Leaving

I always assumed that by the time the two years was up that I would be sick of the city, missing home, ready to leave. The truth is, I've been pushing myself to mentally disconnect myself from London for about six months now but the closer I get to my deadline, the less I want to leave. I feel like I've been here forever, this is my home. Now I have to ship everything back to New Zealand or get rid of it. I made a list of things I have to do before leaving London, like taking a ride on the London Eye, going to Kew Gardens and standing ontop of Parliament Hill for the last time. It all seems grossly unfair.

The price of adventure

When I was 20 years old, for ten months I saved up every paycheck I had from my restaurant job and went to Los Angeles and New York City for two weeks. After ten years of watching Home Alone (where Kevin goes to New York), My Girl 2 (where Vaida goes to L.A) and reading the Sweet Valley High series (the quintessential American Dream) I had never wanted anything in my life as much as I wanted to go to New York and California. A bit like a kid who saves all his pocket money for the latest toy, I saved all my money, not realising that budget travel was an option.

I stayed in some seriously expensive places.

Recognise this?

If your an Eagles fan, it's Hotel California, the pink palace that graces the cover of one of their most famous records, circa 1970. In reality, this is the Beverly Hills Hotel. Past guests include Marlene Dietrich, Elizabeth Taylor and Marilyn Monroe. I stayed there in 2008 for three days at the price (after receiving a promotional discount) of $300 American dollars per night. I ordered room service every night and lazed by the pool during the day. I tipped everybody. I felt like Macauley Culkin in Home Alone. The world was my oyster.

Housekeeping came everyday and organised my Disneyland souviners

The famous pool

Beautiful huh?

Fast forward five years and this is the likes of where I stay these days...

Kate making the bed at our hostel in Russia

But you know what, it's okay really.

A fellow traveller recently wrote of the FOMO syndrome. Fear of missing out is basically what happens when you start to research your destination and realise that you must, quite literally, do everything. If you don't do everything, you will Miss Out. I have yet to discover what happens when you Miss Out, but I'm sure it must be bad. Therefore, as far as budgets go, numbers are crunched together so tightly so as to ensure the lengthiness of one's trip. $1000 spent on accommodation five years ago is an extra month backpacking through South America.

It would be easy to look at my before pictures and feel resentful when comparing them to my after. But I've discovered the contrary, travelling as a backpacker is the only way to see any country. When you have to take the bus or the train you come face to face with the locals. You see how tired they are, what time they are getting home from work, where they shop. You get a glimpse into the mundane of their life. When you cook every night you shop at the supermarket and buy the brands that mothers buy for their families. When you are searching for the cheapest street food possible, you discover the winding backstreets of giant metropolises where graffiti artists perfect their art and the locals hang out their washing.

When you are driven to your resort in a taxi and eat at the hotel restaurant, what do you think you are seeing? What are you learning? The answer is nothing. Your comfort zone has not been violated, you haven't smelt the fog or the tar of a hot, sweaty city. You haven't drunk with the barman and found out how he knows six different languages or why he has a lazy eye. You haven't happened upon amazing artisan markets or seen the blood on the streets. You haven't felt the fear of not knowing what is happening, or the panic of getting lost. You haven't seen the life, or the soul. You haven't any stories.

This afternoon, after reading the blog of a European couple who took a year out from their jobs to travel the globe (Africa, Asia, South and Central America and Australasia) my opinion was instantly validated. They went to New Zealand. Adventure capital of the world. Doesn't everybody love New Zealand? It's so beautiful. I'm constantly being told what an amazing country I'm from and being asked to explain why I decided to leave. Here is why.

"...(New Zealand) leaves little room for surprises and eventually this is what we started to miss...At our previous destinations just walking down the street usually brought about a funny or exciting moment, something new or exotic! In New Zealand, excitement has turned into big business with over-abundant activities ... What blew our minds were the tons of brightly coloured free brochures that can be found in every hostel, cafe, tourist information. Tourism is so professionally marketed here and right in your face that we look back to travelling Latin America with nostalgia..."

Moral of the story? You can buy a plane ticket, you can buy a backpack, you can stay wherever you like and see what you like, but money aint going to buy you the smell of an Italian pizzeria, the heat of cobbled streets on your sandals, the sound of sirens or the quiet of a silent passenger train gliding through Provence.

