Day 351, The Last Post

El viaje se acaba. The journey ends. Day 351 of our grown up gap year, as Su calls it, dawned and we awoke to see sun-drenched French countryside through the window of our overnight train to Paris from Barcelona.

We chose to travel overland in the train-hotel so that the journey becomes an event rather than merely a means of getting from A to B.  You get dinner, breakfast and a cabin with two beds, a shower and WC. Somehow the planned leisurely 12 hour ride took 14 and a half. The crew had no idea when we would arrive. At 1015 when I asked the larger than life waiter in the restaurant car he told me "we are arriving" but we were still going at 1130.  Perhaps he was making a philosophical point - we had been arriving ever since leaving Barcelona. Perhaps he too has learned that life is about journeys not destinations.

Since we left work and the UK on 14 September last year there have been many obvious highlights such as spending time with  family in Cameroon, making two trips of a lifetime around South America and exploring Spain.  But the real luxury has been having time and space to recover from life in London where often the apparently urgent gets prioritised over that which is really important. Removing 50 hours of work per week and related stress revitalises the body and mind. I feel physically more active but less tired and mentally more stimulated in a mind less cluttered. It's also amazing what a year of good sleep can do.

It has been a great opportunity to think - to make sense of the past and work out what is important in the future, whilst always remembering to live in the present.

As the train finally reaches the end of the line, pulling in to St Pancras on the last day of this special year, we don't know what the next year will bring but whatever it is we are ready and looking forward to it.

First glimpse of London:
the Olympic Rings at St Pancras Eurostar Terminal

London Calling

On the way back to Spain we have three nights in London to add to the week we spent here last month back at our flat for the first time in eight months. It has been a chance to catch up with friends and family and in particular to celebrate, slightly belatedly, Janet and Neville's wedding. It has also been an opportunity to see PwC's brand spanking new office near Tower Bridge and continue discussions about what I might do for work from September. Nothing concrete to report on that yet, but it is still quite early days. 

Having spent the last few weeks as a tourist wielding a camera at the slightest photo opportunity, it felt like a role reversal this morning.  I was surrounded by visitors enthusiastically snapping away at world class attractions such as Buckingham Palace, Downing Street and the Houses of Parliament while others sat enjoying the sunshine in Trafalgar Square, St James's Park and Covent Garden. 

It was quite pleasant to be able to walk around for once without a map and not be on a schedule to see some sights, quietly ignoring what everyone else around me has spent a fortune to come to see. Get on with it,  I thought, as I had to wait to cross the street for the marching band of some or other regiment to pass by with their smart red uniforms and huge bear-skin headwear. I guess we never appreciate as much the riches that surround us on our own doorstep, but not being in a rush did give me time to stop to offer help with directions to a couple of American tourists. They seemed as grateful as we have been recently for the help of random strangers. 

Wherever we go in the world when asked where we come from it never occurs to either of us to say "Britain", "UK" or "England". A simple "London" or "Londres" always suffices. Indeed London has become such a place in itself that it must be one of the few places in the world where the cosmopolitan-ness of the tourists is exceeded by the even more diverse local population, now drawn from more than 200 countries. 

We don't miss traveling to work on the tube or the unreliable weather.  It is home to the now infamous financial services industry and it is the capital of a country that often lives on it's past glory. The food isn't great, the traffic and pollution can be appalling, the local football teams rarely win anything and it's an eye-wateringly expensive place to live. But we have many great friends here and, after all these centuries of history, it is still the greatest city in the world. 

Motoring

We have driven the entire length of France over the course of two days. We are probably biased but the journey didn't seem as interesting as driving through Spain. The western side of the country seems fairly flat and there is enough room for the motorways to pass by towns without being able to see them. In general therefore 1000km can pass without witnessing more than a subtle change of scenery. A medieval pilgrim on his way to London would no doubt have encountered all sorts of strange happenings on the way through France but if the modern day traveller puts his head down and foot on the gas it is pretty much possible to pass through without incident. So we have very little to report about the country that has brought the world some very good wine and cheese, turned frogs legs and snails into food, turned strikes into an art form and given birth to Napoleon, popular revolutions, William the Conqueror, Joan of Arc, General de Gaulle and of course Thierry Henry.

The highlight of the journey was a very fine evening spent with Suzanne's great friend from school, Fran, her husband Laurent and their boys, Julien and Tom near Nantes.  They live in a nice village house with a big garden and we sat outside drinking wine and barbecuing dinner while we caught up with the events of the previous five years since we last saw them.

Suzanne & Fran reunited

Maria the Spanish Tom-Tom woman guided us pretty well, although we weren't expecting to spend so much time in an industrial estate on the edge of Rouen. Nevertheless we arrived on time for our eurotunnel shuttle to Folkestone.

