Phew. It’s been a few rough weeks, and I sure am glad to be home now. Ghana is gorgeous, if the dirtiest country I’ve ever been to, but it’s also incredibly difficult to travel through, in my limited European experience. Tanzania felt much easier, though that might just have been thanks to our group leader.

In the next few weeks, I’m hoping to write down some impressions from both Tanzania and Ghana before I forget them. Pictures from Tanzania are (slowly!) being uploaded as we speak, but those from Ghana will take a while longer—I only just transferred them from my camera to my laptop.

Utterly contrary to what I’d planned for the near future—namely not travelling (especially not flying) until the spring—, I’ve already booked two new trips.

I’m going to Italy next month with my father, who is visiting la famiglia. We’re going to be staying in Rimini (where we apparently have family), Padova (where he wants to look at old cars…) and Udine (where we also have family). Exciting! I’m very much looking forward to actually getting to know my family; when I was little and we were in Italy all the time, I didn’t speak a lick of Italian and they didn’t speak anything but that, so that should be fun this time around, especially considering I still don’t really speak Italian and they still don’t speak anything else. And the other thing I’m excited for are the day trips that I’ve planned—one each to Bologna and San Marino (from Rimini) and—if at all possible—one to Bled, Slovenia (from Udine). I’m also going by train, which I’ve never really done before. The furthest I’ve ever gone by train was Sylt, or maybe Hesse, I’m not sure which is farther. It’s going to take far, faaar longer than by plane (as in, 16 hours instead of an hour and a half), but I’m so sick of flying at the moment that I’m actually looking forward to the long train journey.

And then there’s London. I know, I only just went to London half a year ago, but my friend Tiana is staying there for a while and has invited me over. She meant to come visit me in early November, but because she wants to be in London for Guy Fawkes Day, I’m going over instead. I just really like fireworks, okay? And Ti has a fancy hotel room, fancier than anything I’ve ever stayed at, and she’s sharing it with me! Isn’t that cool? Anyway. So that’s what I’m doing in November. I couldn’t find a cheap / good way to get there by train, so I’m flying into Heathrow and then going back on the EuroStar.

Guess I really did know what I was talking about when I dubbed 2012 ‘Year of Travel’, eh?