And then what happened?

I’ve been remiss in updating lately - it’s been a busy, busy week, and somehow I passed the “one month since I left/arrived” date without collapsing. For that you can thank no other than the oodles of excellence provided by those such as the lovely ladies above, my hostesses with the mostesses since I got back to Aus. Bridie, Phoebe, Lucie and I hit up the Bling Bling Dumplings/Little Guy combo again last week and it was a winner - and this time I remembered to take photos in the restaurant as well!

(Special shout out to Howie and JoFo who have been my male hostesses with the mostesses and sadly missed out on the dumpling fun) 

Delivery, March 2012

 Near Circular Quay.

I Used To Write Letters, March 2012

I posted this as a reply to Ele’s Latin learning efforts earlier this evening but thought it deserved a post of its own, especially seeing as Kosmas gave it his approval. The internet has been temperamental lately, so last night when it went out I used my phone to look up a few sites and make this chart in the beautiful journal that my family gave me for Christmas (and my continued notes are already taking up a fair bit of the next page!). I think it’s a worthy first entry. I love learning new alphabets - it’s a large part of why I gave up French when I was 13 to learn Japanese instead. I still remember all my hiragana even though I learnt them ten years ago (I feel old) and haven’t used them for about seven. 

Anyway I promised Maria and Eleni that the next time I came back to Athens I would be able to speak some Greek. If I can ever get the pronunciations right then maybe I’ll be able to make good on that promise before too long! (And perhaps next time I’ll be able to remember all Maria’s variations of malakas!!)

Then on Wednesday, Owlett and I went to lunch at Pancakes on the Rocks at Darling Harbour, which I’d never been to before! (Despite having frequented Pancakes on the Rocks at The Rocks on many occasions). You guys, it was super cool! First Tumblr Meetup ever for me, actually. I think we talked non-stop about geeky television and film and comic related stuff for like three hours. I’m so glad we’ve finally met properly in real life now, because Internet friendships are cool but Real Life ones are much more fun! Anyway I look forward to future rambling + delicious foodstuff occasions :D
 

PS I got Eggs Benedict pancakes because it just seemed too appropriate, considering the  BBC Sherlock love that was going on.

So I have a lot to catch up on lately! First things first:

Review - Sam I Am, 99 Glebe Pt Rd

Since I am currently a couch-surfing nomad, on Monday I moved from Bridie’s place to Lucie’s, and to celebrate Lucie and I went out for dinner. Sam I Am has been around since before I left Glebe, but I’m pretty sure the Mexican-themed window decoration (and inside décor also, perhaps) is new. In fact I saw the guy painting it onto the window a couple of weeks ago. 

I’ve never been here before but it always caught my eye - the place seems to be almost permanently open, serving everything from breakfast to late night cocktails. We took advantage of the Monday Night Special - $16 gets you three tacos and a Corona, which is a pretty good deal around these parts! The courtyard is lovely, and has the very cosy, backyard-y feel that cafés in this part of Glebe do so well. The tacos were delicious, but the place was bewilderingly empty except for the two of us until a small group of students came in later on (talking about how they were going to Berlin, which provoked a shared envious grimace from us)… I guess Monday nights just aren’t that busy in most places. Anyway I’d like to check out the upstairs section at a later date, and the friendly waiter told us there’s a bunch of specials on throughout the week, so watch this space!

Glebe Point Road, March 2012

View from the Stockton Ferry. The same now as thirteen years ago, when I first saw it.

Back in Town, February 2012.

I’ve been back in Australia for just over a week now. That seems bizarre in itself - I guess that the difference in the way time works between “Erasmus Time” and “Real Life” takes adjusting to on the other side as well. I spent quite a few days lying in bed feeling awful, not sleeping and not eating and just generally being miserable, but since I’ve been back in Sydney things have started to improve. In general I’m not excessively fond of Sydney as a city, but being in Glebe again is just wonderful. It reminds me that actually there are little pockets of places around here that I really enjoy.

And I guess mostly the best thing about being back has been hanging out with Bridie and everyone, and meeting new people at uni and thinking maybe it’s going to be an okay year after all. The “I’m going to talk about Germany and all of the people there 24/7 nonstop” thing has definitely come out, but everyone’s been really good about it so far.

I was thinking last night about something Adiba said a few weeks ago. Lucas and David were in Göttingen visiting, and when Adiba met them she said something along the lines of “Oh yeah, I feel like I know you guys already. Caitlin always talks about her friends and family as though we know them.” It’s true actually - most people will use titles like “my brother” or “my housemate” or whatever indefinitely, but after I’ve mentioned people a couple of times in conversation to others, I tend to just use their names. When I arrived in Göttingen I talked as though the Koalas knew my friends and family back home, in second semester I talked about the Koalas as though the Kugels had met them all, and now that I’m back home I talk about all these new major characters in my life as though everyone in Australia has been following the saga of my life closely enough to be able to recognise them (and to be fair, some of them have - for which I am amazingly grateful). It’s kind of funny I’ve never noticed that I do that, but I’m not going to change it! 

In other, mostly unrelated news: I really missed proper Australian Weetbix when I went to Germany, and I had to start eating “Weetabix” instead and I thought they tasted kind of weird. But now that I’m back the Australian ones taste really strange and that is BOTHERING ME. Also I keep saying “Entschuldigung” when I bump into people and I keep forgetting to walk/ride my bike on the left side and occasionally I lose words or phrases in English and hey isn’t culture shock fun?

Photos: Bridie waiting for the bus on George St; pancakes and frappé for breakfast; and affogato at Clipper Cafe!