I remember the first time I went to Berlin. It was in the age of £0.01 Ryanair Flights. You had to be opportunistic to catch them, skipping classes mid-term, just before my first dissertation deadline. I can’t remember where we stayed, too many trips back to that city have layered it with a million overlapping memories, boundaries blurred, content fuzzy. What I remember is this: the bright yellow of the S-Bahn against grey skies, ripping my tights (grey, woolen, from Zara) in the Zoologischer Garten, burning my tongue on paprika’d Currywurst, getting photos developed and spreading them out on a wooden roundabout in a kids’ park, the blue domed glass of the Sony Centre, dim and musty bars.
Berlin was the first place I travelled, without my family or school, for no other reason than curiosity and joy. I was eighteen, just into my second year at university. I had grown up with my parents’ stories of Europe, read so much about other landscapes and history. I was so hungry always for new sensory experiences: wrapping my tongue around the sounds of foreign languages and accents, delighted by new words, noticing how light falls differently in different climates, how the wind draws in different weather systems.
Travel is such a personal joy. To me, the wonder has always been in the ordinary: the endless discoveries in supermarkets, the many signs of human life in cities, the colours and temperament of the land. It is such a pleasure to explore and settle into these things, even just for a while. I find most delight in the practical experience of this ordinariness, attempting to find my place within it. The challenge of making a life in different conditions, accruing enough understanding to grasp different layers of meaning.
Naturally, this type of joy doesn’t lend itself to every type of holiday. It makes me a boring travel companion for someone who wants to see all the sights. It makes me a rubbish guide for someone who wants tips about some place I’ve visited. But exploring with people who are drawn to the same is all the sweeter for my awareness of that.
I’ve wanted for some time to share some of the backlog of photos and adventures that for whatever reason never made it onto this blog in real time. I’ve also been wanting to put more time into my writing, hoping to publish something every week. So if you enjoy these meandering kind of reflections, do keep coming back to check in every Sunday. My aim is keep up a longer monthly update post, interspersed with shorter weekly thoughts.
For now, I wanted to leave you with some photos from the very first stop of the road trip Sarah and I made to the South Island, over two years ago now(!) She has a love for the same kind of everyday details that I do, and we had such a wonderful time together. This is Glenorchy.
Looking forward – like so many! – to times in which travel will be possible once more. And sending you love, as ever. Keep checking in, much more to come. Zx
Mad to Live 