Best pizza of my life found on a quiet street in Marseille

Arriving

"Everything looks like Coronation Street."

The tall brick houses reminded me of everything I should expect from England and I felt safe in the knowledge that I had finally travelled sufficiently far enough away from home to finally breathe a sigh of relief.

I stayed in a backpacker's that night, courtesy of Bunac.  For some reason I cannot place that hostel now, lost in a sea of varying recollections. The streets were small but crowded and I felt claustrophobic. I slept with my belongings tucked closely to my body as I slept in a dorm housing men of various nationalities.

The next morning I went downstairs and enquired as to why I wasn't in a mixed dorm. The young guy looked at me blankly and said, "You were."

I didn't leave the hostel after breakfast of tea and toast. I calmly did my laundry, leaning up against the tumble dryer for hours as I read a magazine, the closest thing to normality I'd had in six weeks. I took strange pleasure in folding my hot laundry just the way I figured any independent adult would and packing it neatly away in my suitcase, pretending it was a set of drawers that didn't smell of airport. I reorganised the few belongings in my suitcase, the way one feng shuis their bedroom and I made a to do list.

I was tired and it was busy outside. London was busy. I lived in a city now and I knew that once I left the doors of the hostel I would have to deal with what was out there. I finished my magazine. Inhaled the smell of my my newly laundered clothes. And then set off for Swiss Cottage in north west London.

The one with Alice Ayers

Have you lived somewhere too long when you know the streets like the back of your hand? When you are able to identify locations you've already been, watching the play unfold two years later from the exact same spot?

  

Russia

Church of the Spilt Blood, St Petersburg

Ten minutes after leaving St Petersburg's airport I knew. Five burly Russian men surrounded Kate and I insisting we needed a taxi. We quickly relented once we realised that minus 18 degrees wasn't ideal dithering weather. We were assured the fare would be metered but it transpired when dropped off in front of a bunch of old warehouses that we would be charged more than the price of five night's accommodation for two people, for a twenty minute drive. It took us about 45 minutes to find our hostel which was signposted with crayon written on a piece of scaffolding in front of a precarious set of stairs that lead to a heavy duty door of an old warehouse, one of about 15 in an otherwise vacant lot. Two single sheets to cover a queen-sized bed and one flannel later we lay in bed, wondering what could possibly happen next.

The next morning we met the occupants of the other rooms. Everybody was living there. The manager was a curiously tall Rusky who wore short denim cut offs with thermals and two fluero hoodies at a time; one pink, one green. He spoke good English and chatted thoughtfully and eloquently, often scratching his beard for emphasis. The others were young. Another Russian with a red mohawk and large headphones who sat on his computer all day and never changed his clothes. The only thing I ever heard him say was, "Money is the source of all the world's problems." I wondered if his parents knew where he was. I wondered if any of their parents knew where any of them were. A very, very thin Korean man with excellent Russian and English who claimed his computer had been stolen from his room the month before. He came to Russia to study the language. He helped us with directions and booking tickets and eventually we would bump into him at the supermarket in the evening while we all shopped for our evening meals. Two 18 year old Turkish lads who drank all of Kate's vodka and then proceeded to pester the guy with the mohawk for weed. They talked about the world's problems and admitted sheepishly that they were virgins. A 19 year old girl with the face of a 12 year old who answered the door. Two boys the same age as us who claimed to be realtors but didn't work a day we were there. They took us sightseeing that day but soon became exasperated with us. We didn't speak Russian and they didn't speak English except to repeatedly ask, 'How are you?' Later, after a bottle of wine, they mustered an 'I love you- will you marry me?'

We cooked in the kitchen every night and had McDonalds for lunch everyday. One particular McDonalds employee on Nevsky Prospekt loved us. She told us how much to pay for cheeseburgers. She made others give up their table so we could sit down and she could practise her English. Understand? Understand? She would ask.

I don't remember any of the museums, or the churches. Just these people. Coming home every night to cook in their crappy kitchen, sharing their booze and listening to dated western music until 5am.

The truth about itchy feet

Everybody is on the hunt to find me a husband. We talk about the amount of time I "have left" in hushed tones and everybody gives me pitying glances when I mention being kicked out of the country.

