Coming First

Hey Everyone!

Finally I get to find the time to sit down and write and I am already in Zurich. I know some of you have been waiting patiently and actually, I did get to write my first post on the plane but when I read through it again, I thought might as well start all over. Writing does have a shelf life when gone unpublished! Brabon and I left Kuala Lumpur June 17, that's like14 days ago, France is history. Now I'm left to recall, backtrack the days in Paris and Lourdes BUT I'm going to start about the time way before we left.

You see, this Euro trip was not an easy trip to plan to begin with, mostly because it was going to be costly due to the currency exchange, both Brabon and I are in our fifties ( lugging 30 kilo bags from country to country is NOT A JOKE), we don't speak the LANGUAGES, and the entire duration is 65 long but relatively short days. Long because this will be our longest time away from home and family but short when we attempt to cramp Cook, Pray and Jazz among many other stuff, yes, many many other stuff. So basically the bottom line is, we are poor, aged, disadvantaged, short of time but you know what, we just had to make and manage this trip. Hey, for some folks, this is a dream you know and no one, not even Oprah was going to make our dream come true!

You see, it all started with a telephone call, something I've named "The Olga Inception" in 2005, 5 years ago..... Olga is my cousin who lives in Switzerland, you get the drift? So it was there, ever since then, at the backs of our minds, now all we needed was a fake schedule so to say, to get the ball rolling. Somehow, along the way, once we really really really thought about it, Et voila, we had a schedule and the big picture started unfolding and coming together.

Next was research, research, research for a whole year, location was important so if we had to stay on our own, we looked only at places with FREE WIFII. We also drafted several check lists, toiletries and accessories purchased after conversion were shehr so for that we had a long long list. Our Gift list had to have weight in mind so it consisted of a variety of cotton sarongs, scarfs, brooches and a bag of all kinds of spices, sauces and syrup and oh, some Mia Palencia T-shirts and CDs, just in case, gotta be ready! Then there's our "Other" list for documents, correspondence, outline schedules, work stuff to research on and if and when we can "things to do, places to see and what we might like to buy".

Then there was work to do as per usual, mid-term holiday classes to teach and Raya cookie samples to make ahead of time. Anything else? Yes, learn French, Italian and Spanish on time!

I pretty much ended up packing only on the day we were leaving so our night flight was a good thing after all. So far so good, I do have everything I need which were listed, except for my business cards that I had completely forgotten to list down. I can still kick myself for forgetting that!

So there I was sitting on the left aisle with 4 more full hours of thought. I saw the aerial view of mountains and the horizon was a mixture of a pale orange coloured sky. While I was excited about landing on the planet's most fashionable city and the promise of my most sought after cooking and baking classes, I also experienced a sense of dread and the unknown. I knew the minute we took off, life will never be the same. 

It’s true that everyone has their own story, for me this is the hardest trip I had to make so far and the past months had been extremely challenging. Coming first after such a long time and at MIDLIFE is very very

scary!

Eat, Pray, Love is a privilege, a luxury. Try finding yourself when you know who you are, when you know who your God is and when you know whom and all you love.