Wow…I’m really home again and it feels quite weird to be back. The decision to take a break for a couple of months was so rushed that I didn’t really have time to realise what it actually meant to be back.
The last days in Brisbane were really busy, I had a lot of fun with the German girls and I miss them a lot already. We went once again to the Tinbilly bar in the city…for some reason we all love the Tinbilly bar (I think I’m totally biased because I met David there *gg*) and there is almost always something going on…
Speaking of David, he came back two days earlier from the wedding and so we got to spent the last two days together which has been fantastic but made it a lot harder to leave Australia on Monday.
On Monday I was so messed up…torn between excitement to go home and regret about my decision to leave Australia for now. For once I went with my gut feeling instead of thinking everything through and still it felt like I got it wrong. But in the end I think it’s going to be alright…I really need this break and it is lovely to be back home with my family.
The journey back home was quite long, first an eight hour flight to Kuala Lumpur where I had an 15hour stopp over and then another 12,5hours to Frankfurt where my brother picked me up and took me to the train station for yet another 4hour journey to make it home. All together, door to door, the journey added up to almost 50 hours. Thank God that I have the talent to sleep almost anywhere and anytime because thats what I did for most of the time. It was really strange though to be back in Asia…once I went outside the airport to catch the FREE shuttle I was at once surrounded by taxi drivers offering their service.
Now I’m back home and I’m going to sleep in my own bed again for the first time in months! Tomorrow I’ll figure out when I’ll start working again and then I’ll hopefully make it back to Australia early next year!

P.S. For those of you in Germany…I don’t have a mobile phone at the moment…well I have a phone, but alas, I lost my SIM card in Asia. So for now you can only reach me via my home phone number or internet.

…I’m going home. Ten minutes ago I paid my flight back home. The travel agent was a little surprised I think when I walked into the agency yesterday requesting for a flight home “as soon as possible”. Anyway, I’ll fly out of Brisbane on Monday night, have a stop over in Kuala Lumpur for about 15 hours, luckily I’ll get free acommodation there and then I’m back in Frankfurt on Wednesday morning. Once I’m back home I’ll start working again within a few days and then in a couple of months when I’ve saved up enough money I’ll fly back to Brisbane and travel to the north to do the Whitsundays Sailing trip and hopefully a dive out in the Barrier Reef before flying out of Sydney to New Zealand.
It’s is quite a strange feeling to know that next week around this time I’m already home. I said goodbye to David last night which was as hard as I feared it would be. But it’s very good to know that I’m actually only taking a break and that I’ll be back in only a few months and that I’ll see him again then.
Anyway…for the last days I’ll be staying at the house of Lea’s hostfamily a.k.a. as “the mansion” ;o) So I’ll have one fun weekend before flying home!

I think this has been one of the toughest decisions in my life yet, but last night I have decided to take break and fly home as soon as possible. I know many of you will say that I’m crazy, giving up sunny Australia to come back to boring and cold Germany. But that is exactly what I need right now…I want to get bored senseless within the next few months so that being able to travel will be yet again something to look forward to and not something to go through with. Up until Australia my trip has been fantastic and I’ve met a whole bunch of cool people and I’ve been to amazing places around the world. For now though I’m really tired of traveling. For you following my blog and my travels it must simply be one great adventure, but to be honest, traveling the world is a lot of work, too.
And I guess I knew that I would feel like this after a few months of traveling and thats why I had decided to work as an aupair for a few months to have some stability and a “normal” life for a while while digesting the impressions I’ve gained.
Well you all know that the aupair thing wasn’t meant to be and I realized during the last 2 weeks that I don’t that the mentality to do the work and travel ( or at least not after having already traveled for almost 6 months).
It’s not like I wouldn’t be able to find work, I got work at a hostel straight away and only yesterday I got offered a two full time jobs. One would have been to work for a sales and marketing teams while the other would have been to work a nearby toy factory. So it’s not that…it’s about being happy with what I do. I thought that once I got a full time job that would stop the worries about money that I would be okay. But I’m not…it all doesn’t feel right and there is no point in going through with something only for the point of not quitting. Besides, I’m not really canceling the whole trip, I’m only taking a break. I will book a return flight to Germany, so that in about 3 to 4 months I will fly back to Australia and end the trip the way it was planned. But that way I have the chance to work at home where I can do a work I actually enjoy doing, make more money then here in Australia and come back hungry for more backpacking.
Yes, of course I’m afraid of regretting my decision soon after coming home, but let’s face it…none of the many options I have is perfect, so I’ll go with the one that I feel best about.
I also thought about only leaving Australia behind and flying to New Zealand straight away, but I think it’s a 50/50 chance I’m taking that I won’t feel any better in New Zealand either.
So let’s hope I’ll find a good flight today…I’m really excited about seeing most of you soon!

Just wanted to say thanks to all the people who wrote to me over the last days trying to cheer me up and trying to convince me to stay. I’m still figuring out what I’m going to do next. I’ll see the job agent tomorrow again, hoping to get a factory job for a couple of weeks. If I don’t have a job by the end of next week I guess I’ll leave Brisbane…either to go to Sydney and then New Zealand, or to go up north or to go home…we’ll see what happens.

Ah well…I just got an email from my friend Johanna and she had the perfect way of describing my life right now…it’s a freaking soap opera!!!
So I went all the way to Cleveland yesterday to see that German lady about the job that she had to offer. Well the job itself might have been very interesting indeed and a very good reference on my CV, but the working conditions were just crap. What she pretty much said was : I’ve got very high expectation, I don’t trust anyone and therefore keep an eye on you all the same time and when it comes to you free time after work, we’re pretty unfriendly and our kids are a pain in the arse! And I’m not even dramatising here…but I all I thought about was the money, so I said that I would give it a try, but then on the bus home I felt like ” What in the world am I doing????”, so this morning I cancelled the job again. Oh and I also cancelled the job at document company because 20 hours a week are just not enough to get by.
So back to start…living at a hostel, no money, no job!
And on top of it, I had a major meltdown last night. I’m just so ready to go home!!
So after I spent a couple of hours working at the hostel today - cleaning the kitchen..so much about being in charge of the luggage- I will now try to find out what I truly want. At the moment I’ve got no strength left and I feel like I need a break. My thoughts are going in circles and my mood are changing by the hours - I’m usually never like this. I always know what I want and what I don’t want!
I’ve got different option now, one would be to fly to New Zealand soon and leave the whole Australia experience behind and finish my trip early. Another would be to book a return trip home…then work at home for a couple of months, fly back to Australia early next year and finish the trip the way I’ve planned it ( that mu favourite right now). At last option I could try to somehow take it really easy for a week or so and see if I might feel better then.
I had always promised myself that if I’d ever come to a point where I’m not enjoying myself anymore that I woulldn’t force myself to keep going. I have worked so hard for the trip, but it’s all not worth it if it makes me feel this way.
Anyway…that’s it for now….