One Last Day, One Last Cafe
It’s here. Our last day. How did 100 go by so quickly? Over the course of this trip my ideas for the blog have clearly changed. I started out believing that the biggest challenge I’d face was working remotely — which was just as simple as finding a cafe with wifi, right?
I soon realized that finding a place with fast free wifi (and ample plugs) was difficult — and the coffees and muffins added up quickly. So I started working from wherever I called home at the time, which led me to learn the actual greatest challenge of traveling for months on end.
The beginning of the trip was non-stop exploration. Thrilling. After living in one place for so long, I was driven in pursuit of newness. Everything foreign delighted me, even having to fit myself into the minuscule European showers.
Now, back in London until our flight from Heathrow leaves in the early hours of tomorrow, I feel like a road-worn traveler, like I can almost put my finger on the part of my chest where a longing has been filled. And in its place a new thing is growing.
Back in Berlin, midway through our trip, we struck on our first house sit. I experienced the duality of living and traveling when nowhere and everywhere is home.
For our last week, it was Brighton. A coastal city much unlike the dilapidated rung we’d gypsied between during a lull in finding sits, from Dover to Folkestone. The city is in it’s prime. Art, fashion, food. Corey and I enjoyed whiling the hours away on the chilly beach, throwing rocks into the ocean and letting our dog chase them into the crashing waves. When the water was pulled away with the undertow, the shoals made a sound like a sizzle, more like a dying firecracker said Corey.
That’s what our trip now was. A fading streak. Leaving us in awe.
The last few London days have been sobering us for the transition. Yesterday we burned out the tail by getting in our last dose of museums and sights. Today truly is our last cafe as we sit in Starbucks — the antithesis of the cafes I imagined myself in, but who can deny reliable wifi with outlets galore?
It’s just one step back into the familiar. And tomorrow I’ll fall into my old bed at my parent’s house, as familiar as it gets, and hopefully feel something new in it all again.
I’ll sign off with a quote that remains my favorite quote to this day — and yes you will find it under my picture in my high school yearbook.
“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”
