Tag: new experience

Travel is a universal language

Sticky notes lay out in various colours across my bedroom floor. My friend and I had some planning to do. Our first trip abroad was looming and we wanted to make the most of it. We were 17 going on 18 and New York was calling. My friend had wholeheartedly been on board with going on the trip however when I asked what she wanted to do she had no idea. The pressure was on to make sure she had the best time. In my mind I had wandered those streets thousands of times. Now I was preparing to make those walks a reality. 

As we sat there on that wooden floor, we used the post it notes to piece together a plan for our 5 days in Manhattan. We put them into columns based on which days they would work best on and used a map to pinpoint which stops were close to one another. This was way before I was confident using the internet and so the process took us a few hours. And yet it was exciting. 

The trip in the Spring of 2004 was amazing. Perfect even. And therein started the development of my skills towards itinerary creation. Since then I have created itineraries for family, clients and Mr W and myself. It is an absolute joy. There is something so soothing to create something particular and bespoke. A blank piece of paper transforms into a carefully crafted and researched travel bible.

I’ve never really had much confidence in my ability. It is a mixture of self esteem issues and a bad experience working in the travel industry. Recently I have felt particularly crap about it all due to my client list becoming practically nil due to the pandemic. 

Last week, I had the best time talking to a new friend on zoom. She lives in America and we met on a facebook group in March 2020. The group was a place to talk about Italy and at the time was being flooded with questions about Covid and how the country was doing. It became very clear very quickly in which way the new virus was going and it became a space to share fears and tips on how to salvage our bookings.

Over two years later Carrie and I have shared pleasantries online. We have a similar travel history and I was able to share our trip to Italy in September 2020 with her as she is yet to rebook her own. Just a month or so ago she told me the very exciting news that she would be coming to England for the first time. She asked if I would look at her list of plans and let her know if I could recommend anything she had missed. 

I said it might be worthwhile talking ‘in person’ and after a few hiccups we finally ‘met’ last week. I’m always nervous meeting a new person but having been laid up with a bad back all day and only remembering that I was due online at the last minute I felt exceptionally unprepared. As someone who is trying to remember that the least interesting thing about myself and others is the way we look, I annoying found myself finger-brushing my hair and thanking my low-light lamp.

No worry was ever needed less. Carrie was so friendly and intrigued by my accent that we spent a good 20 minute talking about all sorts of things. Afterwards, we got down to the nitty gritty and talked incessantly about London. Although Mr W and I spend a lot of our free weekends in our capital city I do find that we avoid tourist traps and feel that our days there would not be too impressive to an out of towner. It soon became clear that the index in my mind was so much bigger than I originally thought and I found myself smiling as Carrie took copious notes. It was as if a light had blinked into life in my brain and I sat for over an hour unloading everything I knew. We agreed to meet up when she comes over and I sat in quiet contentment at my ability to spurt out knowledge so quickly. There was another half hour or so of chatter about Paris, Italy and how we generally approach travel and I felt the prickles of twinship with another soul.

With promises to share our Scotland trip with her and glance over her London itinerary upon my return I signed off for the night. I sat for a while smiling. A new friendship across the Atlantic ocean was forming and based on something so very special to me. 

It was a great pleasure to be reminded of just how much travel is embedded in my very being. I’ve been quietly simmering with pride ever since. It also reminded me of how friends can come from anywhere at any time in our lives. I am revelling in a new experience however small it may seem from the outside looking in. 

Note to self, this is just another reason to take a chance when you maybe aren’t feeling your most confident.

Things we gained in the fire

When I was small my parents divorced. To this day I do not know why. I don’t care to know either. I love them both fiercely. They are both my parents and friends. I believed wholeheartedly early on that I would never marry. It wasn’t the divorce that made me think so, I didn’t understand until recently why. I was the chubby kid. The spotty kid. The bookworm. The quiet one. Easily bullied. I suppose in a way I let marriage go from my thoughts early to protect myself from disappointment in the future. Why want something that I would never have? Easy to rationalise when you’re older. But then, I just didn’t want to get married. 

