The smell of gunsmoke in the grocery store

It's weird and a bit scary how fast you get back to your regular life. The major difference is your state of mind. In my case I left Melbourne feeling that the trip had come full circle and the thought of going home didn't scare me at all, even though things ended the way they did, but more on that later.

After my first night out we spent the sunday doing what was called a sunday session, or sunday sesh for short. Again, abreviate EVERYTHING, the Aussie way.
This was a very different sort of event for me, because it is unheard of back home. Meeting up for a barbeque on a sunday - maybe.
Meeting up for a barbeque with beers and spirits on a sunday when monday is a work day - unheard of.
The only thing that was off was again a host who didn't really make me feel welcome. I later learned that he wasn't very open with new people, so I guess he gets a slide. My housing host however was also acting weird, being very short in replys and tensed, I have no idea why.
After that the week was spent sightseeing the town and that's where the title to the previous post came about. We went to a part of town called Fitzroy and Brunswick street (which of course made me think of bowling)
We hit a place called Bimbo's during the day for a feed, but as it turned out, we had missed the pizza happy hour, so of course we decided to have a drink instead. Believe it or not, but I had a cup of tea rather than a pint, it just felt right.
The place was very different coming from a place where most clubs look and sound the same, this place had some run down sofas along with some new ones, a pool table with a cartoon baby drawn on it (which was the pub/clubs theme by the way), some very unique artwork and a room where you could talk into the wall and the whole room filled up with the sound of your voice (hard to explain, but it was funny as hell) It lacked all the pretentious bull shit that you can get so tired of back in Sweden. A very cool place and welcome change of pace.
After strolling down Brunswick street I got the feeling that I had been there before, and then it hit me - Fitzroy is Melbournes Camden.
For those of you who don't know, Camden is a borough a bit north of central London and if I remember it right, the place where the punk movement started during the 70's.
The fact that both these places are very close to the center of town but feel like an entity to itself is a bit of the allure I'd say.

The day after was spent at Rod Laver arena - yes, it was time to see Robin Söderling play grand slam tennis.
Besides catching a break and getting a ticket for free, I don't know how to describe it. It was a cirkus/concert/festival and tennis tournament in one.
Just being there was a feeling different from others. Since the Söderling match wasn't for another couple of hours after our arrival we roamed the courts checking out a few matches and my free ticket gave me a pass into the Mecca itself, Rod Laver arena.
To be honest I was totally indifferent to the match being played (Alicia Molik vs Roberta Vinci), but the arena made me stay for a good half hour.
After that it was on to Margaret court and Söderling vs Starace.
There were quite a few swedes there and when Robin took the court most/all rose and sang the Swedish national anthem which gave me goosebumps and very very nice feeling.
The match was interesting during the first set, after that the italian opponent crumbled and Söderling won in straight sets.

The tennis was my main mission and nothing could top it. The rest of the week included highlights such as trip to Victoria market where I had a kangaroo-burger which wasn't as good as the kangaroo sqewers I had earlier, but still good. I also taught my two friends people perception and reading over a few Sangrias. It's quite funny to mess with people's heads with the layout I have, because it always raises questions and is a good way to start a discussion.
We also hit St. Kilda beach where I met up with a friend I hadn't seen in a long time - Sam.
Some things change, but Sam was still the loud mouthed bundle of fun that I had left in L.A a year and a half earlier. Good fun to say the least.

It was shortly after this that the one speed bump in the otherwise perfect road trip occured. During one evening I was asked if I could find a hotel room for the last couple of days because my "landlords" had a lot to day the next couple of days. I found it weird but said fine, I just needed one more day to get cash because I was low on funds. Since no one could loan me the money, one more night was settled upon as far as I could tell, but I was wrong. Later that night I found a note on my bed saying that me staying in the house made my hosts "uncomfortable" and it was best if I stayed somewhere else. So with $10 to my name I was on the street. (Sidebar - the note ended with "no hard feelings")
The old me probably would've started demanding answers as to why I was thrown out, but I just didn't care for that fight, it wasn't worth my energy and whatever answer would come of it would just be 90% lie and 10% truth.
So I packed my stuff and thanks to Simon, the 3rd person in the house, I found a place to hang my hat.
Not in a good mood I settled on a place called the Discovery hotel/hostel. All I can say is don't do it. The room had no ventilation, unless you call an open window and a celing fan ventilation, no shower or WC and was just a dump. But at least I was out of Psychobitchville and I had already payed for it, so my options were....limited.
The next day I checked out and found a decent hotel down the street with a small kitchen where I put a kettle on and chilled a bit watching tennis.
Being in the center of town, I took advantage of a few stores having a sale and got some new gear. After that, some Nando's, more good indian food and tennis, it was time to say goodbye.

The flight home consisted of more Singapore slings, movies and very nice flight attendants. The thing that wasn't funny was the racial profiling I had to endure. They picked me "randomly" to do a gunpowder residue test. But I fought the law and I won.....SUCKERS!!!!

Arriving in Frankfurt I was a bit stressed because I only had a little over an hour to get to my connecting flight. Even though the line to the screening area was a mile long I had time to stop at the tax-free shop to get some Cointreau and Tequila (if you know for what, you win a bonus).
Upon payment I asked the saleslady, a 50 year old german woman:
-Do I leave the bottles here and you'll bring them to the gate?
To this she replied with a sly look on her face and with the classic english with a german accent:
-If you leave it here, I will drink it.
Side bar - it was 6.15 A.M.

After that it was just a ridiculously short 2 hour flight home. Ridiculous since my two previous flights had been 8 hours and 12 hours.
A few hours later I land in sunny Stockholm with a smile on my face and bag full of good memories.
The pine trees and the snow wispered to me as I stepped off the plane and I felt a total calm.
What they said? That's between me and them, but it was good.

Ps. The title refers to the reason why it's take so long for me to write this, but it just didn't come as natural writing about the trip when I'm back home as it did when I was in the middle of it. It's like describing the smell of gunsmoke and what you felt in the trenches when you're standing in the grocery store picking out some ripe tomatoes. If you've read all the posts, I hope you enjoyed the trip with me. Australia day in Sweden and the "welcome to the real world" to come. Ds