The title says it all… I am back in ordinary-boring-wet-cold little Belgium…
I boarded a plane Saturday evening to swap a warm, sunny and fun Melbourne with a cold, rainy and boring place in the middle of nowhere.. Now I understand why Australia needs tough immigration laws.. without those all the planes to Australia would be full and those leaving empty! 🙂
Regardless of the hot climate in summer, I found yet another place I ‘d prefer living in over Belgium… Sweden and Finland are obviously a lot closer, but I don’t know Swedish, nor Finnish.. true, people in Australia also speak a weird language, but at least that one is remotely related to English, which I do know a bit 🙂
On the other hand, regardless of whether I ‘d actually survive hearing Australian all day for more than a couple of weeks, getting into Australia is a lot harder than moving within the EU. They have expensive residence permits, exams etc… the only way in would seem to be finding a beautiful Australian girl (those seem to be available in abundance anyway :)) – preferably without the accent – who doesn’t mind catching a fish from the other hemisphere… 😀
That said, before I left on Saturday I thought I ‘d go to South Melbourne to take a look at that beach Melbourne is supposed to have.. Much to the regret of my feet, I decided to do everything on foot again.. and – yet again – it ended up being a much longer walk than I had anticipated. I did eventually get to the beach.. but unlike the beach at Manly in Sydney, there were almost no waves here.. probably because Melbourne is located quite far inland next a large bay. There was a lot of wind however.. on a day like this the bay looks like prime a prime sailing area! Looks like I was born in the wrong country to love sailing.. first Sydney, now even Melbourne looks like a heaven for small sailing boats!
On my way back to the city centre I came across Albert Park which sits almost in the middle of south Melbourne and consists largely of an large lake on where – again – a lot of people were sailing.. the longer I was staying in Australia/Melbourne the more frustrated I get with puny little Belgium so I headed back to my hotel to pick up my stuff and on to the airport to say goodbye to heaven and hello to hell.. 😡
When I arrived in London following a 22 hour flight I was welcomed by a lashing cold wind as I rushed from the plane through the gangway to the main terminal. Coming from a pleasant 25°C in Melbourne wearing only a t-shirt didn’t exactly help me feel happy to be almost home either.. So far I had been flying Premium, but the last leg of the voyage I sat in economy on a fully loaded BA flight.. I think that the hour I spend on that plane was more painful than the entire flight from Melbourne to London.. I couldn’t even fit my legs between the 2 rows of seats, much to the annoyance of my neighbours.
Arriving in Brussels was the usual anticlimax: grey weather, grey people, grey country.. In Scandinavia they at least have snow and somewhat private but fun people, in Australia they have nice warm weather and friendly though incomprehensible people, but all we have in Belgium is cold and tame closed minded people. 🙁
Didn’t have to go to work on Monday so slept for around 14-15 hours I think.. of course dreaming of palm trees, white beaches and pretty Australian girls.. 😀
