Tales from nowhere

"To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world."

Freya Stark.

"We've all been Nowhere. It might have been in the middle of Borneo or Beijing. It might have been in a Mayan mountain village, along a time-worn trail in Tuscany, or an isolated South Pacific island, or under a desert moon in Mali. Nowhere is a setting, a situation and a state of mind. It's not on any map, but you know it when you're there." Lonely Planet.

I'd made several crucial errors when I left Venice on a sunny Wednesday morning. Accustomed to purchasing last-minute train tickets to random destinations I decided to get on a train to Florence. I'd spent a day in Verona and a day in Venice and decided it would be criminal not to pay a visit to neighboring Florence, a mere 90 minute train ride away.

I love train rides. I love peering out the window and listening to music and marvelling at my location. I would happily sit on a train all day. It's so peaceful.



I failed to buy my return ticket until I arrived in Florence at lunchtime. To my dismay the only ticket left was on a three-hour overnight train that didn't arrive back in Venice until 1am. Which wasn't a massive problem- a long, exhausting day in Florence is a better day than anywhere else in the world- the problem was that the arrival destination wasn't Venice central. It was a half hour away from where I had originally left.

Me being me I decided I wouldn't worry about it until I had to. I figured there was a bus, or a cab. At 1am. On the outskirts of Venice. Surely.

Eerily beautiful, Pont Vecchio

 I was travelling alone for the first time in awhile. My contiki trips were brimming with people and I'd made several trips to Ireland and France with girlfriends I'd met in London. I'd nearly talked myself out of spending four days in Italy alone, before realising that moving to a foreign country alone was surely more frightening then travelling independantly for four days. Common sense prevailed. But I was still a little bored with nobody to talk to in Florence. Literally nobody, because I didn't speak Italian and the Italians didn't (or didn't want to) speak English.

I bought a map at the train station and spent the day meandering around markets, the magnificent Duomo, across Pont Vecchio to beautiful Giardino Bobolo where the freshly cut grass sent me straight back to New Zealand. Bizaarely, posters tacked around the gardens warned visitors that a young tourist had mysteriously dropped dead there the year before, putting an eerie cloud over the day.

By around 8pm it was starting to get dark and cold and after being on my feet for eight hours I decided to call it a day, have some dinner and head to the train station for my 9.30pm train. I had been weary about spending such a long day in Florence but I ended up marvelling at how quickly the day had gone and how well I had managed to do on my own in terms of ordering food and even managing to score a free glass of red wine and an espresso at two seperate eateries.

I was ready for bed though, and by the time I had found my platform at the station I was looking forward to another peaceful trip back to Venice.

I was taken aback when I boarded the train. It was an overcrowded sleeper, meaning most of the couchettes were beds, booked for overnight travellers. There were a few cabins with regular seating but they were so full that people had taken to sitting on the floor in the aisles. And then my second mistake of the day prevailed- my phone died, leaving me without my most revered type of entertainment- music.

I managed to find a seat in a couchette of six people. None of us knew one another and according to some ensuing phone conversations, Italian and French were the only languages spoken. The man sitting across from me took up most of the leg room but I was mostly aware of his iPad, wondering if I could summon up enough courage to ask if he had an Apple charger I could borrow.

The trip was long and boring. It was pitch black outside so I couldn't even admire the Tuscan scenery. The couchette was quiet and I didn't have a magazine. With little to distract me I began to disect the problem of how I was going to make it back to Venice once the train pulled in. It began to dawn on me that it was entirely possible that there were no transport links at that time of morning. Without my phone I couldn't even google the problem online.

While an Italian announcer would occasionally mention what stop we were due to arrive at, the pitch black night outside made the place names nonsensical. As far as I was concerned I was in the middle of nowhere, alone.



Alone in Florence, March 2011



Bologna at around what I guessed was midnight (no clock) and we stopped for what felt like twenty minutes. Scores of passengers left the train. It was quiet. And then the unmistakable smell of McDonalds. And voices speaking a familiar language. Thick accents cut the air as crudely as the smell of fries as an obsese American family boarded the train and found themselves in the same predicament I had been in two hours earlier- tiny couchettes, nowhere to sit.

