How an Aussie Summer Disappears

Almost three years ago, on coming back from my South American gap-year adventure, I wrote the most beautiful piece I have ever written, looking back at the wonders I had experienced. In short and colourful words, I condensed an almost infitite amount of memorable sights and emotions into a text of less than 400 words.

One of the beauties of being in the southern hemisphere, apart from splendid weather and nice food, is, as Caitlan neatly explained on the Glasgow Study Abroad Blog, having a second summer. Admittedly, my European summer last year was cut short by arriving in Sydney, quickly being thrown into some sort of routine here.

As my Australian Summer is coming to a close, I want to look back at the last 14 weeks, trying to figure out where they went. As always, time goes by so quickly!

The first half week after my last exam consisted of a Hunger Games Marathon, great veggie dinner, movie night with my flatmates and some gym visits.

The next 3 weeks I was busy selling manual labour for $24/h and probably going a bit nuts while at it. Luckily, I escaped to the Blue Mountains, a few Sydney beaches, Comedy Night and an infuriating guest lecture by former Greek Finance Minister Varoufakis on my days off. And we had a great houseparty one of those weekends.

For 3 weeks after that I had family visits and the great pleasure of showing my dad the ins and outs of Sydney, after which we drove down the South Coast to Melbourne and eventually Great Ocean Road. Finally some long-wanted travelling, after which I was too tired to move very much for about half a week.

Then another intense week of work awaited, after which I took the mature decision to relax for a week, go to the gym, meet up with friends and book my tickets for New Zealand. 3 weeks of rushing through that wonderful country went by way too fast. One of the last two weeks I spent camping with a bunch of crazy and adorable friends I happen to like a lot, first in Mount Kosciuszko and then at Little Beach (close to Copacabana beach!) a few hours north of Sydney.

Apart from that, I've only managed to read about three books (slightly less than normal summers), countless of podcasts and finally started publishing bi-weekly for the Swedish Mises Institute.

This week is O'Week at the University, and on Monday my classes are back on - which means my wonderful Australian Summer has actually come to an end. Putting the pieces back together makes it more real, but I still don't understand how fast it all went by. Fortunately, I have another semester of learning, arguing, reading, having fun, writing essays and closely following the exciting developments in my field.