Final reflections from an antipodean romantic hopeful

Water is the great leveller. It finds the balance, where it needs to be. Flying over Amsterdam I could see that the edge between land and water has been blurred. The distinction simply isn’t valid here. It makes a mockery of tides and of our fear of sea level rises, but I think the Dutch must be falling over themselves to avoid it. 

I flew over fields of colour while arriving in Holland, thinking about returning in some small way to my homeland (well - one of them, the most recent - my Irish, Scottish, English, Danish, French and German relatives arrived in New Zealand some 150-200 years ago). Here’s something I wrote a few months before departing on my travels:

“Thinking about why I want to travel - it’s not about the beaches, we have them here. It’s culture. Ancient ruins, history, artefacts, art, and divinity. Why do I need that? Because in New Zealand we are still young, fresh, ignorant of our forebears, where we come from, and therefore, of what we are. I need to see, smell, touch, taste, and listen to those ancient ways. Food, music. I always have favoured the new, but I’ve lacked the old. I need it to make me whole.”

An odd highlight was in Rotterdam, when alone, I entered Spirit restaurant and experienced something I wanted to bring back home. Here is a transcript of my time there:

“I am sitting in a buffet restaurant, an ordinary place full of ordinary people. In a BIG city! Its scale is out of proportion. What I liked about Leiden isn’t here. I haven’t walked far yet, but the city feels like how I think a cold port American city would feel like, Seattle maybe? or Portland? or Baltimore?

There is something special about this eatery. It’s called Spirit. The buffet gives something away - it’s very varied, caters to many diets and ethnicities. It’s the people. Ordinary as they come. Varied too. Some read books with their soup or their meals. Others are just here for a cheap glass of wine. The tables are dressed with a simple flower in a vase. There are single people, families, older couples, a few groups. There are free mint plants!

There is dignity and warmth and a common experience of people together at meal times. It’s a human thing, worth preserving.

There has to be a trick. Oh, there it is. It’s organic, vege. That teaches me to judge. It’s the yummiest lineup of food I’ve seen in ages. And that says something! For a city that prides itself on meat (there’s even a restaurant down the road called ‘Meat Me’), this vege surprise is a delight, and something I think would work well in Wellington.”

I have felt many things since returning home, most of them not related to this travel journey at all. I had thought it would be life changing, but the only thing really that changed has been my attitude to others. I feel more actively engaged now in international affairs. More thoughtful about staying in touch with absent friends. Extremely grateful to friends who travel home to see us, especially with children in tow, because it’s so damned expensive and it takes so much time! But more important, I feel even more strongly that we need to eat together, as people, to put our differences aside (if there are any) and just be. Just be people, together. A life shared is a life doubled, maybe, or something else just as smushy.

My final notebook travel entry reads:

“Thoughts on travel - it takes time, it’s expensive. It makes home feel far away and quite a bit more attractive towards the end of your journey. Pets are a pain to have looked after while away. Time is more flexible when you’re travelling. It bends. Other languages sound strange until you’re really listening, and then, they become like music, and you can understand more than you think. Jet lag gets you in the end. It catches up with you as you catch up with the correct time of day, but the lag can last days. And it can make you feel dizzy initially.”

My dizzy spell is well and truly over now. I have fond memories of travel, especially the rare time spent with friends in some other timescape, and it has been worthwhile, and I will do it again.

But it lures me in, still. Will always do so.

I’ll meet you again, over the edge of the Pacific, the never-never, the out-there. Travel, friends, I bid you: welcome me home, then welcome me back home.