StickyMangoRice

So…i’ve been neglecting my blog.

I’ve had a little bit of an unofficial blogging hiatus since November, because of many distractions from other projects that i’ve been working on. I finally placed myself in French language classes through the Alliance Francaise in Sydney (which, by the way, I wholeheartedly recommend for you would-be multilinguists).

I started learning basics of French on the road about 2 years ago. Cindy taught me how to count to ten (and various important swear words), and i’ve been teaching myself with instructional books and podcasts ever since then. But the classroom eventually becomes necessary.

I love learning a new language. I find to be very mentally stimulating, as if there are gears in my brain (un-used since school) which have had the dust swept off and are squeaking into life.

The main reason i’ve been distracted from blogging is due to the good news – i’m happy to say that i’m engaged! When I began my round-the-world backpacking journey, I never dreamed that i’d be meeting my future wife just 2 weeks in, by chance, in a tropical thunderstorm in a Bornean national park.

We both were backpackers when we met, hauling around our lumbering backpacks of clothes and cameras on our backs; then following the plan (or just by impulse), we followed each other around the world to whatever country seemed most enticing, without regard to budget or consequence.

When it was time to get jobs, we settled in and filled up bookshelves and worried about visas, the whole time daydreaming of ever more travel (snatching it where we could – a week in Bali here, a detour through Iceland there), and continuing our everlasting ‘honeymoon period’ which began back in Asia all that time ago.

Why no time for writing? We’ve been planning, designing, painting, Pinteresting and emailing to plan an entirely different kind of holiday – a Parisian wedding!