The title basically stipulates my travel plans as I intend to leave Europe to return back to Australia after quitting my job.

The reason why the timetable is so… let’s face it, shitty.. Is because the people that I want to see in the different countries are not all available in the times that I have.

It mainly concerns UK, & France to be honest.  My Chinese family is available middle of this month, but actually family, & family friends are not.

And France, 2 friends are available, but another friend that lives in Paris is not.  So I kind of have to zigzag, and revisit places…which is annoying, and costly, both in terms of time and money.

But if I return to Australia…then the chances of catching up with all these people again anytime soon is pretty much zero.

20 hour flight and at least 1000 AUD….yeah I think not.

Anyway, on the 13th I will fly to London, catch up with my Chinese family + a good friend and his new family who I originally met in Paris, a lovely guy that studied automotive engineering, (a long-held interest of mine).

And then I will fly to Bordeaux, on the 19th or so.  And catch up with Maxime & Eva for which hopefully we’ll be able to talk about a few projects that we’ve been wanting to work on… more about that later.

Then on the 22nd, my good friend Pierre will arrive back from China, and we’ll have about 2 weeks together…just relaxing and him introducing me to a different pace of life, which includes going to Cape Ferret (pronounced cape fairy) which is his family’s home, trying out some fishing and experiencing France’s great outdoors..  maybe travelling down to Siran (wherever that is) to catch up with Glenys & Ed, who are family friends who had the great idea of retiring and then living in eternal summer, ie. Spending summer in Australia with friends and family, then flying to France to have the Northern hemispheres summer and get the full French immersion experience that Glenys always wanted.

And then from there… hopefully going back up to Paris to visit a friend who I also met in Paris a while ago.  She is very busy.. so I have to plan that well.

Then, off to Poland quickly to visit a former housemate who went back to live in Warsaw again.  I honestly don’t care too much about visiting Poland, but just want to catch up with him.

Then hopefully down to Germany to catch up with a Chinese friend from Germany – Jacky, who has spent the last 2 years studying his Master’s degree there.

Then, back to the Netherlands, to arrange Visas, sell my motorbike, and ship the rest of my belongings back to Australia, as well as switch out housing contracts and all of that kind of crap.

Then, off to the UK again to catch up with Family, David & Liz, who have very graciously accepted a box of my belongings which was originally shipped to them when the original plan was that I would be living in the UK, instead of the Netherlands.

Will be good ot catch up with that side of the family again.  Then down to Cornwall to see mums good friend Marianne, plus my Uncle Neil, who was actually instrumental in me rearranging my studies towards Chinese in the 1st place.

And then back to France, to celebrate Maxime & Eva’s wedding…yes they finally decided to get married.  The wedding will mostly be in French…so I think I better start listening to my French learning audio books once again.

I will not be catching up with my cousins apparently.  I think they both live in London, but I haven’t received a reply from them…which to be honest is fine.  I guess it’s a bit weird for many people, but when you grow up in Australia and they grow up in the UK, and there’s 8 hours of time difference between you, and 21 hours of flight, and you’ve only managed to see them 3-4 times  before… then cousins rather sadly feel more like someone with a coincidental bloodline than actual family.

As a comedian put it- ‘ you have the same grandparent as me? Wow that’s incredible!  What a coincidence’  but that’s where the conversation can stop if you so choose.

And from France (Bordeaux), I will fly directly to Beijing, catch up with everyone that I missed on because of my accident.  Film a couple of motorbike vlog videos with Galen, then fly off to Chengdu to catch up and spend at least 2 weeks with 1 of my best friends Feaksie. – ‘The home of Pandas & the land of Pandas’ As the Chengdu taxi auto greeting recording profoundly states.

Very much looking forward to that, because that’s somewhere I always wanted to live.

Then, I’ll hopefully fly down to Shenzhen for a day or 2 to catch up again with Serpentza again.

Then down to Chiang mai in Thailand, where a good friend Fin (the one who originally decided to go off and become a Buddhist monk in Myanmar) has now decided to get married.  So I’ll be attending that on the 27th of December, and then spend some time with him there riding some motorbikes in the countryside, and once again enjoying a different pace of life… and then , sometime in mid-late January, I’ll arrive back in my hometown of Perth, Western Australia.  Ready to start the next chapter of my life.

So truly, coming back to Australia the long way around.

Hopefully I’ll still have enough money to start the next awesome project.

Look forward to seeing you all again soon.