Melbourne days

Sweet sweet Melbourne,

You have been great. I feel fueled up, running on nothing but love. Days and nights were filled with conversations, wine under stars, creative journeys in the garden, eyes shining bright with joy, feelings of pure bliss. So much love. Far too fruity to put down on paper. 

Saying goodbye was hard. Pep talks and back strokes were much needed to keep me from swimming through the water in my eyes. Very few things motivated me to leave the cocoon of the city's warm arms. Friends all gathered in one place to make my days. Thank you thank you! Gorgeous people in my beloved Melbs. You rock my socks. 

River coffee morning walk of the mind

Sitting by the Yarra river soaking up the last rays of Melbourne sun. Cat Power is playing while I close my eyes. Warm hands around the first morning coffee breathing in the smell of a fresh day and ground beans. Cigarette smoke and milky clouds tickle my senses, people are yawning they make me smile. One gesture tells an entire story. Short nights early rise it's time to get going, time to get a move on. 

My eyes are tiny, even smaller when I smile. That first sip makes my body shiver. Warm coffee on a crisp morning and you know everything will be alright. A little ritual I enjoy worldwide. In a winter cold Brussels appartment or outside of my tent in the Australian forest green. The soothing sound of a rattling coffee machine. The scent of a day filled with adventures crawling in your cup drink it up start your day slowly, one sip at a time.

St Kilda wanders

This takes me back to

where it all started 

three years ago

french toast bacon brekky

in a Melbourne cafe

walking around St Kilda

exploring possibilities of living here

it didn't last long

the next day we moved into a house 

in Fitzroy just off Brunswick Street 

the only way to end our endless party life

was to move out

book a flight to Tassie

and see what it's all about.

Sunday morning beach walk

meeting friends for breakfast

Albert Park boardwalk

picking up pieces 

of running conversations

white boat watching

sitting next to the pier

I remember losing

my heart to Melbourne

to the people, the memories made here.

I can't believe it's been two years

what has taken me so long

to come back to Australia

land of wonder

where falling in love

is a daily thing

and freedom is the key to happiness

skies are always starry

storms heavy

bright moon

night night

Rainbows after rainbow

Being back in the city has been good. A bit confusing over what to wear and how to act, but good. Melbourne is a big playground anyway, so I just play along. Well, playful, until you start talking about coffee. I forgot what serious business coffee is in the city of hipster. So after weeks of making weak "coffee" by stirring powder in hot water, I just ran to the first cafe and nearly gave a waitress a stroke by asking for 'a regular coffee'. PANIC! What to do? what does that even mean? How can coffee be regular? Dear Chloe saved the situation from getting out of hand and the waitress from fainting by quickly ordering a long black. O yes, I'm back in Melbourne.

One lovely Sunday morning I felt the urge to wear my psychedelic shorts and go out for a stroll along the beach to St Kilda. Bringing back Rainbow (Serpent Festival, see previous post) memories and having ridiculously delicious avocado and feta on toast brekky, because that's what this city is all about. Serious coffees and brunch abundance. No wonder I gained ten kilos the first time I visited this place. 

All of a sudden the streets flooded with people, even more colourful than usual. Rainbow flags, glitter rain, men wearing high heels and women in wedding dresses. Rainbow, the sequel: Gay Pride! Nothing but smiles and cheering, good vibes and daytime dance moves. My kind of party! Another reason to love Melbourne: she always has a surprise in store. Never a dull day under the city sun.

Rainbow delirium

My darlings, 

(I'm in Australia, so everyone is a darling)

It's been a while since I got into the blog zone, I know. I've been in a strange limbo between consciousness and sleep for the last two weeks. Pretty much as soon as I touched Australian ground. Arriving in smoking hot Brisbane wearing thermals and woolen outfits: no. Don't do it. 

My dear friend Maggie picked me up from the airport and after 29 hours of trying to find a comfortable position to sleep in my plane seat, I was dying a million deaths of desire to run away from any planes, straight into her arms and join her to the first pub in sight. 

