Another month, another post.
After 15 flights, 8 cities (but 9 countries - go figure!), 6 research institutes, 5 weeks, 4 train trips, 2 boat rides, 2 mind-blowing conferences, a refreshing sunset swim in an alpine lake, countless taxi, coach, bus, tram and tube rides, 40+ supper/coffee/brunner appointments, and a wisdom tooth extraction later, I am back to frosty windy wild wet sydney.
It has been an amazing run, filled with wonder and surprise and awe - more tricks up those Divine Sleeves, Faithful, yet again! I was surprised at how comfy and enlivened I felt traipsing through strange places, meeting with fascinating folk from all over and from different disciplines! Also, not a single missed appointment/connection!
An added bonus was being able to meet with some of you under remarkable circumstances: coffee at London Gatwick transit, bunking over after a tragic orange loss and going crazy over aerodynamic brollies, random prata and otah near midnight, hole-in-a-wall coffee place with fantastic cappucino + pay-what-you-wish (along with voluptous botrytised chenin blanc), pasta/pizza extravaganza with good friends and a tipple (pass me some GSM), catchup brunch + icecream at the Harbor, a quaint recording session for YOG on accordion and irish whistles, a soaking session refreshing the spirit, slow late afternoon prayer and sharing leading towards supper, late-night chats over fantastic coffee and airport runs, baby-handling (or wrangling?) at vivocity, lunch with beautiful rojak (with a complimentary laptop consult!), after-church double lunch, sit-in-the-car prayers, even an amazing simple sharing at macdonalds! Thank you for making my short visit so meaningful and strategic! Its such a wonderful blessing to have great friends and mentors, be understood, and loved, despite my idiosyncracies.
For now, it's back to "normal life" (whatever that means!) as a post-doc researcher here at UNSW until the end of the year. What happens next is a mystery. (update: I've been given an Australian Postdoctoral Fellowship position at UNSW - Hallelujah!)
The Water is Wide... the Øresundsförbindelsen connecting the two metropolitan areas of the Öresund Region: the Danish capital of Copenhagen and the Swedish city of Malmö.
Details of the visit can be found here:
