Fourteen Days.

Congratulations, everyone. We have gotten through the month of July, and as our reward we are all being presented with the month of August. This means, among many things, that I have now been out of Australia for an entire month. It actually feels like about four years.

Thanks to the wonderful people at Singapore Airlines, the earliest flight for which I can be confirmed departs on the 14th of August. This is, so my totally amazing mathematics has deduced, fourteen days from now. Exactly what my spotty body will be doing for fourteen days is somewhat beyond me, but it will be staying here for a while, and then happening upon Sweden where it will see Low. It might then end up in Berlin for a while, before catching a plane from Frankfurt.

I have also, apparently, been 'waitlisted' for a flight on Friday.

Incidentally, the area just south of the München Hauptbahnhof (train station) is completely comprised of only the following things: hotels (mine included), sex shops (many), Internet and Discount Call Centers, and döner kebap shops. Exactly how a döner kebap differs from any other kind of kebap I have yet to establish, however it does show that I am located in the heart of the Turkish quarter of München. Germany is quite well known for its large Turkish immigrant population, and last night I decided I would dine on its ethnocultural specialties. This didn't work out as best it could.

For starters, what I really wanted was something resembling Koshari from the Jerusalem Shishkebab House back home. This is basically lentils and rice, with a garnish of cucumber and yoghurt. Instead, every single kebap shop offers little more than a bunch of vegetables and some rice. (When it doesn't involve meat grilled four ways, and then fried, and then grilled again. In Turkish gravy.) Also, all of the restaurants have the same menu, and many even have the same pictures. It's like I stepped into an ethnocultural twilight zone featuring streets lined with Turkish McDonalds'.

I eventually settled at a restaurant where the waitress and I couldn't communicate in each other's languages, but settled on the universal language of romance. I should call this French, because it was one of the most completely unromantic conversations I've ever had. It did involve me being told where to put my tray, and being served, so I could then pay. My rice was littered with lentils, but my 'vegetables' were really grilled eggplant in some kind of gravy, slopped on the side of the plate by a surly Turkish guy with a six o'clock shadow.

I then asked for Türkisherkaffee, hoping to experience Turkish Coffee made by real Turkish people! I was actually hoping for a recreation of the singular glory of Jerusalem Coffee from the Shishkebab House. Erica tells me this singular glory is called 'cardamom', but I like to think of it as singular glory nonetheless. Instead, my Turkish Coffee was a ridiculously thick caffeinated substance with seemingly no added spice at all.

And then I walked home. Fourteen days to go.