17/01/2025
Wow. What a year.
Despite snowstorms in the Midwest and wildfires in Los Angeles, we made it to LAX and are spending the last night of our adventure at the Hyatt near the airport. Rick and the Boboys did a Target run for some French onion dip, Ruffles, Triscuits, applesauce, Cheerios and Big Gulps for our last dinner in America.
In the last thirteen months, we have visited 44 countries, countless castles and cathedrals and beaches covered in rocky gray, soft pink, and jet black sands. We have taken 27 flights and have covered thousands of kilometres in trains, cars and buses. We have marveled at bridges, peaks, cliffs, caves, coves, towers, fountains, ruins, mountains, and masterpieces. We’ve sampled delicacies from octopus salad to shark, reindeer meatballs, elk jerky, bacalao, ginja in chocolate cups, gator, ouzo, and dried fish chips. We’ve learned to prepare veal stew, baguettes, croissants, mayonnaise, orange chocolate cake, pain au chocolat, tortelli, tagliatelli, pastel de nata, Portuguese ribs, pork cheeks, salmorejo, bacalao croquettes, gelato, pork belly and a rich sauces with kimchi, beer and wine. We’ve learned that churches in Portugal gleam with silver, those in Spain shine in gold, Italian churches are decorated with fine art, houses of God in France display beautiful windows and vaulted ceilings, and mosque-cathedrals and palaces in Southern Spain celebrate the mixed heritage of the area.
We have admired glass blowers, crystal carvers, pastry chefs, silversmiths, jewelry artisans, painters and chestnut roasters hard at work. We crossed the Arctic Circle, the Prime Meridian and the Equator, celebrating each occasion. We dabbled in spoken French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, German, Polish, Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian, Dutch, Icelandic, Latvian, Lithuanian, Croatian and Greek long enough to wish our fellow man a good day, to thank others and to beg for forgiveness if we murdered their language in our attempt at culture.
We celebrated Feria, Semana Santa, the running of the bulls, the Menton Lemon Festival, Oktoberfest, D-Day, two Christmases and two New Year holidays. We shared our days and evenings with travelers from all areas of the world who regaled us with their stories of adventure and made good friends along the way. We drove the winding roads of Iceland, the impossibly narrow highways of Ireland, the country paths of rural France, and the racetrack that is the Autobahn. We experienced delays, cancellations, flooded train tracks, rough landings, bomb threat reroutes, an early disembarkation because of a forgotten backpack, the bus-board emesis of inexperienced port drinkers, dramatic turbulence, and rock-hard bicycle seats.
We realized that we only truly require three or four outfits as long as we keep up with laundry, beanies are essential in wintertime, Ikea names their toilet seats after cities in Denmark, a kitchen kit with some herbes du Provence, soy sauce, garlic powder, a good knife, a rubber spatula and a few bay leaves help make any rental a chef’s kitchen, and the lack of a corkscrew is not a barrier to a nice glass of wine. We saw pubgoers rise to their feet for their national anthem at the end of an evening in Ireland, energetic soccer fans chant and dance, Flamenco dancers stomp out their emotional routines, oompa bands pump out biergarten tunes, gauchos twirl their ladies around the ranch, natives of Greenland croon with their accordions, and groups of merry Italians singing and dancing in the streets.
We visited charming Christmas markets, the Matterhorn, Piz Gloria, the Eiffel Tower, the Colosseum, Notre Dame, the Neuschwanstein castle, the Vatican, the Alcazar, the rock of Gibraltar, the Cliffs of Moher, Giant’s Causeway, Loch Ness, the Tower of London, Stonehenge, the Nuremberg courts, war tunnels in Malta, Croatia and Montenegro, the Berlin Wall, the Little Mermaid, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, Cinqueterre, the French Riviera, Versailles, Big Ben, the Burj Khalifa, Christ the Redeemer, the ruins in Pompeii, Chateau Frontenac, the Plaza d’Espana, the Giralda, the Costa del Sol, the Blue Lagoon, Lake Como and the Alps aboard toboggans and the Glacier Express.
We have laughed, cried, worried, rushed, relaxed, argued, and reconciled. We’ve seen each other at our best and worst. The Boboys have grown nearly 20 cm and have mastered executing train travel, navigating airports, ordering meals in foreign restaurants, exploring cruise ships, organizing port calls, mounting cable cars, buses and shuttles, and renting city bicycles.
I have come away from this experience with a profound sense of humanity and a deep appreciation for life experiences with my family and friends. If I hadn’t shared my days and nights on this adventure with my boys, Rick and the family and friends who have joined us along the way, they would have meant far less to me. What I’m wearing and the car I’m driving mean nothing, but being present means the world. Most of all, I better appreciate how incredibly blessed I am to live surrounded by incredible, loving people. The world is indeed our oyster and I look forward to exploring and enjoying new destinations by land, sea and air with my beloved whanau in the years to come.
