2005 was a big year for me. A life changing year, in fact.

Ooohh, sounds exciting, doesn’t it?

How was it life changing, you ask (the tiny person in my head is asking, anyway)?

It was the first time I left Australia. I applied for, and got, the Mike Thompson Internship with Deutsche Welle Radio. I’d never had the money to afford to go overseas before. I’d hardly travelled in Australia because it was so expensive. So to get a paid six months in Germany was beyond wonderful. And scary. I packed my bags in October, 2005, and moved to Bonn, near Cologne. I was co-host of the youth program, which was then called Cool, but I see they’ve changed the name to Pulse now, thank goodness.

I’d studied German as part of my degree, so I thought I was all set. But no-one told me they speak Kölsch in Bonn, in fact many of the workers in the shops and pubs don’t speak hochdeutsch at all, and certainly not English, so it made it interesting. But I made do and I got to travel a little bit, seeing Cologne, Berlin, Frankfurt, Stuttgart and Munich, and getting out of Germany to see Paris, London and visit my mother’s home country, Estonia with a weekend in Tallinn.

Another life changing event was I met my current partner. I had actually met him before 2005, at least I think it was before. We had mutual friends and weren’t in the least bit interested when first introduced to each other. He was then going out with a friend of mine for a bit and I only really became friends with him after he broke up with her and became extremely annoying by going on and on about how he’d win her back. He didn’t. Instead, we some how, got together. He followed me to Germany and we’ve been together ever since. Pretty life changing, not that I thought any of that would happen in 2005.

Feeling Good for 2005

Other things I did in 2005 were get and then quit a job. Quit another job. Move house and then move overseas. Drink faaaaaar too much. Really, seriously too much. I was drunk for much of the first half of 2005. Luckily I stopped, or my liver would not exist all these years later. I haven’t stopped drinking altogether, but I’m much healthier with my drinking habits now.

I listened a lot to Gorillaz in 2005. Particularly when I moved into a cool share house with awesome people and I stopped drinking myself to death. Don’t live with jazz musicians. They’re not good for you.

I was also listening to Kate Bush, The Smiths, more Rammstein and some Opeth. I really wasn’t interested in most of the mainstream releases at all any more.

Other things that happened in 2005

Other than my interesting life, some things did happen.

Pope John Paul II carked it. We got to learn about all the smoke and odd things that go on when they find a new pope then. Not being religious at all, I didn’t really know what they did. I still know more about how Roman Emperors were appointed than popes. 

Bob Geldof got annoying and organised the Live 8 concerts. Kind of a nice idea, but really, they could have just donated all the money that went into organising the concerts and done a cheapo ad campaign to raise awareness. But whatever.

2005 was when the London suicide attacks happened. My sister was living in London and working at Comic Relief, which meant she was evacuated at the time as they thought that part of town would be a target. So lucky she wasn’t near any of the explosions.

In the USA, Hurricane Katrina hit the coast, wiping out so much of New Orleans and making so many homeless. 

Back home, Tasmania started to introduce smoking bans in pubs and restaurants. It seems so normal now to not be allowed to smoke inside, but back then it took a lot of people ages to get used to it.