THERE AND BACK AGAIN

on the 21st of November, 2014, i left on an European road trip, one that i would undertake solo. my very first trip travelling possibly my favorite continent alone.

this trip was planned within three weeks - all i had was a fly-in point, a fly-out point and two stops that i had to make to see friends (Madrid and Lyon), and that was that. the rest of the itinerary would forge itself as i found my way.

i told no one but a handful of friends in Melbourne whom i did not want to scare by suddenly disappearing, and just my mother back home. really, i did not want to deal with minor details. all i wanted to do was go.

people said i was running away, running from problems that were slowly brewing over the past year, and had finally spilled over at the very end of October. running? no, i wasn't running from something. i was already free. i already felt free. perhaps i just wanted more free space to run about in.

"maybe you're searching for something but you don't know what it is yet," a friend offered. "maybe," i told him. "return when you are ready, but only when you've found what you're looking for," was the reply. now, as i sit in my dad's favorite desk-chair at his computer in Malaysia (my laptop is still in Melbourne, i do hope it still works when i get back) typing this, i'm not sure exactly if i know what *it* is, or if i've found it yet.

still, in the coming weeks, i plan to write bits and pieces about my trip so i can look back at it and remember everything, because now, barely 2 months since the start of my trip, i'm forgetting the little things already. thus, a warning: when i finally get around to posting entries, they might look and sound like a meaningless jumble to you lot, but it makes sense to me. it will probably piece together somehow, as i go along.

i'll leave you with one tidbit - one of my favorite photos i took of London with my iPhone (my camera shit itself early on in my trip, so i spent over month carrying around a dead-weight in the form of an Olympus Pen E-PL1). i edited the colors a little with VSCO, but i'm pretty pleased with how it turned out, as i did capture it during what photographers call the Golden Hour as we took a walk along the banks of the Thames.