I started this newsletter earlier in the year, in an attempt to silence my self-doubt and do something with all my half-formulated travel writings and holiday note-takings. I’ve enjoyed revisiting old journals. Cringed while reading the diary from an inter-railing adventure aged 17 and was surprised to discover just how many McDonald’s ice cream cones I ate while travelling around China a few years later. I’ve loved turning a hand-drawn map of Laos’ Thakhek Loop into words, telling the story of my visit to a golden rock just outside Mawlamyine in Myanmar and sharing recommendations for Spain’s La Rioja wine region. But it’s also been kind of infuriating trying to turn years-old memories into something coherent. Being ‘back home’ and wrangling a list of long-ago impressions just isn’t the same as being there.
So – aside from soaking up some much-needed sun – that’s why I can’t wait to arrive in Athens. To walk out of a room I can’t yet picture and write about my wanderings in real time. To record those delicious first few hours – the early impressions and observations. Discovering a drink you’ll order over and over throughout your stay – teh tarik in Kuala Lumpur, vermouth preparado in Pamplona, finger-scorching serves of çay in Istanbul and lukewarm Limca at bus stations across India – bottles clinking in crates, glass scuffed and scratched from thousands of refills. Starting to recognise words on street signs and at train stations. Witnessing daily routines and minuscule moments.
Learning what time people eat, sleep, head home for dinner, go out to party. Saying ‘buen provecho’ to fellow diners in Mexico, touching your right elbow with your left hand as you pay with crumbled kyat notes at a tea shop in Myanmar. Working out how to book bus tickets. Finding the best snacks to see you through a long train journey. Getting into a rhythm. Starting to make sense of how things work, trying not to make generalisations, hoping to fit in while remembering you aren’t an insider but merely a guest in someone else’s home.
Perhaps it’s because husband is so good at making Google Maps and reading guidebooks – highlighter in hand – that I don’t really do research. I prefer to see what happens on arrival. But preconceptions are inevitable. We didn’t know anyone who’d been to Mexico City, but had absorbed this idea and come to accept that – at some point – our money would be stolen, our phones snatched. Yes, all cities have their criminals, but this ill-at-ease feeling evaporated within hours of arriving at our hotel in the early hours of the morning and we decided to go for a walk rather than wait in reception for our room to be ready. We set off in darkness along tree-lined streets and through jacaranda-scented parks, towards the first inklings of dawn and a cart selling polystyrene cups of instant coffee. Morning arriving with the sound of aproned women flinging open shop shutters to sweep the leaves from the pavement outside. We returned to the hotel our expectations completely altered.
Then again, nothing could have prepared me for the first 24 hours I spent in Delhi, which amazed and appalled me in equal measure. It was over 20 years ago now and it was overwhelming and unnerving and exhilarating and I just loved it.
Of course, arrivals don’t all have to be as life-changing as my introduction to India. As London emerged from the first Covid lockdown, we sat down to lunch in Porto. Seafood and a small beer, followed by the most incredible sense of freedom as we wandered past tiled churches and across bridges and rode a trundling wooden tram towards crashing Atlantic waves before returning to our room – feeling disorientated at being out and about all afternoon.
There are arrivals that coincide with an event, a party you didn’t know you were invited to – bands singing on a makeshift stage, people dancing in the town square, a procession winding beneath your hotel window. There are underwhelming arrivals that turn themselves around – a missed connection from Bilbao to San Sebastian soon forgotten over several glasses of lightly sparkling txakoli at the one bar still open when we finally rolled in town – a beckon of light serving wafer-thin slices of jamón.
Some arrivals are familiar. They follow a tried-and-tested itinerary that means it feel like returning home. Picking up the hire car, driving straight to Alghero’s central market, ordering calamari, a side of chips and a bottle of ice-cold prosecco before heading for a tiny bay on the outskirts of the city. Swimming, sitting on the rocky jetty reading and greeting the end of the afternoon with a bracing negroni.
There are arrivals that are a long time coming. They involve multiple modes of transport, a delayed departure, a flat tyre, an over-heated engine, a closed road, switchbacks that demand a snail’s pace. There are long-awaited arrivals – like walking through the gates at Gatwick to be reunited with friends and family after months away. There are arrivals where you hit the ground running – leaving your luggage in a train station locker because check-in can wait till later – and there are arrivals where you need to take a moment to get your bearings.
Whatever awaits in Athens, I just can’t wait to arrive.