By Oh, what a horrible question that is! That inevitable question when you first get back, and see someone who cares about you and you know it’s coming; you almost hold your breath for it a little…and I hardly resent my friends and family for the interest they show in my life! On the contrary, I love them the more for it! But can I say it? Can I really answer with just “It was great!” ? How can I possibly infuse that inevitable five-letter response with an appropriate amount of joy, excitement, sweat, stress, claustrophobia, thoughtfulness, deliciousness, grumpiness, humour, laughter, tears, yawns and shivers, thrills and fears, discussion and adrenaline to express two months of travel on a continent I’ve only ever dreamed of?! I can only respond with “It was GREAT!” and hope that each of those five pathetic letters can stand strong and shine with all the enthusiasm I can otherwise never express!
Europe was so great!
It was more than a vacation, but also beyond the scope of a school term. Maybe a Scavation? A self-andthethirtyeightotherpeople-help get-away that stretches? And it was the sights, and the smallest moments, those pinpricks of delight that are just impossible to convey to anyone else, that made it so great. I don’t even have any stories! Just anecdotes that make me sound like a complete braggart! (When I was in Rome…… There was this shopkeeper in Paris…. Oh, the rain in London was…. See what I mean?!)
I cried a little when I stood outside this cathedral in Orvietto, watching a bunch of people kneeling of one accord. I could have sprouted wings walking through Florence at sunset. I’ve never felt so graciously humbled before as in this chapel, in front of this old wooden crucifix in Assissi. That little poem ”They came for the trade unionists…” spoke something deeply into me. I beamed all the way through that town of Farnham. I went through the depths of despair in this city; I was on top of a mountain in this one. It’s all in the context, in the moment, that never-to-be-again moment, that not even I can recreate for myself just how my trip was! Suffice it to be said, then, that I learned a lot, I saw a lot, I felt a lot, and it was GREAT!!