It quickly became apparant to me that the foreigners I shared the couchette with understood English, as their lips started to curl up in tight smiles as we all listened, held captive, by the ensuing conversations in which the family (made up of two teenage girls, dad, grandpa Joe, stepmom Vicky and another married couple, apparantely a friend of the family's) set up camp in the aisle and began passing down bags of cheeseburgers and fries to each other as they cursed not having taken a flight instead of a midnight passenger train. Dad and Vicky went to painstaking lengths to ensure the entire family were comfortable, particularly Grandpa Joe, who at the ripe old age of about 70 should have been sitting on a seat, instead of the floor.

"We'll laugh about this one day," they chortled as the train took off again. The entertainment had apparantely arrived and I took great pleasure in observing a reality episode of Full House. They talked about their neighbour who had won the lottery, they talked about their vacation to date and their plans to fly to Paris, they talked about where in the heck were they anyway because it was so dark they couldn't make out any of the station signs that we were flying past. To my relief, eventually, they discussed how they were going to make it from the final train station to Venice.



We were in the same boat I realised. They didn't know it, but that dose of Americano in the middle of a midnight train to Venice was all I needed to realise that by no means was I ever travelling alone.

Why we do it

"For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move."
Robert Louis Stevenson.

A close friend of mine is getting ready to depart on a big trek around Europe. She's never been before and she'll be gone for 40 odd days so for her birthday present I'm making something that I hope will be useful to her. (I won't say too much more in case she's reading.)

I feel like giving her an arsenal of advice and then I feel like telling her nothing at all. It's no secret that travelling is exhausting and riddled with hiccups and rude awakenings. It's tiring and unforgiving. No two experiences can be the same. So why do we do it?

"Travelling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things- air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky- all things tending toward the eternal or what we imagine of it."
Cesare Pavese.

For as long as I can remember I've loved to travel. The mere idea of going somewhere new is addictively thrilling to me. It's not just the destinations that excite me, it's the travel itself that resonates. I love road trips. I love airports. I like trains. I love being in the middle of nowhere. I love challenges. Most of all I love memories.

25 July 2010, Paris

"Well the Rouge was not what I was expecting. The general rule of thumb while you are travelling I've realised is to forget everything you see on the movies... The three course dinner was fantastic, plus we got copious amounts of white wine and champagne. After the show (which was kind of like a talent variety show complete with minature horses and talking poodles) things get a little hazy because we went to an English bar 'O' Sullivans'. Yes, I broke my own rule of not getting drunk while travelling (because a, it's a waste of money and b, you're likely to ruin your following day, which is pretty much what happened).

I felt fine early in the morning but my mood and health quickly deteriorated on the way to the perfumery Fragonards. Literally I walked in, grabbed Mum and I a selection of mini perfumes and ran out again. Took a taxi back to the hotel for a two-hour rest after which I promised myself I would continue the day, like it or not.

And so I did, though rather precariously. I grabbed a baguette to line my now empty stomach (the most delicious thing I've ever eaten- ratatouli with camembert and smoked salmon) and made my way to the Louvre. I've been reading the Da Vinci Code so I kinda wanted to see the museum but I really wanted to see the Mona Lisa. I managed to find her, but so did 1000 other people. It's pretty cool to say I've seen her though. I didn't stay for anything else.

The following day was my last in Paris ... so I was determined to get up the Eiffel tower, which I did after a very long wait, but the photos came out well. No proposals though (for me, or otherwise). Spent my final few hours lunching, again on the Champs d'Elysees, walking along the Seine and then resting my feet in a park.

Overnight train to Rome was fairly horrific but something to look back on and laugh. First the train was delayed two hours, then we boarded and realised we would be sleeping in sardine cans. Then we went to get "dinner" and realised all they had for sale was pringles and gum. 16 hours of a non air conditioned sleep later and we made it to Rome relatively unscathed. Our tour guide picked us up, took us to the hotel for a shower and then we headed to the Vatican. St. Peters had closed but I had a look at the Sistine Chapel which is very awe inspiring. It took him three years to paint which sounds about right as it's massive.... "

25 July, 2010 - Moulin Rouge, Paris

Ibiza

Every summer vacation, after spending two weeks at the family bach, coming home was always something of a suprise. My room always looked bigger, cleaner. My bed comfier. Life seemed better. A mark of a good holiday that, when you come back feeling better than when you left.