After three days of jetlagging like a professional, I made my way to Melbourne. My new partner in crime Julia gave me a lift to Rainbow Serpent Festival. As we entered the site, we disappeared into a giant cloud of a different world. Goodbye reality, hello rainbow! I was happy as a blossoming flower to be dancing at this colourful party again. Where costumes can never be over the top, music is non-stop, people are non-stop. And after days and nights of happiness and confusion, everyone is just dwelling in their own soup of madness. There is even a name for it. It's called Messy Monday. 

That's after four days of Rainbow. Now imagine spending eleven days at that festival. There are no more dreams. There is no more reality. It's all one big blurry slice of paradise. The best way to describe it is like walking through the poppy fields of Oz and falling asleep without even realising it. 

I tried to shift fluidly from dreams to reality by getting on the free train to Melbourne. My body had no sense of time so I slept, got myself together and moved all my bags (how did one backpack turn into backpack plus three giant bags? The magic of traveling!) on a tram to my fabulous friend Chloe. In fifteen minutes she turned me from a dirty hippy into one of those well-washed dignified people you often see in cities. And so I'm back. Back in my beloved Melbourne, where it all started three years ago. Walking through her streets fills my head and heart with memories. 

Shivers of excitement.

I'm back.

Last day in Australia

What did you expect?

Memory Lane

There are days you wake up, grab the whiskey from your bedside table and turn every coffee into an Irish one. I call those my thinking days. I hang around the house in pyjamas and I think about life. I take a long walk down Memory Lane and smile when Granada comes to mind. The town where Spanish meets Arabic, where I met beautiful friends and fell in love. A place that brings sunshine to mind and drunken dancing through the streets. But on thinking days, there is none of that. No thoughts of Greek lovers and nights filled with absinthe. In my head I travel back to a white house in the suburbs, a 30 minutes bike ride from the center. 50 because I got lost. I'm in the small kitchen baking brownies and talking with a gorgeous Italian girl. She tells me she dances. Dance is life and she only found out about that not so long ago.

She asked me what I did. I told her I like dancing, that one day I would be a circus artist and I would love to play an instrument too, because people who travel with guitars are awesome. I wouldn't mind writing. Traveling and writing for money. Interviewing people and becoming a part of their lives. Or acting, I would love to act and play different characters every day. Did I mention I like dancing, too? She interrupted my ramblings to ask how old I was. 21. Ooooooh you're only young! You have sooooo much time to figure out what you want to do and who you want to be. I'm 25 and I only just found out I want to dance. But you, you have aaaaaall the time in the world to try and see what your talent is. 

I wish I would bump into that girl right now and continue the conversation, four years later. I know chances are small I will see her again when I'm moving only from the couch to the kitchen. But on thinking days that's just what I do. I want to ask her if she still dances, if that is her talent she was looking for all along. And I would tell her I dance too, on hippy festivals in Australian forests. I can juggle with one ball and I bought a ukulele. I can't wait to learn how to play, if only I knew how to tune the damn thing. I write letters and once in a while a blogpost. Acting is still on my to do list. Many dreams to realise. But at the moment, I don't have enough head space to think about a career. Or buying a house and settling down. I'm almost 25 but still naive and I don't mind. Because I know now what I knew then. I travel. And one day, I'll be a professional traveler.

If you would like to sponsor my endless trip around the globe, do let me know. 

Now please excuse me, I have a whole lot of thinking to do.

Wedding anniversary

Do you remember my wedding with my first wife Gemma last year? When I was still blond and fat and new to the whole wedding thing? We had a beautiful day in Brisbane playing love songs and eating cake. It looked a bit like this:

One year later, we met up again and all I wanted to do was jump into her arms and never let go. This time we were prepared. There were wedding gowns and two best men who dressed up in suits on a 42 degree day and drank coffee with tequila for breakfast. Best men are the best. We drank our brekkies, wiped the sweat off our faces and posed like people do on their one year anniversary.

