Category: Europe Again 2010

French Flanders had an entirely different feel to the still-summery Provence, where we’d left the Mediterranean grape harvest in full swing. The suburbs of Lille, with their steep-roofed red-brick houses and street-facing gardens littered with the orange and brown leaves of autumn, felt distinctly British in comparison. 

The last three weeks have been a medley of the memorable and the mundane in the south of France. I’ve found little time or opportunity to write about it, however; cheap internet cafés are practically non-existent here in Western Europe. Everyone has their own computer here , so it’s no surprise, but it’s something I’ve sorely missed. 

It’s coming. The end of the road. One more border, one more ferry crossing. And it will be finished.

I’m incredibly excited on one hand; terrified on the other. What will it mean? What happens next? Is it really the end of anything?

Easy to philosophise away, this kind of thing. Another young Westerner returns to the society he left so selfishly to find something better, discovers that nothing much has changed. This will just be another stop on life’s journey, right? 

I’d worked hard to fund the ride home. Never before while on the road had I felt sufficiently flush as to splash out on a fresh delicious pizza, or a mouth-wateringly flavoursome ice-cream, or a expertly-prepared cappucino on an almost-daily basis!