The other side of the Channel Tunnel went well too as we drove in bright sunshine up the M20 to London but after 2250kms with zero traffic hold ups our luck was bound to run out somewhere. And of course that somewhere was just the wrong side of the Blackwall Tunnel. After a lengthy delay we made it through the last few miles to our London home, which I last saw more than eight months ago. It was a good reminder of what we have been missing. The infrastructure can't cope, everyone is in too much of a hurry, the cyclists are living on borrowed time and the pedestrians in Hackney still think they have right of way over cars. There were various road closures and detours as we relied on local knowledge instead of Maria who is probably sobbing inside the Tom-Tom and pining for Valencia.

But we've made it all the way back by road and we have a week to reacquaint ourselves with the flat, friends and family and the office.  I wonder what we will make of it all. After visiting Africa and Latin America in the last few months this could be the biggest culture shock of our year away!

A Fond Farewell and a Warm Welcome

After a relaxing last day in Santiago eight of us went out for a farewell dinner organised by Yvette at a large place which has dancing from various parts of Chile. An excellent MC introduced the acts while running through an impressive range of jackets of various lengths, cuts and colours.

The stage retracts so that when the dancers have finished the professional bit there is room for them to dance with some suitable victims from the tables.  With Strictly Come Dancing style audience participation on the cards and being sat at the table of nearest the dance-floor we knew we were in the firing line so it was heads down and hope for the best.

I ordered the poor man's steak which was a large sirloin served with lots of chips, caramelised onions and two fried eggs. About 80% of the way through and beginning to feel rather full I was whisked onto the dance-floor to perform with a handful of other unfortunates. I have to say I was concentrating more on keeping my dinner down than where I was putting my feet but I think I did ok. Fortunately it happened at such speed that few photos exist (Su took a nice close up of my knee and a couple of shots of other people).

Following the main performance the MC led his band through renditions of old Chilean favourites which got most people on their feet but didn't mean much to us. Imagine a Chilean at the English equivalent and not being familiar with the Birdie Song or Agadoo...

However before long they switched to 70s disco music and Su was in her element, proving to be our group's most tireless dancer. Returning home at 230am wasn't perfect preparation for a 24 hour journey back but it was nevertheless a good night all round and an excellent way to say farewell to Chile and South America after five weeks.

Su, Yvette, Jay, Claudia & Gustavo on the floor

The 13.5 hour flight from Santiago was only 45 minutes late but that was enough to miss our connection. Iberia blamed everyone but themselves and offered us a new flight a mere nine hours later. Fortunately we got on a standby flight instead and arrived just two hours late, having called Sally to rearrange the cab that she had booked for us to take us to her and Keith's place for the night.

On walking through customs I thought the driver holding our name board looked very like Keith. It was Keith...and Sally!  It was fantastic to see them and to be collected. It was really nice of them and made our day after a long journey. We have been looked after very well by friends on both sides of the world.

The Great Escape

When we decided to travel via London to get to South America we had no idea how complicated it would be.  A combination of heavy snow in the UK, a strike by Spanish air traffic control and an impressive electrical storm here in Rio meant we were very lucky to complete our journey with a delay of only about 3 hours and no delay at all on the trip to London.  It could have been an awful lot worse.

When we booked 2 months ago to go to London we chose Stansted instead of Gatwick. That was the first piece of good fortune as Gatwick was closed by snow on the thursday that we travelled.
We got out just in time because the strike started on friday and stopped most planes to and from Spain.

Luckily by saturday night the snow had stopped in London and the Spanish government had forced the air traffic controllers back to work by declaring a state of emergency and effectively putting them under military control.  As a way of making things happen (or happen faster) in Spain this seems to open up endless possibilities. We might be able to get the car ownership documents we have been waiting for for 6 months, the certificate of house completion (nearly 5 years) or even get served a pina colada in Zensa beach bar in less than an hour.

As for landing at Rio we narrowly avoided being diverted to Sao Paulo but by the time we landed many streets had turned into rivers and there was traffic chaos. Nevertheless we got here and now the South America trip begins.

Friends

We have just treated ourselves to a restful day in the sun at home, walking on the beach and reading on the balcony, recovering after a brief, hectic and emotional return to England. 

The main motivation for the trip was to attend the memorial service near Coventry for our friend Rob who died suddenly a couple of weeks ago but we managed to fit in a few more visits while there.  Having arrived on a cold and wet thursday afternoon I made it to Charlton to see my sister Silo before we spent the evening with my oldest friend Lee in Croydon.  Having stayed the night in my home town for the first time in nearly 15 years we travelled to Coventry where we stayed overnight before heading back to London for Sally's 40th birthday on saturday.  We were back at Gatwick by 1030 on the sunday morning! 

The church in Bubbenhall near Coventry was packed on friday afternoon for the service to celebrate Rob's life and there were some superb and fitting tributes to him and much laughter as well as tears.  I'm glad we made it back to support Kate along with a number of our old friends from Warwick University.  We don't see each other as much as we would like but these events have of course made us all appreciate even more the value of friendship and time spent together.