Nostalgia

My Mum is flying to Japan today and I really envy her. I know that I've already been there twice whereas it's her first visit, but I also know that October is a beautiful time to visit and I fondly remember that first vacation in Japan with my cousin. In other words, I'm a bit jealous and very nostalgic when I think of the beautiful trees in autumn colours:

I've also been thinking about Sydney a lot recently and how magical my 3 months there were. I'm not saying that I felt at home from day one and I do remember the weather having been less than picture-perfect on many of those days, but I loved it a lot and wouldn't mind revisiting soon. Australian spring is a pretty sight just as is Japanese autumn. You do remember my fixation with Jacaranda trees, don't you? This beauty that I used for my 2012 photo calendar I saw in Brisbane:

The past 5 months I've been travelling a lot for work and will continue to do so in this quarter. The advantage of it is that I get to see great places on company money and it always feels like a mini-vacation as well. The disadvantage is that I don't really long for additional quality-time with VIE airport and really value down-time in Vienna or Klagenfurt to balance out all the travelling. For next year I already have several travel projects, some of them to faraway places - let's see how many I manage to realise...