The truth is, I have roughly six months left in London and I am very aware of the fact that a marriage of conveinence is anything but, so yes, there is nothing I can put in place to stop this descent. No spousal visa, no ancestry visa, no British passport, no job, no sponsorship. It will be over. O-V-E-R.

It seems my friends and work colleagues are sadder about this than I am. The truth about itchy feet is that once you give them a scratch they just become .... itchier.

I have a friend who planned an eight week Contiki trip around Europe (visiting something like 101 countries) just to, in her own words, "get it out of her system." Now, she's talking about Russia, Africa and volunteering trips teaching kids English in third world countries.

I am the same. I have learnt that we don't need to be sad about the journeys that are finished, we can become excited about the ones that are about to start.

This is just the beginning.

You know you live in a big city when...

1. You're constantly on the offensive. Strangers will irritate you, everybody is incompetent and nothing is working as efficiently as it should. You start getting your fighting elbows ready even before you tap in on your Oyster card.

2. You're constantly late. Time speeds up, everything and everybody else is running late too. Punctuality is a quaint notion.

3. You're constantly busy. Staying home is incomprehensible. Home is for showering and sleeping. You look forward to a quiet night in which terminates at approximately 11pm when the boredom sets in.

4. You're constantly broke. See number 3.

5. You're constantly cooing at any patch of grass bigger than your bedroom. "Ooh look at the park it's so pretty and GREEN." Whatever happened to green?

6. You're no longer shockable. Everything is the norm, nothing is scary or superlative. The girl with the blue hair isn't crazy or cutting edge, she's a smurf riding the tube. The guy with the pick-axes tattooed on his cheeks isn't scary, he's hilarious. And probably a bit emo.

7. The possibility of doing anything you want at any time of the day is no longer thrilling, it's life.

8. You get carsick anytime you catch a cab and no longer miss driving down motorways.

9. You buy self-sufficient potted plants - for the windowsill, and are constantly scouting for more.

10. You're no longer afraid of getting lost.

11. You start referring to the city as your home and look forward to seeing it after every weekend away.

Paris

Believe it or not, this is Paris. My dad visited me in London in April and so for his birthday I got us tickets on the Eurostar to Paris for three nights.

I have to say, April was a perfect time to visit, it wasn't too hot and spring was approaching so the parks were absolutely brimming with beautiful flowers.

Dad, as you can see, was enarmoured with France's vehicles.

Despite being afraid of heights Dad braved it up the Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower (my second time up the tower which is really bordering on greedy for me) .We also visited the Sacre Couer, Moulin Rouge, Champs de Elysee, the Louvre and Notre Dame.

In Montmartre one of the French buskers began playing a Finn brother's song which was rather hilarious and appropriate at the same time.

Paris is one of the few cities in the world that I could return to again, and again, and again.

Barcelona

This is what I love about alleyways. You find cute boutiques (L) and you find the soul of a city (R).

Mel and I were very, very hungover on this day (we had spent the previous night in Ibiza). We spent several hours sleeping in our air conditioned room after getting off our flight and then set out for a long, long walk around Barcelona's streets.

After this photo was taken, a few paces away, a guy on a bike sped past an elderly woman and ripped the necklace off her neck.

Later, Mel and I went and got a sandwich from a local bakery and sat in a small square and people watched.

New Zealand

Put simply, this is my favorite place in the world. The only way I can describe it is that that when I'm at this beach my heart is happy.

Sydney

Evidence of my inability to sit still- going home for a two week holiday in New Zealand also involved a weekend trip to Sydney to see my little brother. I hadn't been to Sydney before.

Within half an hour of stepping off the plane Mark drove us to Bondi Beach.

I cannot exaggerate enough the pure exquisitness of seeing blue skies and beautiful beaches. I decided I was moving to Sydney about five minutes before this photo was taken.

Madrid

This is Cine Dore, an old theatre run beside Spain's national film library. My assignment was to go and take a few photos, maybe grab some pamphlets. It took me about half an hour to find the place and it was situated behind a high road in a somewhat suburban area which is always a pleasure to visit in another country (see if the grass is really greener).

Sadly, by the time I found the place I realised it wasn't open until 5.30pm. Still not realising I was actually visiting a theatre , I came back after a few glasses of vino tinto at a nearby cafe, to find a looong queue snaked around the building. Out of morbid curiosity I too queued up, not believing that this many people had come to see a library. And of course they hadn't. The filmoteque sold tickets to evening screenings of old films for two euro. Sensing a bargain of course I paid, only to find I was watching a Russian film with Spanish subtitles.