After six months of travelling and exploring each new destination to the point of exhaustion, Ibiza was a welcome reprieve. A week of nothing but eating, sleeping, drinking and swimming in the crystal clear waters of the Medditerranean.

Armed to the teeth with water, sunscreen, umbrella, ipod, camera and reading material, Melissa and I only budged from our sunny spots on the sand to cool off in the warm water, or to indulge our bottomless stomachs with three course dinners and jugs of Sangria.

Back in London now, rain and storm out my window, it would be easy to fall victim to post-holiday depression. However, I still feel so god-damned relaxed that nothing could trouble me at this point.

Thank you Spain, I will be back.

That time we missed our flight to Spain

The first trip I took Far Away was three years ago. I was so excited I made mum take me to the airport four hours ahead of departure. I was also slightly panicky about some last minute hitch and I figured four hours was plenty of time to forget and re-remember something, to take care of any last minute failures (I once dreamt of getting to the airport and realising I didn't have a passport).


Somehow though my punctuality and organisational skills have tapered off , leaving much to be desired. This latest trip was no exception. Despite the fact that Melissa and I were planning a birthday trip (to Ibiza no less), the thought of planning, researching and booking made me feel like taking a big nap. So Mel took care of the major details like booking flights and accommodation. Me? I took it upon myself to book airport transfers. It seemed like an easy enough task with little room for failure.


Boy was I wrong.


My first niggling feeling that I'd Fucked Up Big Time was when I told my boss that I'd booked an EasyJet bus to leave Baker Street at 3pm, to arrive at Stansted Airport at 4.20pm. (Ticket counter opened at 4pm, flight left at six.)


"You realise it's going to be a rainy Friday afternoon right? There'll be lots of traffic on the motorway," he said.


I looked at him indignantly. This was the man, who only weeks before, had missed a flight to Holland because he though it was fine to rock up to the check-in desk a mere 40 minutes before take-off.


"Yeah, they're also doing roadworks along that route," chimed in another colleague.


With this information in mind I decided we'd catch a different EasyJet bus- one that left 15 minutes earlier, and should get us to the airport at 4pm on the dot. That way, even if we were late, we should still be there by 4.30pm. Problem solved, I figured.


Well, we missed the bus. It seemed like 100 other panicky travellers had the same idea and so the earlier bus was packed before we'd even had a chance to queue. As Mel and I stood in the rain I cursed myself for not booking an earlier bus. As I had had work that morning booking anything earlier wasn't really an option. I cursed myself again for deciding to work right before a flight. Mel seemed nonchalant about the situation, reassuring me that EasyJet wouldn't have posted a 4.20pm ETA if the odds were completely against it. "We'll be fine," she said, over and over.


Our 3pm bus arrived early (thank god) but the driver seemed agitated. Something about traffic and accidents on the motorway. We all clambered aboard and buckled our seatbelts quickly, eager to get moving. Not long after we did , a middle aged Italian man in the front seat chided the bus driver. "Why are you taking this route? It would have been faster to go the other way. You know I took this exact same bus last week and I missed my flight because of you."


Mel and I gasped at this last sentence. It was akin to saying "bomb" on a plane.


The driver, even more agitated, explained that all routes were going to be slow at this time of day (bad) that this route while slow (bad), was the most direct and that if we had all allowed ourselves three hours before the flight he could guarantee we would get there on time (worse.)


The more traffic we encountered along the way (practically standstill) the more Mel and I tried to calculate exactly how late we would be and Plan B. We decided it was too late to get off the bus and get on a train. We calculated that once we got on the motorway it would probably take another 40 minutes (and the motorway was still another 40 minutes away). The latest we could arrive would be about 4.55pm and even then we would have to sprint for the check-in desk which was due to close at 5pm. The slower the traffic became and the harder the rain poured the more grim our Plan B became. We'll take another flight we decided, even if it doesn't leave until the next day. We began to laugh about our predicament as I mentally totalled up how much a last minute flight to Barcelona might cost.


