There’s not a lot I can say about how I felt about this trip at the time because it’s already been two years and all I have left are handfuls, vignettes, glimpses - a remembrance of things past. In search of lost time, says Proust. This was my very first trip to Europe on my own, my maiden voyage, the journey that set the yardstick for all other journeys to come. It was here that I fell in love with travelling, and May the bitterest month a la TS Eliot - the month where I kindled alight my wanderlust.
I stil vividly remember flying to Carcassonne for the first time and wandering the cobbled streets of the city centre. The old town and the fortress; and then taking the Thalys train to Toulouse and seeing my dad again. That was nice, that was. The wonderful panini shop on the Rue St Rome and buying 4-EUR paninis, and eating them on the Place du Capitole. Pacing the banks of the Canal du Midi and then napping under the green boughs - which is far less romantic than it sounds; there were gnats and flies and the water was tepid and far less impressive than the pictures. The unexpected hailstorm when I was eating at the restaurant off the Pont-Neuf.
Barcelona was a visit that changed my life, not spectacularly, but subtlely. How can I forget how wildly I fell in love with Alin, and he with me? And Nadja and our afternoon at the Font Magica. The Thai restaurant off the Espanya and the creepy waiter there who followed me into the toilet and asked me for my phone number. The Thai was good, though.
This trip, in a sense, was me on sensible mode. Continental #4 was much more spontanous, me and my pivot through post-Soviet eastern Bloc, saying stuff in my theatre of the absurd. I met other travellers equally la rambla and la loca. ‘Wine is a grand thing,’ says Hemingway, ‘it makes you forget all the bad.’
I know this is supposed to be a wrapup of continental #1 and not #4, but couldn’t resist. Memories, of course, are constantly being rewritten to fit our self images.
My favourite cities this trip were probably Toulouse and Lisbon. I would like to include Barcelona because I enjoyed my time there so much, but that was because of the people I met, not the city. The city I found hot, stifling and too similar to Taipei. Lisbon was one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever had the fortune to visit, but the people there were bland. I do remember chatting with my roommates at the hostel, but they too were unmemorable and unremarkable. The scenery though was wonderful.
Barcelona, always Barcelona, and meeting next to the Font Magica. Do you subscribe to the fancy, if you will, that everything happens for a reason?
I liked Maastricht, and the feeling of making coffee in Eddie’s kitchen. I would stretch myself out on his long sofa, like a leopard, and carry my mug of coffee over to the table there, and sip at my coffee and read Nadja and Anja’s emails, and message Alin.
Again, I am clear conscienced, though still those voices are calling from far away.
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| Still Lisbon |
