Well, we arrived back safe and sound, if a little groggy, from Nepal (via India) on Tuesday, and have been adjusting slowly to life in the “real world” again. Hmm… Is this world really more real than what we experienced there? Or is it the reverse? Anyhow, adjusting mainly means shifting our eating schedule back to after 9pm (rather than being asleep by that time, as we generally were for the three weeks in Nepal). And trying to cope with being so darn clean all the time; sitting rather than walking all day; being at a table — on a chair — to eat; not having someone bring me tea at 6am every day.

I’m finding Barcelona to be rather snow- and mountain-free, after so much time spent in such alpine grandeur. At least I can amble up a few hundred metres to my favourite viewpoint, as I already have done twice this week. A bit different from a country where a 5,000m peak is literally called a “hill”! But no signs of altitude sickness here, unless longing for altitude counts (in the same way that homesickness means longing for home).

I have tons of notes and photos from the trip, and the plan is to write up a bit for each day of our trip. This may be overly-ambitious, but it’s, well, the plan. Be prepared to be deluged, monsoon-style, with facts and figures, observations and pithy anecdotes. On second thought, I’m known more for my “ramble” than my pith, so maybe brace for pithless, rambling anecdotes. A deluge of words, at least.

I was sad to learn that, just as we were ending our trek on the other side of the world, my maternal grandmother ended her “trek” here on Earth…she passed away last Thursday after more than a decade of Alzheimer’s and, generally, the frailty of old age.

To paraphrase a favourite author of hers, and substituting my grandmother for “Christopher Robin”:

My grandmother is going.
At least I think she is.
Where?
Nobody knows.
But she is going -
I mean she goes
(To rhyme with “knows”)
Do we care?
(To rhyme with “where”)
We do
Very much.
…
Good-bye,
I
(Good)
I
And all your friends
Sends -
I mean all your friend
Send -
(Very awkward this, it keeps going wrong.)
Well, anyhow, we send
Our love
END.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 17th, 2008 at 13h54 and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.