I set this up so that everyone can keep track of me on my travels. Hope you enjoy reading.

Friday, August 03, 2007

G'day

Ok, so I am back in Australia. The flight back was horrendous for the usual reasons- lack of leg room, completely full flight, almost no sleep (4 very disturbed hours in about 50hrs by the time i got to sleep on wed night), screaming children, inconsiderate people knocking me every time they walked past. But yes, I am back. And I thought I did quite well on the jet lag front. Held off until 6pm wed night, then crashed for 11 hours. Have been good the last 2 days, but it is now 5.30am and I have been up for 2 hours, after only 4 hours sleep, so maybe not!
It feels sort of surreal being back. In some ways, like I never left, but at the same time, like I am just on another trip. The emotional rollercoaster of the last year has sort of caught up with me and everything is making me either stupidly happy, or pathetically sooky. I think cos I couldn't do it and think about it too much at the same time, now I am home it has all caught up with me. Plus I am trying to work out the daunting prospect of what to do with my life now! Because there are so many options. So I am thinking I will take an easy option while I re-assess where I am, and what I really wanna do and those important things.
Ernie remembered me. He went absolutely mental when I got in to see him, clawing at me and licking me, and took about 30mins to settle down a bit. I am going to slowly integrate him into moving over here, so everyone involved copes better.
Ok, so, now for the list of facts and figures I have collected over the last year...
Schools taught in- 50 (+1 as helper)
Number of children taught- 2000ish
Number of countries visited- 12 (13 if you include the Vatican City as one)
Number of cities visited- 40ish
Number of miles driven- 14,900 (so close to 15,000! That's nearly 24,000km)
Number of miles flown- 42,000ish (if u exclude the syd/london flights, I drove almost the same as I flew!)
Number of housemates in Bristol- 9(across the 10months I was there)
Number of beds slept in- 22
Fave city- Prague
Least fave city- Calais!
Fave accommodation- The hotel in Neuschwanstein in Germany, between the 2 castles.
Least fave accommodation- such a hard choice! So many to chose from! Bunks suck! Umm.. the hotel in Paris where I got ravaged my bedbugs!
I have had the most amazing year, and still not all of it has sunk in, and I'm sure I will be looking back on it for a very long time remembering things that happened. Not all of it was great, but all of it created the experience, so I wouldn't change any of it (except the bedbugs). I met some great people. It was really good to get to know family better, and be included in their traditions and things that I normally miss out on. I am still processing a lot of it, and I'm sure I will do that even more when i sort through ALL the stuff I brought back, clothes, souveneirs, thousands of leaflets/business cards/postcards/wrappers etc for scrapbooking the whole trip. So yeah, I am very glad I bit the bullet and did it, but I also realised a couple of things about me. The main one being I am definitely a plan/structure/organised/continuity type person and although it was all great, I can't live like that very long. Not knowing what I am doing the next day, ALL the time. Whether it was work, or travelling, or with the rellies, or whatever, my whole year was decided pretty much on a day-to-day basis, and ANYONE who knows me, knows that is very stressful for me! So now I need to try and rebuild structure into my life. I know I want to travel more, and there was the plan to do what I just did around oz, but I think I might have a complete emotional breakdown, so I will see how things pan out, but I might just do little trips here and there and get a proper job. We'll see what happens!
Well, that ends the year that has been my foray into the deep unknown that is the Northern Hemisphere! And thus ends the need for this blog! I will leave you now, and say thankyou to everyone who kept in contact with me while I was away, and for making me feel included still, from the other side of the world. BYEEE!