After our wedding shoot in the center of Melbourne, we drove to best man Laurens house to grab bikinis and guitars and go to the river for an afternoon of swimming fun. Until her car broke down in the middle of the road. I pushed it to the side of the street, tripping over my wedding dress. While she called help, her beard was melting like ice cream on a sunny day. So there we were: a half bearded best man and the sweatiest bride you've ever seen, sitting next to a broken car on the side of the road. 

One hour later we arrived at her house, jumped under the garden hose to cool down and decided to enjoy our anniversary day in Melbourne's loveliest garden. There were guitars, ukuleles, fruitbowls, cheese platters, the finest chocolates and five bottles of champagne. It turned out to be one of the most amazing days of my life. The gorgeous company, music and conversations filled me up with love and inspiration. My sweet wifey would be going to Nepal soon, so we enjoyed every last moment together. We danced, sang and celebrated life the whole day. Two days later, I booked tickets to Nepal. Wifey, I'll see you in Kathmandu in March. And I'm bringing my wedding dress. 

Melbourne: part three

For the third time in three months, I found myself wandering around the small alleyways of my beloved Melbourne. The city girl part of me felt at ease as the city smell entered my nose and I got sucked into the big crowds of people in the center. Soon my body fell back in the ritual of morning walks, story telling and drinks before noon with beautiful friends. The faces in Fitzroy and the couches of my favourite bar The Black Cat felt comfortingly familiar. My home in between travels.

And like every time, Melbourne had something new in store for me. I'm always the one screaming on the front row at concerts, but not this time. I had to keep completely still, no moving, whispering or laughing during two hours. For the first time in my life I went to a classical concert. I stood out from the fancy crowd a bit with my hideous flowerdress and I had to borrow shoes from a friend because I live in my havaianas. My fabulous looking friends like to believe that every hobo can be transformed into a shiny diamond when holding a glass of champagne. So as we arrived at The Recital Center we headed straight for the bar and sipped champagne like we do it all the time.

I secretly loved it, because I'm used to wearing the same comfy clothes, hitch-hiking and sleeping on beaches. And all of a sudden I was acting like someone who knows what she was doing, hanging out with posh people. The concert was magnificent. I forgot about everything around me and my head was completely filled with music.

The day before was spent in a slightly different way: celebrating Saint Patricks. The day Irish pubs all over the world get packed with people wearing green outfits and drinking liters of beer. The same thing happened in Melbourne: hundreds of drunk guys with green hats, Irish bands and lots of beer.

It has been years, probably since I lived in valencia in 2009, that I visited a zoo. Which is strange because a garden full of funny animals has the same effect on me as six cans of redbull on a kid. As soon as we got the map of the zoo in our hands I started freaking out. "O MY GOD THEY HAVE GIANT TURTLES!!! AND MEERKATS! OOOH LOOK ZEBRAS! THE LIONS ARE ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE PARK BUT I WANT TO SEE THEM NOW!! A BUTTERFLY GARDEN?! ELEPHANTS! I WANT TO SEE THE BABY ELEPHANT!!"

Best day of my life.

Sweet madness

The story takes place in Melbourne. After days of festivals, bumping into the funky Yeasayer guys, free concerts, meeting awesome people, open air swimming pools, arty night markets and many many summer cocktails on rooftop terraces, I thought nothing could improve the sweetness of life.

But there it was. The note from the post office saying there is a parcel for me to pick up. A big fat cardboard box with my name written on it. It had traveled all the way from Belgium to Australia with one goal only. To make me miss home. As I tore the tape off, the box screamed: "Come back to Belgium!!! And gain fifteen kilos before doing so!" All different shapes and sizes of chocolate seemed to be dancing in front of my eyes as I unwrapped my late Christmas presents. I felt my face turning red as I found myself sitting next to a pile of sweets and choccies nearly reaching the ceiling. Ever since that day I have been walking around with a huge smile and a bag filled with sweet deliciousness. And I can tell you, I made a whole lot of friends.