Incredibly Nice Memories of Living Away from Home

So I went downstairs for a walk in my shorts, t-shirt and sweater, hoping beyond hope that it could have been cooler. Thought about a couple of things.

First, the incredibly nice memory of living away from home. Nobody (at home) knew about this much (except my room mate then, who had to put up with all my quirks - and I have got a lot!) but anyway, in the middle of the night during exam time, I would put on my running gear and go jogging in the Melbourne cemetery alone. Yes, at 2am in the morning. It was usually during winter, when the chill air wakes you up in time for another cycle of studying in the dead of the night. Sometimes D-, a friend then, would join me, and we would both sit in the sofa or something, watch 300 MTVs countdown to the top 10 on weekends, and chat until sunrise.

Pour moi, that was la dolce vita, the sweet enjoyment of sunrise over coffee, staying up late, chatting with friends, jogging in a crisp and calm winter's night. It's funny what you take for granted and what you miss when you're home away from home.

The second thought I had was around someone asking me if I was envious of enuwy for being in London, where I wish I would be. Funny, the person I'd expected to have asked me that didn't (but then again, he probably knew that I was feeling a bit itchy for some travel again...) and the person I'd have expected to have the hidden agenda for me to stay, ironically did. I didn't know what to say. Perhaps it wasn't really envy, since I knew I could jolly well do that myself if I'd really wanted, but the truth is, I haven't really figured out yet the dynamics of being Asian in Asia. It's an amazing dynamic, filled with many interesting complexities of feeling like you should be at home, but half-hearted about missing things overseas that shaped my life as I was growing up and experiencing them.

Here's some of the incredibly nice memories I have of living away from home...

1. Out partying in Leeds and Manchester, singing with (rather drunk) friends along the streets and stumbling home the next morning on the early morning train.
2. Sitting on a quiet day in the summer heat sipping a cool glass of iced latte, as the dog in the neighbouring table, a french briard, gives you the hot tongue out as his metrosexual owner chats with his female friends.
3. Staring at the TV screen playing Australian's 300 greatest hits MTVs (some of them you wonder at...) counting down until the sun rises at 8.30am with #1 (usually Kylie Minogue or someone like that) and you crawl into bed with the sun in your eyes and wake up again at 3pm.
4. Chatting with friends over tea in each other's little dorm rooms from 9.30pm in the morning till 7.30am the next day. I don't know why we had so much to talk about, but I do know that our conversations formed friendships that honestly last a lifetime.
5. Plastering the walls with excerpts from 17 different copies of wallpaper*. Yes, my favourites were the absolut and skyye vodka ads.
6. Skating on the frozen university lake in knee high boots on New Year's Day. Apparently if the ice had broken (which it probably was close to doing), I would have had to be rushed to the nearest clinic or hospital (most likely closed on New Year's Day) to have gotten a nice cocktail of antibiotics injected into me because the lake was that toxic. Happy memory #2: I didn't fall in.
7. Singing songs from Les Miserables in duet on the top of Barrows building, the tallest building in university, with the wind in your hair, fresh air in your lungs and a gorgeous view of San Francisco before your eyes. Yes, I think I'll always keep that place sacred for the songs that we were singing and the company that we were with.
8. Dancing in the salsa club with some of the coolest friends you'd ever get to know. We were such a mixed bag and an unlikely bunch... Persian, American, French, Italian, British, Singaporean, Australian, German, Ukrainian, Hongkonger, Canadian Chinese, Swedish Indian, Japanese.
   
   Somehow the bonds we had went beyond the colour of our skin or the countries and cultures that we were from. I never really believed in the connections that you could make across cultures happening for real, despite having been all over the place. Somehow you made me believe all that was possible. Right now, with the mixed marriages that I'm seeing, looking at their faces, blurring the lines between local and foreign, I'm really starting to believe in the magic of people coming together as global citizens. It's really inspiring.
9. Sending postcards to myself of the Travelling Cow, and receiving postcards from places like Turkey and Prague from far away people in far away places. Hearing how friends you have always believed in are in Sierra Leone, Ghana, Turkey, Lebanon and with Peace Corp, JICA, teaching in Shanghai, teaching you that life is meant to be seized with the attitude of carpe diem and small victories.
10. Trying fried chestnut cake for the very first time. It's amazing how little simple pleasures like food can wake up your senses. Even more amazing that for the first time, in a very long time, I've actually tried a new taste, and one that I like. Sure, I can go for new tastes in various forms if I really wanted to be adventurous - like eat escargots, or rocky mountain oysters - but imagine finding out that you like something, actually like something, after having a whole lifetime's worth of experiences that you've set in stone that you like. That simple joy of being able to add one more thing to the list is absolutely to die for.
    
    Oh that said, I'm changing one more thing to the Seven Things meme - I can't believe I missed this one out! It's of course A) getting married in Spain, Zaragoza to be precise, and B) having degustation menu at El Bulli, Ferran Adria's flagship restaurant.

The third thought I had was a song, called (unoriginally) Home:

Home, in the quiet streets by quiet people
Living with the quiet smile upon your face
I never feel like I am near or away
You never make me feel out of place

Home, this is where the darkness lingers
I can feel safe, being miles away from you
By the candlelight, as your smile flickers
There's no other place I would rather be

They say Home is where the heart is
My heart has travelled miles to where
I rest my shoes, my head upon your shoulder
We could be so many places...

Home, different smiles and different faces
The memories pass us by like fading years
In our starburst days, we leave different traces
These are the only legacies of our lives.

They say Home is where the heart is
And my heart has travelled miles, to where
I rest my shoes, my head upon your shoulder
In so many different places...