Home again!

But I didn't have very long to dwell on the fact that I was once more in my sister's house, a place I haven't been since the summer of 2004, because Michaela had convinced me that despite my jet lag and my long tiring journey it would be a fab idea to meet her and some friends of hers for Gluehwein at a Christmas market near her work.

So I just dropped my bags, had a quick shower, and then headed back out into the cold with Danielle, Tim's daughter who is also here for Christmas & New Year. We caught the train to Rosenheimer Platz and then had a very short walk to the Christmas market on Weissenburger Platz, where we soon found Michaela and her friends. It was snowing and bloody cold - and there's me with inappropriate clothing and a fuzzy head even before I've drunk any mulled wine!

My reunion with my sister was not traumatic or tearful or anything like that. It really seemed as if I'd only been away a month or so, not the eighteen months it's actually been. She's changed very little. I've lost heaps of weight, but it was her friend Claire who commented on that most vociferously ("Well now, Richard, you've left half of yourself behind in Australia!")

We had hot caipirinhas which were lovely - they taste like Lemsip with alcohol - and then moved onto the proper stuff: Gluehwein with shots of rum in. And we ate some fried potatoes which were very tasty. The entertainment was provided by an apparently homeless drunk man, who decided it would be a good idea to do a striptease in front of a bunch of school kids! He got topless (impressive tattoos, it has to be said) before a local stallholder's call to the police put a stop to the show.

I went shopping with Danielle after lunch. We had a hoot picking out black boots for her to wear; her Converse trainers just don't cut the mustard in this slushy weather. I opted to buy a fleece, in view of the fact that my winter clothes parcels are nowhere near arriving yet - in fact it'll be a miracle if they get here before I've left Germany, bloody mis-selling of sea mail services by that useless bloke in the post office round the corner from my house in Carlton!

When we got home, we just had time for a cup of tea before Tim got home from work. It was lovely to see him again after all those months. But I didn't last long before I had to have a lie down. It had been a very long day, what with intercontinental flying, lost luggage, and alcohol hitting my system at all hours. So I was much refreshed later on when Michaela came home with the boys.

Ah, now THAT was a noisy reunion! Ryan & Charlie have both grown so much since last I saw them. Charlie has lost that baby look altogether and is now definitely a boy, while Ryan has become even more extremely lithe; I'm sure children don't usually have such good muscle definition, do they? It must be all that kung fu that he's been doing for the last two years.

And so began the period of my family Christmas experience.

Which was lots of fun, although I was ill for quite a lot of the time - and not from the booze either! It seems the northern hemisphere has missed me, and upon my return has decided to unleash every last one of its nasty bacteria on me all at once. I've had tonsillitis, the flu, a tooth infection, and now a cold & cough. Hurrah!

But thankfully I've managed to rise above my illness most of the time. I was on good form for most of Chris, Kate and the girls' time here (from Boxing Day to New Year's Eve), and we had lots and lots and lots of fun together. I've missed Sophie & Livi so much while I've been away too! At least they remember who I am. And once again, they've grown up a lot in my absence. Livi is now just as talkative and lively as Sophie was when I left, while Sophie is now quite a young lady.

Needless to say, lots of beer was consumed, lots of pork was munched on, and lots of conversation was enjoyed. It was sad that they could stay for only such a short time, but Chris had to get back to work. I'll see them again soon, when I'm back in the UK.

New Year's Eve was a riot! We all went to a party being thrown by one of Michaela's work colleagues, Jackie. We brought a CD of the Prodigy's greatest hits, and made sure this was playing just after th fireworks went off at midnight. I haven't danced that wildly since - well, since about three weeks ago at Meredith!! It was fantastic.

Two friends I made while I was travelling in the jungles of Borneo, Jamie & Claire, are currently touring Europe before going to the UK to work. They were spending a few nights in Munich, so I of course met up with them to show them some of the sights, by which of course I mean some traditional Munich drinking holes.

We drank an obscene amount of beer: I met them at 7pm and I didn't get home until 4.30am, and the evening was just one huge pub crawl! After a bizzare conversation with some Japanese tourists in the Weisses Brauhaus (they were moved so much by our conversation that they felt the need to pay us EUR20!!), we ended up in a little place behind the Hofbrauhaus chatting to this mad old woman (well, they were chatting, I was just translating). But the best bit is, I can't even remember anything she said!!

On Jamie & Claire's last night I met with them again, but it was slightly more civilised - only five pubs this time. Well, they had a train to catch the next morning, and I'm on antibiotics, so all in all it was for the best that we didn't get so messy the second time...

And I think my blog will be entering a slightly less prolix phase from now on. After all, the exciting nature of my last three years of travel will not likely be matched for a while, now that I'm back in good old Europe and thinking about how to spend the next part of my life. I'll keep you all up to date with things of course, but it's going to be a bit quieter in The Life Of Richard for a little bit now methinks.