London one-way!

I’m sitting on the train to Penzance, the south-western most tip of Britain, and the last station the train stops at. It’s half past 12 and I arrive at 3pm, after a five hour trip.

There’s something sublime about the English countryside and something peaceful about a rocking train. Not even the dark clouds can put me off the excitement I’m feeling. Nikki was extremely jealous this morning and I almost thought she was going to come with me on a whim – that girl has got to stop living off her credit card! I’m pleased to say, with the help of my darling brother, I have no current credit debts which is a nice feeling.

— oooh cute little cottage, straggly green hedge fences, wooly sheep, patchwork coloured hills — so I get distracted easily? It’s just something…different. It even feels different to the rolling countryside last week in Spain or last month in Melbourne. Not worse, not better, just a different kind of beautiful.

I just finished a fantastic travel book that Lija had given me for my birthday – Around the World in 80 Dates, where Jennifer Cox, an experienced London travel writer, has given up on finding her soul mate at home, and feels that she has to go on a wideworld search to find The One.

– Lija particularly: Don’t read this if you don’t want the end spoiled! –

Hence, her fantastic friends and networks set her up with numerous dates from vikings to penguin rangers, rodeo riders to Romeo himself. But fate steps in at Date #55 and she meets Garry at a festival in the USA. They click instantly and have an amazing time, but Jen dilemmas over whether she could really have found her One and what to do next. She continues the journey, in the name of research and her book, and finds that everything turns her mind back to Garry. Then she meets Gene in New Zealand at Date #75. So she figures the more men she meets, the higher the odds of finding The One, just like the question asked in many a film – does everyone have one soul mate or can you have more than one One? 1 out of 55, 2 out of 75. But that’s not what she wants. She wants Garry. So she drops everything in New Zealand and catches the next flight to Seattle where she moves in with Garry and begins a new chapter of her life. All the richer for the experiences she’s had along the way.

I had to share this one though, because it kind of explains the simple things: “Because although sometimes it exasperated me, made me tired, meant I missed my friends and liposucked all the money out of my bank account leaving it svelte and lean, I loved travelling.”

…and there’s so much more to see and do.

Tags: Travel

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