Monday 4 August 2008

Lib no longer in London

This will be the last post for Lib in London - at least for a while.

After 4 months I still haven't heard about the visa so a couple of weeks ago I went back to London, packed up my stuff and moved back to Australia.

We'll see what happens from here. I'd love to go back in about 12 months but it will depend on where and what sort of job I get.

Lib in Brisbane

Tuesday 27 May 2008

Lib not in London

So I've been in Australia exactly 2 months tomorrow and I'm still waiting on my visa. Frustrating doesn't really cover it - I'm stuck in this weird limbo of it being nice to be home and seeing everyone to feeling like I'm missing out on my life in London. I've missed the start of summer, I'm missing friends leave who've helped me get through my first year, I have 1 flatmate I've never met and it will soon be 2.

I could handle the waiting if I knew the outcome was assured, but to wait all this time when there's every chance the visa won't come through seems like some sort of bizarre torture.
I feel like I'm waiting for my year 12 results - everyday I check the letterbox hoping for a big envelope and everyday I'm a little crushed when it's not there.

I really didn't realise how much I've started to love my life there until I couldn't live it anymore. All the things that I've found hard, such as not having close friends there, have become almost part of my life there and it's changed me more than I thought. I'm more independent in the sense that I'll just go an do it myself if I can't find anyone to go with me and I am far more relaxed (I think everyone I know will attest to this!).

Life here feels much the same but has changed enormously in other respects. The wedding I came home for was the first marriage of my closest girlfriends from school. Two friends have moved to Melbourne which helped cement it as my Plan B city if London doesn't work out. I looked into Ireland but the visa there is almost harder to get and more expensive! Without sounding too cliched you never really do get to come back to things the way they were before anyway, which actually makes it easier for me to head back over. Everyone else is out living their lives so I'm not going to sit out wishing things didn't change or that someone would come to London with me.

Unfortunately, I'm stuck waiting for postman like I did 10 years ago to decide what I'm going to do with my life.

Sunday 20 April 2008

Sweden (Again...) 20th March - 24th March

I'm not sure why I never got around to posting this blog - I'm sure I was going to write something profound instead of my usual went here, did this. This was the last trip I did before I came home.


One of the really nice things about returning to Sweden this Easter is it felt like a tradition was being started as this was the first trip I took when I arrived in London.

The weather was at least different from my last few visits in that it didn't rain all the time.

The was the temperature when I got there...



And this was the temperature two days later when we decided to go to Copenhagen for the day (my first time outside the airport!)



C & I in Copenhagen in the snow.


Copenhagen in the snow


C


Outside the castle