I ended up falling asleep (the wine had done me over), and only woke because my own snoring was so loud.

In my defense, sightseeing all day is really tiring.

Edinburgh

If there is anything I miss about New Zealand it's my best friends and wide open spaces.

This is Georgie and I at Loch Ness, after about six hours of driving through Scotlands's Highlands. Our tour guide was the bus driver and apparantely an unofficial radio DJ as he commentated the very minuate of our driving experience through the countryside, laughed at his own jokes and played Scottish music for the whole 12 hour tour. No silences allowed.

This is before Georgie and I took off on an unbeaten path around the lake (can you tell we're New Zealanders?) in search of Nessie.

If we look tired it's because we went to bed at 2am to rise two hours later for our flight. Luckily the beautiful weather had the endorphins kicking.

Vienna

Despite being a frequent traveller and a frequent writer, I very rarely collaborate the two. Rifling through my blog I've realised I don't actually write about any of my trips. In actual fact, I think I've subconsciously decided that writing about the minutae of travelling and exploring is boring. Which is ridiculous.

Tonight I ran a hot bath and bought two pieces of reading material with me- Lonely Planet's 'Tales from Nowhere' ( a collection of short stories). And the diary I kept while I travelled around the U.S and Europe last year.

Lonely Planet stayed on the floor.

So here is my challenge- pick a favorite photo from each of my trips and explain it to you. Not in a Times section , this is where we went, this is what we ate and this is how much it cost kind of way, but hopefully in a way that sets the scene and sums up what I love about exploring.

Here goes.

Oven mitts- embarassing unprepared travellers since Winter 2011. This is what I think of when I look at this picture. So my friend Renee, from Chicago, travelled with me to Vienna in late November this year. Renee tried explaining the temperature to me, but she was talking Farenheit so I failed to grasp that 30 degrees Farenheit was ZERO DEGREES.

So I had a small heart attack on our Easy Jet flight when the pilot introduced Vienna to us and I realised that it was going to be a cold, possibly snowy weekend. These mittens were a desperate purchase from H&M at Stephanzplatz which is the main shopping area in Vienna. I purchased the most obnoxious, warm looking mitts I could find.

Nevermind the fact that I had Edward Scissorhand type situations for a few days as I tried to pick things up with my mitts.

After this photo was taken Renee and I braved the cold through the swankier area where rich husbands were taking their fur-clad wives to buy jewellery at Tiffany and handbags at Chanel. To be fair, this trip was mostly about eating and each small walk or sightseeing venture was immediately intertwined with a trip to a cafe where almost every single waiter wore a suit and strudel and chocolate cake were lunch. So we went to a cafe after this and had baileys coffees and cake.

How to travel

There is always a story, a photo, a holiday package, a top ten through to 100 list there to make you feel bad about your own travel experiences. The friend who found frog's legs in France while you ate pizza every night, the yoga retreat you can't afford, amazing photography that makes your digital memories look childish and travel magazine bucket lists that surmise what you should want to see and disregard everything you loved but nobody has ever heard of.

While travel envy is always somewhat of a motivation to keep exploring it should by no means influence your own choices. The best part of travelling is that there are minefield of choices. Freedom of exploration and instinct.

My travel rules-

1. Don't make any major plans.
2. Walk everywhere.
3. Venture off beaten paths and down random alleyways. (Just not dark ones.)
4. Don't be put off by a lack of money, time or energy. Get up early, go to bed early, buy an espresso, sit and watch.
5. Don't go where everybody else does.
6. Don't pay to get in anywhere.
7. Take as many photos as possible but know when to put your camera down and stop living life through a lens.
8. Try not to make lists, be spontaneous and let your mood decide where you are going.
9. Don't be afraid.
10. Keep dreaming.

Stories about flying

Rather ironically, I've never been a very comfortable flyer. Take off and landing is always the worst but loud noises, strange smells, odd angles and dizzying heights will make my palms sweat and turn me into one of those crazies who scream at nobody in particular, "We are all going to DIE!"

In recent months my discomfort on aeroplanes has become dramatically worse. I blame it on a fairground ride a friend and I recently took in Hampstead Heath during which the ride literally malfunctioned mid-air, heightening my self-awareness of gravity and mortality.

