I sit now at a dirty internet cafe in Paris, but before I discuss this, there is some backtracking left to do.

The football tournament was a blast, although a bit short-lived in retrospect. We drew a tough pool, having to play the Brazilians and the Croatians. We were hoping that both teams would actually be made up of Austrian kids looking to have a bit of fun, but we would not be so fortunate. The Brazilians were, well Brazilians… and likewise with the Croatians.

We lost our first game 5-1 against the South Americans, a mix of poor strategy, poor execution, and admittedly, one weak goal let in on my behalf. During the second game, we were simply playing for pride, while Croatia actually needed the win to advance to the semi-finals. With Brazil cheering us on from the sidelines, we drew against Croatia 1-1, in a tightly played game that saw at least three balls ring off the post.

Anyways, by the end of the tournament one fight almost broke out, one guy ended up in the hospital (although not as a result of said fight), and the Austrians lost the final to Turkey. C’est la vie.

Last week I hopped into a car with a friend and we booted our way down to the Croatian coast in search of sunny beaches and fresh seafood. Success!! We had intended to stay until Friday or Saturday, but somehow forgot all our reasons for coming back and, well, just sort of stayed. The weather often looked bad in the morning, but always managed to clear up by early afternoon, a perfect time to head to the rocky beach, go for a dip in the Adriatic and lay about like reptiles under the sun’s glorious heat.

Nights were filled with grilled calamari, cheap gin & tonics, and ridiculous karaoke tracks. How do you pronounce } anyways? (It’s something like an ‘sch’ sound…)

The town we were staying in had a massive two-night, end of-of-summer seaside street party on the weekend, filled with jubilant Croatians, boisterous Italians, a small mix of Austria/Germany/Netherlands, and of course, one Canadian. House beats blasted from bar kiosks, and I couldn’t help but be amazed that I never once saw anybody fall into the sea. I did see a few busted up faces, and a couple of sweet passouts as well, but even these seemed like really isolated incidents, especially compared to the size of the crowd.

I returned to a rainy Salzburg without much time before departing again. I bought a few gifts, dropped off some borrowed items, paid off a few debts and said goodbye to some great people. Unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to see everybody before I left, so I can only wish them the best from a distance.

As for the moment, I sit in Paris as mentioned before. I arrived this morning on an extremely early plane from Munich. I don’t think the plane had even leveled off before I was back to sleep. A short time later I was woken by a stewardess from my iPod-induced dreams, and with chocolate for a parting gift, I was let loose in Paris once more.

With most of a full day ahead of me, I decided to deal with some Internet issues before finding accommodations for my last three nights of yet another great European summer.

I fly home on Saturday, and will be sure to spend a lot of time between now and then trying to find an answer to the same question that everybody in Salzburg seemed to be asking me…

When am I coming back…?