4pm came and went and we weren't on the motorway. The Italian man scowled, shook his head impatiently, sighed loudly. Kate phoned. "There's a crazy man on the bus saying we're all going to miss our flights," I whispered into the phone as the crazy man in question eyed me suspiciously. "Oh yeah I heard the traffic was pretty bad," Kate said cheerfully.


The bus driver took to overtaking traffic in bus lanes (we weren't technically a bus, making the manouvre slightly illegal.) I couldn't decide if I should feel glad that the driver was pulling out all the stops to get us to the aiport as quickly as possible, or if I should be panicked that he felt the need.


"We'll laugh about this in Barcelona tonight," Mel said as we tightened our buckles.


4.30pm and the airport was nearly in our sights except we couldn't figure out if the signs were in miles or kilometres. One would be detrimental to our calculations.


4.45pm and we were in airport territory but we were tailing a Very Slow Driver who seemed oblivious to our plight.


4.50pm and we discussed tactics. We agreed as soon as the bus stopped we would run for our lives. First out the door, first to the luggage and run, run, run. "Don't stop running, even if you can't hear me behind you, just go," I encouraged, stopping short of dramatically saying, "Save yourself."


At 4.52 we unbuckled our seatbelts as we careened through a roundabout, sitting on the edge of our seats, ready to bolt out the door.


4.55pm and we were out of our seats before the bus had stopped.


"Excuse me, we're running late," we shouted haphazardly as we threw everybody's luggage out of the boot and onto the ground as we searched desperately for our bags. Mel found hers first.


"Run! Run! I'm right behind you!" I screeched like a mad woman as I threw little jazzy to the ground and snapped up the handle.


Embarassingly we ran in a complete circle screaming while onlookers stared because we couldn't find the gate out of the carpark.


Once we did, we were off. As I had anticipated Mel was a much faster runner than I, even though she had a 20 kilo backpack attached to her, making her sprint resemble that of a sumo wrestler (and still a faster runner than I.)


On we forged, me overcome with giggles at Mel's gait and at one point apologising to a woman whose foot I ran over with jazzy. (Okay that's a lie, I didn't have time to apologise.)


At the top of the escalator (which I ran up with jazzy lifted over my shoulders) I realised for a frightening second that I had lost Mel despite my encouragement of her to run on. I stopped, looking around in circles for Mel and her giant backpack bobbing furiously. No sign. I couldn't see a departures board either to direct me towards the check-in desk.


Game over, I realised sadly, panting for breath.


Then I spotted her, Melissa waving furiously from a queue slightly to my left. The EasyJet check-in desk. We had made it. We high-fived. And we laughed about it in Barcelona that night too.

Hey you...

Yes, you. It's me, Kelly. Yes, I know I look a little different. I'm about seven kilos heavier, with long, dark hair (a year ago you would have cried at the thought of this). The complexion is probably a little paler, but ultimately much clearer. The clothes are different, the accessories are better. Your accent is sounding ridiculously British.

It's definitely still you underneath though. On the occasional night that you cook it's always pasta, because that's all you can really succesfully do. You still swear like a trucker and you will watch Sex and the City when you're sad. Taste in men is still crap- taste in best friends is still particularly excellent. Sleeping patterns are still shite and you love nothing more than being in bed- eating, reading, sleeping, whatever. Bed is where it's at. Speaking of which, your room is obviously different. Yet strangely, it looks and feels like you've been there forever. The duvets are white and purple, there are photos all over the walls. There are aromatherapy oils and candles for relaxation and a huge stack of Vanity Fair and Marie Claire. There's a massive window which catches the sun and you still don't put your clothes away, despite having tonnes of space for which to put them. Yep, I would say you very succesfully managed to transfer your childhood bedroom into your London home.

So, we are introduced.