After that episode, my first realisation that I was going to die on an aeroplane came on a flight to Barcelona from London. Cabin crew were brewing coffee near my seat and I told my friend that something wasn't right with the plane because it sounded to me like the engines were peetering out.

From Barcelona to Ibiza, at about 10pm, while many of my fellow passengers were dressed to the nines, ordering as much booze as possible on a 45 minute flight, I became irrationally angry as everybody talked over the safety demonstration and seemed glaringly oblivious to the fact that a freak storm was going to drive our plane into the ocean, like Lost. I literally bristled with anger, unable to read my magazine, because everybody but me was in such high spirits.

Again, Ibiza back to Barcelona, as the plane flew a half-circle preparing for descent, I became convinced that the plane was going to fall out of the sky... Auckland to Sydney I could smell petrol in the cabin and decided the plane was going to blow up once we got into the skies. Madrid to London and the plane seemed to be travelling too fast for landing so I prepared myself for the fact that we were going to slam into the ground and then probably overstep the runway and crash into a building. Or another plane. And so on.

So you see, I have become rather preposteriously paranoid and have even deliberated for months about whether or not I should jinx myself by writing about this.

However, in an effort to overcome what I perceived to be a major obstacle in mentally surviving a 24 hour flight to New Zealand I decided to do what any other slightly crazy person in my situation would do- I started watching Air Crash Investigation in bulk, late at night.

And, in actual fact, while this has brought home the fact that air crashes aren't usually a survivable feat, it has eased my fears somewhat. I've learned a few things.

Number one- planes don't really fall out of skies (my biggest paranoia). They just don't. And if they do, if the pilot is a smart cookie, he should be able to reverse a stall. Which brings me to my second point.

Number two- Planes don't crash. Pilots do. In every episode of ACI I watched, the reason for each crash was pilot incompetence. Every. Single. Time. So the mind boggling feat of how a plane manages to get up, and stay up in the air is negligible, compared to some of the mind boggling mistakes pilots make under duress or pure tiredness.

Which brings me to number three- if something does go wrong with the plane or the flight, the pilot has been trained to fix it. And if he can't fix it, he can contact ground team who can tell him how. Usually, if something goes wrong, there is generally plenty of time to be able to correct the problem and continue a safe flight.

So everytime I fly I now run these three points through my mind, over and over. To be honest, they don't help much. But memories of past flights do - in spite of my fears I have to admit I have had some amazing, life-changing experiences that have all begun with a flight. For example-

- Flying in a helicopter over the New York City skyline (incidentally, this helicopter later plunged into the Hudson River, killing everybody on board, including the Kiwi pilot, mere months after my trip).

-Flying from San Francisco to London for the first time. We swooped over the Golden Gate Bridge which was the perfect ending to my time in California, paving way to an exciting new beginning in London.

-Verona to London and witnessing a truly beautiful sunset from 37,000 feet high.

-Taking off during an electrical storm, Brisbane to Auckland. 

-After a week in third world-like Vanuatu, stepping onto an Air New Zealand flight with all it's high-tech gadgets seemed the height of luxury and reminded me of how lucky we all are to have the things we do. 

-Greece to London and because our flight was early we had to fly in circles above Heathrow for about 20 minutes, along with about five other flights. Absolutely bizaare sight.

-Leaving Auckland in 2010, after an emotional good-bye with friends and family, unable to stop crying, not knowing when I was going to be back, but very, very excited. And then landing at the same airport, exactly a year to the day later, feeling unbelievably excited to be back.

These days, my life seems to be all about the airports, the travelling, the flying. If I'm not departing Gatwick or Stansted, I am waiting for my latest visitor at Heathrow. The arrivals area is always the happiest part of flying. Which I guess is why I keep booking them.






Auckland to Brisbane, 2009




San Francisco to London, 2010




London to Marseille, 2011




London to Auckland, 2011



London to Verona, 2011

Vanuatu, 2009



EasyJet flight deck, Barcelona, 2011




London to Madrid, September 2011



Fear

On September 11 2001 I was at home, in bed, sick. Earlier in the week I had picked up some kind of stomach bug, I remember counting the number of times in one day I vomited- 13, if you're interested. It was a weekend and my younger brother came into my room to tell me some planes had crashed into some buildings in New York City. I remember thinking what a stupid pilot , how could he not see the buildings?