Dating life started late for me. My first kiss was at 15 and quite frankly it was disgusting. It was all tongue (his) and it was cold and slimy. It would be years before I kissed someone I genuinely had an interest in. And even then, no relationship, no looking to the future. In a way I probably looked like a free spirit. Forever on a plane or planning the next trip. The only time I spent money was on nights out drinking or travelling. And it suited me fine. I wanted to laugh and dance or explore the world. 

At 19 I went to university and my anxiety skyrocketed. I spent more time out with friends than in class. It was a different world. Four hours maybe three times a week was spent on campus and the rest of the time was mine. I only realise now how very unhappy I was. I wanted a degree under my belt for sure, I knew that but a part of me was so stunned I got into university in the first place that I felt compelled to go. Otherwise, I felt the opportunity would be lost. There were so many big characters in my classes, so many people who knew what they wanted to do, that I often felt isolated in my fear of the future. The future wasn’t where I lived. I lived for the now. Partying. Dancing. Having fun. But I did the work. All the while wanting it to end. I wasn’t at university for the experience. I didn’t live in dorms and I had only a few friends. My life was very much at home, seeing school friends and working on weekends. University was almost a side hobby. 

Love hit me hard in my third year and when it ended four months before graduation my mental health took the brunt force of my devastation. I plunged myself deep into the solitude of my dissertation and didn’t emerge from my despair until the summer. Why do we love when pain goes hand in hand? 

I met Mr W later that year. We kept it incredibly casual. A movie or dinner every couple of weeks. The first time he held his hand out to me, I returned his smile with a dumbfounded expression, he said “I’m asking you to hold my hand.” What a revelation that was. Slightly older and with a difficult past of his own, he made life light again. I took a full time position in the bank I was working in on weekends and became a rat of the daily race. It paid for my travels, paid for the partying and it got me out of my head. 

I got into a routine and soon found myself working for a private agency. I loved the staff dearly, we are still friends now, but through the longing to travel further and for longer and clashing with a particularly meddlesome new manager, enough was enough. My mum and I decided to head to Australia. 

I gave myself a year to pay for the trip with a regular wage and then quit. For the first time in 9 years I was jobless. And I have never regretted it. Australia was amazing. The job opportunity I had upon my return was life changing and as the saying goes ‘distance makes the heart grow fonder.’

On my return, Mr W and I made a go of it. A year later we moved in together, started saving and got engaged. Four months later we bought our first home and two short years later we were married. Me! Married! The girl who didn’t believe in it. She didn’t believe it was happening when she looked in the mirror the day she found her wedding dress. Didn’t believe it at her hen party. Not when the invites went out. Or when she walked down the aisle. 

It wasn’t to be married. It was to be his. And he mine. Even on our getaway to the Maldives, with flowers spelling out ‘Happy Honeymoon’ on a huge bed or a cake with an iced ‘Congratulations’ I didn’t feel married. I felt happy. Like my life had come full circle.

Having decided to go away the day after our wedding meant we wouldn’t have the best weather in paradise. In fact, the annual weather report said it would most likely be raining most of the time, and upon arrival we caught the tail end of a tropical storm. As we planned to snorkel everyday, and both were prone to reddening under the sun’s glare, the forecast didn’t bother us. We spent the first week, as planned, swimming, sleeping and relaxing. Watching the world go by and relishing the very windy and refreshing bursts of rain. It was still very warm and truth be told the rain felt wonderful. Organising everything yourselves for your own wedding has its merits but it takes over your life! This was our reward. We rented a private ocean villa and had every possible luxury included. It was an indulgence we had never experienced before. A butler, a sunken bathtub, a secluded restaurant, a private staircase from the villa to the ocean, a separate overwater breakfast room, it was visually stunning. 

On the eighth day of our trip, the sun came out. The very same day that we planned to go on a boat trip to see spinner dolphins. The sky was as clear as the sea. Stunning. We had breakfast outside on the private decking and watched the waters teem with life. If the first week was perfect this was something else entirely. This was ‘plus quam perfectum’. Returning from the boat trip full of vigour and awe, we strolled through the sandy island to be greeted with the most amazing spectacle of a sunset I had ever seen. A rainbow of colours, each awaiting their turn on the horizon, danced around the setting sun. From reds and oranges, to pinks, purples and blues. The day was never to be forgotten. 

