I’ve been back in Germany from Australia for two weeks, or something along that line. Truth is, I have completely lost my feeling for time (hello, jetlag) and I usually can’t even tell which weekday it is. I was a bit shocked today when I realised that January is almost over. My first week here was very surreal. I had been away from this place for half a year. In this half a year, I have experienced how perfect and pleasant life can be. Suddenly, everything about this place is a shock, everything is making me feel incredibly unwelcome. People no longer cheerfully smile at me when I enter their business. The problems that I have left behind have not gone away. I was swallowed by a very cold, very dark, very rainy environment. Indeed, it felt like it is always dark – night lasts forever, and when the light comes out, it is shrouded by grey clouds. In my mind, I am accusing this place for making me put on so many clothes, something I had not had to do in half a year.

People ask me “How was it?” and my usual answer is “Too short”. Not because I want to make a cheap joke, but because it’s true. Just as I was about to make great friends, I had to leave them behind. Have I missed my German friends while I was away? Yes, but most of them I don’t see more than once or twice a year anyway, thus they probably haven’t even noticed my absence (or my return).

Australia is not a perfect country, it has many problems, most of them of political nature, some of them a product of its short history. But it is definitely the most pleasant, cheerful country I have ever experienced. My time in Australia has completely turned my view of the world upside down. Roughly ten years ago my goal in life was to live in the US, due to my family ties there. Today, I finally fully and completely understand the hatred against the US and can’t help agree with it. I realised that America is not my place in this world, though I’ll probably enjoy travelling there again in the future.

Australia, though it sometimes tries to imitate American culture, is at heart still a British colony. You can find evidence for this in all the small things – the fish and chips stores, the rugby and cricket games, the royals who keep popping up on the news. But what makes Australia such a relaxed place to live, is its position on the globe – far, far away from the worries of the rest of the world. No worries down under. (But then again, if something does happen, they get all overly anxious, such as with the ridiculously small amount of asylum seekers arriving by boat – seriously Oz, you’ve got more than enough space for a thousand of those boatloads.) Girth by the sea, Australia enjoys a somewhat quiet place in this world, with no neighbouring countries bothering them and no history weighing on its conscience. (Well, except for that thing with the indigenous Australians)…

Australia is a cheerful place to live, as Australians always appear cheerful if you engage them in smalltalk. They seem to not worry, or at least no display their worries. While I know that life in Australia isn’t always easy – finding a job or a place to live can be very hard, even for Australians – Australians have this way of dealing with it that just makes everything seem natural and not a big deal. Non-Australians often worry about things like dangerous animals, bush fires or floods when they talk about Australia. For Australians, it’s natural – there’s a flood, so what? They might stock up their food stash, then they’ll go home and sit it out. Bushfires have been a part of Australia since the continent evolved – how else would you explain that some of the trees actually need fire to open their seeds? Every Australian with a half brain probably knows better than to buy a house in the middle of the bush, where there might be bushfires. Most Australians live in the suburbs, far from such hazards – including those infamous dangerous animals. I have seen none in my time there.

One of the things that makes Australia such a beautiful place to live is its sun – having lived in Queensland, I enjoyed its presence almost every day. It gave me warmth and the comfort of not having to wear socks for several months. Its light illuminated my world, giving it bright, shining colours. I am like a moth, I love the light – albeit, the light of the sun, not the unnatural light that currently surrounds me in the darkness of the northern hemisphere. I love the colours the sun brings out, because they make the world such a warmer, friendlier, more beautiful place. A lot of Australians didn’t want to agree with me – they disapprove of the sun, as they feel it is too hot and too dangerous. Skin cancer is a big problem in Australia, but one that can easily be prevented.

While Australia is the most pleasant country I have experienced, New Zealand is probably the friendliest. I spent one month there after my time in Australia. Australia tries to be a bit like America, whereas New Zealand is still even more of a colony. Life is just life down there, a people really don’t give a toss about anything. They’ll let you do your thing while at the same time being extremely nice, chatty and friendly. Life is easy in the antipodes, and free of worries. The people there inherited the spirit of their ancestors, who left all their problems behind when they decided to migrate as far away from their former home as possible on this planet. It’s a place of new beginnings, free of baggage. There is no place in this world quite like the antipodes.

But here, at the opposite end of the world, life is always complicated and always hard. The scars of history are running through every city in Germany. There is a law that regulates everything. Paperwork always involves a migraine. Europe is a big game of dominoes.

I was always a bit jealous of people who have lived and travelled abroad, wanting to do the same, wondering how they did it. Now I have become one of those people I always envied. People here tell me how jealous they are and I can’t help to think “Stop being jealous, just go there yourself”. On the rare occasion that I actually dare to utter those thoughts, they usually reply “But it’s so far away!”. Oh yes, *shrugs* but that’s just the way it is. And does it have to be a bad thing?

If there is one thing this ramble has illustrated, it’s that there’s a positive and a negative side to everything. Everyone has to find their own individual balance, and I found that while life was light and trouble-free in Australia, it is weighing me down here in the old world.