Leaving....only made better by knowing you'll be heading off again

Leaving a place you love...gee, it's only really made better by knowing that you'll be back again...and hopefully in the not too distant future.

That's my overriding sentiment sitting at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris (the western world's worst airport) waiting for my big A380 jumbo to swallow me into its pouch to safely escort me home to Oz. It's definitely a mixed feeling.

The positives:

• I'm leaving -5 winter and heading for +30 summer
• The sun will come up before 8:30am
• Getting home to my half of the family
  
• I've got 24 hours to do nothing more than watch movies
• .....shit, it's Australia! What an AWESOME country to live in!

The negatives:

• The food....sorry Australia, you're about 200 years behind France in the food stakes
• Leaving half the family behind for at least another 6-12 months :(
• No snow - I went skiing for the first time on this trip and loved it!
• No more holidays.....I've burned up my next 6 months worth of holidays!
  

I've got the great pleasure of actually being in the Star Alliance airline lounge to wait for the flight. I was given two entry passes to the lounge when I checked in (very kind of them) even though I'm travelling alone. Having travelled a lot, I know how much nicer it is to be waiting in the lounge as opposed to waiting at the gate, so I approached a couple of people (blokes only, my wife will be pleased to know) who looked like they were travelling alone to offer them my spare ticket....you know, a bit of travel karma at all.

Maybe there's something about the way I'm dressed, or the way my hair settled in a very serious, unspiked way when I woke up this morning, but I reckon those blokes thought I was trying to crack onto them - they all refused!

Ah well, as the French say, tempi pour eux - 'too bad for them'.

The unworked hairstyle....seemed to work for the bloke at check-in who gave Rob an exit aisle from Paris to Singapore. Also seemed to scare off potential people benefitting from some travel karma.





Anyway, they're calling the flight so it's off to go through security, jump on-board and be transported back to a great place half a world away.

Mexico!!

An update from Josie, who is taking the Health Sciences in Mexico program.

Hola!

I thought I should send you a quick update on how its going in Mexico. Well, it is fantastic!! I am having a wonderful time so far, all the people are lovely and friendly. My host family are also very nice and I`m thoroughly enjoying trying all the Mexican food....yum! We`ve had two days at uni already and its great, the program is very well organised and there are lots of exciting things planned. Im slowing learning some Spanish. Its fun coming home and talking some Spanish to the maid who doesnt speak English....not that I can understand what she says back yet haha. Thats definately a goal for my trip.

We`re all getting along well in the group too, we`ve been out and had cervaso`s already (by the way, they were only 15 peso for a corona!). The uni and host family have told us we're the first "real aussie" group the've had, which is pretty nice.

Thanks for all your help organising this program, I'm so so glad I'm doing it! Will email again soon.

Adios!
Josie :)

Snow, snow, snow....

I've never ever seen a lot of snow.

When I was young, my family once took a holiday to the Australian 'Alps', via Canberra (where I have the distinct memory of swimming in a pool when the air temp was just 3 degrees - I can't remember why I thought it would be a good idea, though). We played in the snow, took the chairlifts up the mountain, but didn't actually ski.

Sitting in a Paris house, I'm now looking at more snow on the ground here than I did on our humble Aussie mountains.

It has been a freezing winter in Europe - temps down to -20 where it normally never gets anywhere near half that cold. Ironically, I went up to the Alpes to go skiing at Val Thorens and it was only -10!

There is plenty of ice, snow, slush and the white sky blends into slopes of the distant hills. It's very pretty but reminds you why people love to live in Queensland!