I can almost imagine what it felt like to be in your shoes a year ago. As a matter of fact, I've just re-read your first blog post. I can smell the excitement- get.me.out.of.here. There are whiffs of defiance and determination. The whole thing screams Classic Kelly - Fuck you, I am going to do this, and I am going to do it well.

Well kiddo, you did it, and you did it well. In fact, you are still doing it. Without giving the game away too much , there were some words that were ringing in your ears for weeks before you left and indeed the entire time you've been gone.

"You'll learn a few things.." said rather ominiously during a meeting with a notoriously accurate psychic. It wasn't a sweet, generic statement. It was said with a slight sigh and a shake of the head. The underlying currents of "your rough times aren't over yet sweetheart" was emphatically heard.

Well dear, this is what you have learnt.

That the grass isn't always greener. That life's problems (no money, shit working week, boredom, sickness, insomnia) will follow you wherever you go and nothing will ever change except your ability to deal with whatever life throws up.

Life will throw up. Time and time again. Your wallet will get stolen, you will get sick while you are on holiday, your landlord will put your rent up, the guy you are seeing has a girlfriend, your work hours will be long, your to-do list longer and your weight is at an all time high. Shit gets overwhelming but in the grand scheme of things it 'aint all that bad.

Friends and family are, and will always be, more important than boyfriends. And believe it or not, the social circle that you formed in high school will not always be your social circle. In fact, it probably shouldn't be.

Life works in mysterious ways. Lots of luck and coincidence is always at play but sometimes things work out so perfectly that it's hard to deny the fact that you're probably meant to be exactly where you are. Which for you is a strange thought because up until this point you have spent most of your time whiling away the hours, daydreaming about where you would much rather be.

Lastly, but most importantly, you have learnt your passport number off by heart. No longer do you rummage through your bag looking for these elusive details as a year's worth of travel has permanantely engrained the number in your brain.

Nothing was more fun learning than this.

West Hampstead

The first time I clapped eyes on West Hampstead, I was smitten. Love at first sight. Within minutes of clopping down the leafy streets in my tired heels (job interview that day), I had decided that I didn't care what the room looked like, I wanted to live in West Hampstead.

After finding a 'Bombay Bicycle' on the main street (the name of my hometown) and realising the name of the street I would be potentially living on was the same as my best friend's home in New Zealand, I decided these 'signs' were gently nudging me along.

We've been deliriously happy ever since.

Located in North West London , serviced by one underground and two overground links, West Hampstead lies more modestly adjacent to the commonly known area of Hampstead. The high street, West End Lane, conjoins with the famous Abbey Road (of Beatles fame) and is dotted with a variety of eateries, boutiques and coffee shops. The town's sole library was erected in 1940 and at the very top of West End Lane is West End Green, West Hampstead's own patch of grass, aside from neighbouring Kilburn Grange and Hampstead Heath parks.

Dusty Springfield was born here, The Rolling Stones recorded here, and Emma Thompson, Stephen Fry, Bill Nighy and various Peep Show stars still live here. The earliest streets were paved in the 1800s, consequently meaning the roads are notoriously tiny with vehicles having to pull to one side to let each other through. Dotting the streets are rows of beautiful Victorian homes. During the winter the trees that line the small streets become bare and glisten with snow, when Spring arrives so do the flowers and the area has a pleasant jasmine scent that lingers well into the night.

West Hampstead's history dates back to medieval times. During the reign of Henry VIII the area measured 18 acres and 40 houses large. One of it's earliest mentions, in 1665, notes, rather bizaarely, that nobody there died of the Great Plague that was sweeping London and killing hundreds in neighboring villages.

"It was so peaceful that the striking of Big Ben could be heard and, indeed, the owners of West End Hall were sure that in 1815 they had heard the sounds of the cannon at Waterloo,"(The Streets of West Hampstead, 1992).

Christopher Wade sums up rather nostalgically, "You can find sunflowers in Sumatra Road, ferns in Mazenod, dragons in Inglewood and Woodchurch. As for the street names, they range romantically from Gascony to Parsifal, from Agamemnon to Narcissus and, suprisingly, from Skardu to Weech."