Later, I watched the news and for the first time in my life, realised what a horrible place the world is. The horror was just unimaginable. It physically hurt to think of the terror these thousands of people must have felt. For years afterwards I used to have nightmares about flying to America. In my dreams there were no crashes or terrorist attacks, but the idea of simply flying anywhere was scary to me. The risks seemed then, and still, impossibly frightening.

I visited New York for the first time in 2008. We visited Ground Zero and several church memorials. I expected to feel sad and sick, but truthfully I didn't feel anything for what, to me, was just a construction site. I had no emotional attachment to that place, it was only the images of people jumping from tall buildings that would make the hairs on my arms stand on end.

Being Thanksgiving at the time, the New York City police started issuing terror alerts. News reports warned us not to use the subway if we could help it, and to report any suspicious behaviour. Needless to say, coming from a small town in New Zealand, the warnings frightened me and I wanted to stay in the hotel. Australians on my tour just laughed- we get warnings like that all the time in Sydney and Melbourne they scoffed. You can't live your life in fear, or the terrorists will win. And so we do all continue to live our lives. We continue to ride the underground and take flights overseas.

I am still frightened of being a statistic. I look at people on the tube with backpacks and wonder if I should take a different train. I've sized people up at the departure gate and I jump at loud noises. But nothing will stop me from continuing to book these tickets, to embark on these adventures. Life is short. Health, money, ability and opportunity won't always be there tomorrow. Let's roll.

Where are all the other travellers?

I know very few people who share my need to keep moving. I know people who like holidays, people who like Paris and people who have been to lots of places. I don't know anybody who would spend their last 40 quid on a one way ticket to Moscow. Nobody knows what it's like to look at a world map and think, 'Well, I guess I better get cracking.'

The beauty of friendship is that sometimes people can point out things you can't see for yourself.

Today, after a particularly agonising week of dissecting my finances, re-writing budgets, looking at a map and then re-writing them again, somebody said to me something along the lines of, "I would think travelling is the key to becoming a travel writer." 

Which is kind of obvious really isn't it? But I've spent so much time trying to be responsible, squirelling away money and trying to put a lid on my overwhelming desire to explore Europe's best cobbled streets, that I've missed the point of it all- to write well, you have to write what you know.

Last week my favorite partner in crime, who is currently exploring Canada, told me she was going to keep travelling until all her money ran out. And my first thought was, 'thank god somebody else understands.'

That is, understands the complete indifference to owning homes, settling down with hubby and children, having a high paying job that pays for a home in Notting Hill and numerous trips to Dior but doesn't allow for any real time off.

When did vivir suddenly mean to become part of a rat-race, a statistic, a bore? When did we stop living and start dreaming, instead of the other way around? Where are all the other travellers?

History

London is a film with an ever-changing cast of characters and a new storyline every hour. There's the woman in her mid 40s with the glazed stare. She brings her own hair dye to the salon and sifts through garbage at night. The silver-haired man who sits in every shop window with a coffee and a newspaper. A tall intellectual type in a checked shirt, hair in a ponytail, with The New Yorker stuffed in his back pocket. The barman who does a famous whiskey sour and a bouncer with a scarred face. A bus that never arrives, a sliding door, a missed train, an emergency cab-ride, al fresco dinners, hot nights, burning buildings, boarded windows, screaming sirens. Someone exited in search of a better life and those left in the wake began questioning theirs.

Back to Black

After a reasonably cool summer the weather suddenly became stifling hot, the kind where the streets smelled like tar and dusk didn't settle until well after 9pm. As a result, West Hampstead residents dined later and later, meaning longer nights for shift workers and even later after-work-drinks with Jim, Moet and the sunrise.

Amy Winehouse died in a home a 10 minute cycle away, imposing an eerie kind of atmosphere where historians would remember Back to Black could be heard streets over and the normally edgy, slightly rough Camden town enjoyed a robust smattering of preppys and tourists hoping to see a ghost.

London continued to be a revolving door of old faces and new tricks, wistful goodbyes to old friends and hellos to ones dearly missed.


I enjoyed a brief period of waking up at sunrise and going out and enjoying London before the tourists and the traffic do. Predictably this didn't last long.

A one year anniversary came and went and everything was still the same, plans just grander.