All I need is my dear friends. And a good European quantity of alcohol in my blood, in London, in Poland and in Italy

An unusual trip

When was the last time I travelled without my wife in a far away land? It was 2007 , and I wasn’t married yet. I was already living in South Africa, but my life was quite different back then. No car, no house, no wife, no dogs. Stuck between nostalgia for a past in which I was perfectly fitting, and a future that had no guarantees.

It’s hard to travel by yourself after having spent pretty much the past 18 months constantly with someone. I used to be great at it, but now the silent just kills me. In the airport, the only time I open my mouth is to order some food, and sometimes I don’t even need it, I can just grab the food at the counter, pass the card, pay and go.

It’s a strange feeling. You enjoy your freedom to do whatever you want (within certain limits, obviously), but you can’t take a picture of something stupid that you are doing unless you extend your arm and take a self picture, which is kind of lame these days.

A lot of friends asked me why I didn’t take Lindsey. First of all, it was quite an intense schedule. 11 days, three countries, a lot of internal flights, not much time to visit anyone. London was all about work, Poland was all about my dead grandpa, and Italy was all about alcohol. I don’t think that Lindsey would have enjoyed.

Plus, with the recent amount of extra expenses to fix our poor doggies (the female, Cucciola, suffers from hip dysplasia so we spent quite a lot to correct the hip via operation, the male, Bruce, was ran over by a car together with his master – me – and his leg was in the cast for a while), the budget for so many flights was drastically reduced, so we decided that I should go alone.

 You see, it’s strange to plan a trip and leaving wife and dogs behind. You start worrying about what will happen when you’re away and it’s difficult to relax. Luckily for me, Lindsey has her support system (family) not too far from our home, so at least I knew that she would be ok.

So, with pretty much everything sorted, and my intensive schedule ready, it was time to drive to the airport and say goodbye to South Africa for 2 weeks.

Lindsey packed my bags (she changed the ratio t-shirts/socks/underwear which is usually 3/3/2 per week to a new 7/7/7 per week, or 1/1/1 per day) and I squeezed the usual bottles and gifts that I was taking to Europe. I was ready to go.

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