Aftur Heim.... or as they say in English coming home

It is currently 2:30 in the morning i'm sitting in a ridiculously comfortable bed, but alas I am un able to sleep..... bloody Jet lag. I flew into London yesterday from Vancouver,and adventures are now safely underway. The flight was not nice, there was a crying baby behind me the whole time and I was really tempted to turn around and tell the mum to give her kid some whiskey and make it shut up already. Instead, I was a good sensible Anna and decided not to. In addition to having a Baby thinking it was Adele behind me, I was sitting next to two Germans I was on the Aisle and they conveniently needed a wee every single time I fell asleep! The flight was a bit delayed getting into London but not by much.

I absolutely love Heathrow, because, customs literally takes about two minutes to get through if you're an EU national. They literally look at your passport for about 10 seconds, whilst talking to a co-worker about the football, sip their coffee and hand it back over to you. I got picked up by two of my best mates Jess and Naomi which was a lovely surprise and we squished in the Jess's little car. It was like I never left the UK, but it always feels like that, gossiping about what happened in the village discussing the telly, life, families and mutual friends and singing along to S Club 7 in the car. Our singing voices are all as equally horrid as they were when we were kids. However, this time we actually knew all the words and what the lyrics meant. Its quite weird listing to songs from childhood and actually understanding what the lyrics mean..... it's a miracle our parents let us listen to these songs as kids.

So far being back home is wonderful. I know most of you reading this find it odd that despite having lived in the land of maple syrup, snow, hockey riots, bacon and Moose's( or is it Meece?) and politicians with revolting haircuts.... (not like David Cameron's is much better but thats beside the point ) I still call this country is home. I suppose the reason is because its where I feel the most relaxed and the happiest, I am not sure but there is something about it that as soon as I pass through customs I know I'm home, granted it's never for a very long period of time but that doesn't matter.

Last night was spent around the dinner table with Jess and her family. We had a Indian take away, wine gin and tonics, and mini French larger's that Jess's dad always buys. It was so so lovely and felt extremely normal, like home. We talked about changes that have happened in the area, and how some things haven't changed. Changes in the village have consisted of, a few black people from Zimbabwe and Jamaica who are apparently really clever have moved to the village, some more Indians moving in, running a restaurant that now gives you free beer with you curry if you spend enough ( just 1 reason why I love this country). Other changes that I have noticed are there are considerably less adverts for car insurance on the telly (Thank GOD!), some new sofas, Jess is now driving , the pub down the road now sells fancy Coffee, and the country has gotten extremely patriotic.

Think of what was suppose to happen with Kony 2012, but instead take Union Jacks and put it all over every single shop and every single street in England, what with the Queen's Diamond Jubilee( 60 years our queen'y has been on the thrown she has and your money Canada, and Australia to name a few) and then the Olympics and then  the Royal Wedding last year. I think its a good thing for the county, the economy has gone down the toilet and things have been quite grim so i'm hoping that the Olympics will brighten some things up, and cheer people up a bit and hopefully revive it.

Although some things have changed some things remain unchanged. Booze is still cheaper, Curry is still better, the country is still more liberal than Canada, Chocolate is better, skies are grey, rain( but its different rain than Vancouver), roads are just as thin, American flag clothing is still fashionable in the summer, the chavs are still around, David Cameron is still a pompus twat, Boris Johnson is still the mayor of London and continues to be a hilarious muppet, and the gypsies still live on Oreston Lane.

Got a Sunday Roast tomorrow which I'm looking forward to it with Grandad and Jess's family. He's bringing half a cow so I'm looking forward to some yummy beef and having a lovely food baby before I go out that night.

It's 3 days till i'm off to Tanzania, and it hasn't quite sunk in yet that i'm actually going yet. It probably won't hit me till I actually get there, and realize that I'm a minority( not that I'm not use to that having lived in Vancouver for 2 years now). I'm really excited for it though, being a transient child of the world I enjoy change and adapting to local life styles and customs so, "being a Tanzanian/ African" for three months is something I cannot wait for. Especially, going to church and getting my gospel on, I'm not religious ,but I know churches in that part of the world are pretty much a continuation of saturday night which I quite like the sound of.

Hope this wasn't too long or dry.... well I am in England so it shouldn't be :P!