How very true that would turn out to be.

That night, longing to bask in the afterglow of the best day, I stayed up late and fell asleep at just after 1am. Not even an hour later a very loud and frantic banging on the door woke us both. Mr W was the first to the door and I heard racing mumblings between him and someone else (I wear earplugs, Mr W snores) and turning towards him heard, ‘We’re being evacuated, there’s a fire.’ 

Our ocean villa sat on a wooden pier that stretched from the island out to sea. The waters surrounding us were dark, full of sea urchins and the occasional barracuda and reef shark. The coral was jagged and the emergency electrics had failed. We were out to sea with the fire blocking our way to safety. We were told to grab our money and passports and head outside. Mr W grabbed his backpack and our essentials whilst I tried to scramble around for the nearest article of clothing. 

Bursting into the inky black night, the glow from the fire nearby was blinding. The first villa on the pier was completely alight. Luckily no-one was housed there, it was the private breakfast room we had been in not too many hours before. It was immersed in angry flames. The  wind out here was violent and had swept the flames onto the neighbouring villa. Its roof had caught and the way off the pier was through the wall of fire. I stood shivering in underwear (oops) and a thin dressing gown. What on earth would we do now? There were perhaps 10/15 other guests all emerging from their rooms. Some with luggage. I turned to Mr W and questioned whether we should go back for our belongings. It was everything we had. He agreed and we gave ourselves 10 minutes to gather everything. We darted around the villa with only our phone torches for guidance. Emerging back onto the pier, staff members told us boats would come. It soon became clear that the stairs at the very end of the pier were not going to reach the boats. The tide was still too low. Risking the jump in the pitch black was too dangerous. We were to go through one of the villas, down their staircase and slide through its bannisters onto the waiting boat. 

When I think about it now, it’s like I’m remembering a movie I once watched. It does not feel real. I remember the staff telling us to leave our luggage. That they would come back for it. People first. Yes, great. The time came for me to get on the boat. My dignity was in tatters. In just underwear and a flapping nightgown I had to maneuver onto the boat, it jerked with the ocean’s waves and my hand was crushed between the boat’s roof and the handrail of the stairs. The pain made me realise this wasn’t a vivid dream. I plonked myself on the backseat as Mr W followed me. It was pitch black and there was no way to tell how many people were on the boat. 

After several more people jumped on, I felt the water spill into the boat behind me, I screamed that we couldn’t take anymore people on and the boat moved into the dark waters. We glided parallel with the pier and found ourselves stuck on a reef. The man driving pushed the boat’s propeller to its limit, it ground up the coral and it carried on to shore. For one moment I felt a deep sadness at the lost coral, but the sight before me obliterated the worry from my mind. The pier was completely engulfed in flame and smoke. Burning timber fell from the pier into the waters below. It was an astonishing sight. If this was a cheesy, action movie, this would have been the point they did a close up on the bridal embroidery on my clothing. For dramatic effect. 

We were hauled out of the boat by more staff at the shoreline and it went back for the other people. We were taken to the reception by golf cart and given warm towels and drinks. The next few hours were a blur. Changing islands. Getting our luggage. Having to find clothes to gain a little dignity as the sun started rising. 

And my husband, while talking to the staff at the transfer boats that morning, for the first time in 9 days called me his wife. At that moment it felt real. We were married. And on the pier watching that fire creep closer, I knew why he was the one. While I stood shaking from the cold, the shock and a heap of adrenaline, he held me against him and promised me I’d be okay. And I believed him. Wholeheartedly. I was with him and I felt safe. My heart felt safe. 

He was the reason I believed in marriage. He’s the reason I feel I deserve to be loved. He sees me for who I am. He tells me that I am enough. The bookworm. The creative one. The once bullied kid. The quiet one. The chubby one. Anxiety riddled from PCOS. The little kid who didn’t believe in marriage is silenced. There are no more questions. No more rationalities. I’m still quiet, because I watch the world. I take it in. And he doesn’t question it. 

Our relationship was born before the fire, but through it we gained a new bond, an experience that saw us flee into the darkness and come out of it all the stronger.