departure. Too sad and complicated for me, and probably dull as ditch-water for you, those living vicariously through my travel blog. You know who you are...
I will say unequivocally that I hate most aspects of flying. I derive some small enjoyment from just three: the part of the take-off when the wheels first leave the runway and you experience that sense of floating, the view (when there is one) and the roar of the air-brakes the plane uses to slow down quickly after landing. Everything else was predictably average through to awful: seats, leg room, toilets, company (except the two nice old ladies from Perth on my SIN-LHR flight – big shout out to them as they cruise down the Rhine!) and of course, food. I wont go on about it, but just how do they make it SO bad in SO many ways? Of the good things, only the view merits further discussion...even if the air-brake noise is pretty cool...
Australia from the air is really a breathtaking sight. The sun rising over the Western district, casting copper light over the vast volcanic plains. Cotton-wool clouds pooling and puddling in the valleys of the Blue Mountains. The greyish-greenish-purple of the eucalypt forest spread over seemingly endless undulations. Roads like scar tissue on the dusty red skin of western NSW, the Murray a streak of green doubling back on itself over and over into the distance. The terracotta rooftops of Sydney, Adelaide's corrugated iron glinting grey between swathes of park, the mottled reds and browns and grey-greens of the centre.
Oh my, how patriotic I'm feeling (being overseas will do that to you):
I love a sunburned country,
a land of sweeping plains,
of rugged mountain ranges
and beer and prawn-juice stains.
Or something like that, right...?
I'm not sure if it has really sunk in yet, but I am going to the far side of the world. I'm already there, actually...
I confess that I felt quite homesick for a hour or so my first day in Stockholm. Just wanted to pack it all in and come home. It's not a good feeling – akin to depression in some ways. It probably didn't help that I was hungry and extremely tired from being awake (or no more than half-asleep) for such a long time: 14 hours awake in Singapore + 13 hours flight + 2 hour transfer at Heathrow + 2 hour flight to Arlanda + 8 hours of wandering Stockholm = 39 hours without decent, proper, lie-down-in-bed sleep. I actually cheered myself up with whacky schemes for cheering myself up: having Hannah kidnapped by hired goons and shipped to me for company, somehow getting adopted by a kind Swedish family, hopping over to Old Blightey and borrowing a Tardis from the BBC...the list goes on. It actually made me feel better, silly as it sounds. The pizza helped too though :-)
I'm not quite sure how to write about leaving Melbourne. The actual physical process is bizarre to be frank: simultaneously exciting and routine. Successfully completing it on time and on target is reassuring, even comforting; the realization of the finality of the act is quite terrifying and unsettling. You walk through that door, down that air-bridge, and you're not going back. You can't, really. And from that point on, anything could happen, but certain things wont – Sunday Roast with the family, doing the Age quiz with friends over coffee in Union House, falling asleep holding your girlfriend close against you, walking home from work over Princes Bridge in the evening listening to the skirl of Auld Lang Syne from that piper who only seems to know three tunes, riding a tram into the junction for sausage rolls from Jenny's. And for these things you exchange the prospect of adventures as yet unknown. This absence and presence of possibility is exhilarating, but also sad and a little scary.
So all in all, I wont describe the scenes of departure. Too sad and complicated for me, and probably dull as ditch-water for you, those living vicariously through my travel blog. You know who you are...
I will say unequivocally that I hate most aspects of flying. I derive some small enjoyment from just three: the part of the take-off when the wheels first leave the runway and you experience that sense of floating, the view (when there is one) and the roar of the air-brakes the plane uses to slow down quickly after landing. Everything else was predictably average through to awful: seats, leg room, toilets, company (except the two nice old ladies from Perth on my SIN-LHR flight – big shout out to them as they cruise down the Rhine!) and of course, food. I wont go on about it, but just how do they make it SO bad in SO many ways? Of the good things, only the view merits further discussion...even if the air-brake noise is pretty cool...
Australia from the air is really a breathtaking sight. The sun rising over the Western district, casting copper light over the vast volcanic plains. Cotton-wool clouds pooling and puddling in the valleys of the Blue Mountains. The greyish-greenish-purple of the eucalypt forest spread over seemingly endless undulations. Roads like scar tissue on the dusty red skin of western NSW, the Murray a streak of green doubling back on itself over and over into the distance. The terracotta rooftops of Sydney, Adelaide's corrugated iron glinting grey between swathes of park, the mottled reds and browns and grey-greens of the centre.
Oh my, how patriotic I'm feeling (being overseas will do that to you):
I love a sunburned country,
a land of sweeping plains,
of rugged mountain ranges
and beer and prawn-juice stains.
Or something like that, right...?
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