Home again, home again, and not a drop to drink.

Been back in the land of the living for several days now, and someone was like nyah blog Europe how was it? And I'm all like afrigginmazing but CBF. So, I'll just summarise with the predictions I made before reaching each destination- that is, crystallising pre-conceived notions by comparing cities or countries to my favourite films set in said cities or countries, then deciding whether they measure up in real life...

London: Love Actually vs Harry Potter

Verdict: We made our own Heathrow montages! And we (well just me really) sang Hedwig's Theme non-stop for a couple of days so yeah pretty much.

Paris: Amelie vs Madeline

Verdict: Not as uniformly whimsical and all-round charming as either of the above, and despite our best efforts we never made it to a photobooth or had our appendixes out, but still. It actually is almost as glorious which is saying rather alot. Paris, je t'aime! Satisfactorily beautiful and fascinating, merci beaucoup. Fermez la bouche! Vous avez perdu le joue! Snap!

Italia in general (Firenze, Roma, Vatican City, Pompei, Herculaneum, Napoli): A Room With a View vs La Vita è Bella

Verdict: Our Florentine experience was unfortunately not quite as romantic as the former (bar the Italian stallion stalkers in that square), and fortunately there was no genocide going on while we were there so the superficial premise of the latter didn't really apply, but the whole country is astoundingly beautiful and the coffee is motherlickin' good. Yay Italy!

Athens via Delphi: Hercules vs... Mamma Mia! (not quite in inner-city Athens but it'll do)

Verdict: OPA!

In conclusion, I spent lots of time with gorgeous friends, learned alot, gained some bigger sense of where everything fits in history and culture and the world, did no homework whatsoever and collected shot glasses from every country. Success!

So what happened while I was gone? Obama's coronation- ahem, that is, inauguration- hurrah for that. The media is so gloriously biased, or perhaps just genuinely naively optimistic like the rest of us. Yes we can! Heh! And Australia Day, which was heartily celebrated by the applying of bogan flag tattoos to faces in the bathroom of Athens Airport... Although I pretty much have to agree that we should change the date to something less imperialistic and genocidal, I'm really not sure as to what to. Federation Day would be better to celebrate but that's on New Year's Day which is kind of lame. We should get it out of the summer holidays for an extra public holiday! But come to think of that, school holidays won't apply to me personally by next year... *gulp*.

On that year 12-licious note I'd better get my arse off the internet and find my assessment schedule, then start doing some proper work. To be fair I still have jetlag and have been all insomnia-ish until an average of 3 am these past couple of days. And I read a kid's history book about WWI today, sophisticate! It made me cry a little though. Then it prompted me to read the last couple of pages from The Diary of a Young Girl, and Anne Frank made me cry a little more. Yes, I know it's the wrong war... But as Martin Brown would say;

*sigh*

Tschüss!