“You’ll be back soon,” my grandmother says, putting her clammy cheek next to mine. “Right?”
“In and out, in and out,” I reply vaguely.
I have been “in” – which is to say, in Lisbon – since Sunday. Today is Wednesday, and as the Scandinavian landscape from my porthole confirms, I am definitely out.
It’s been three hours since we took off from a mercifully cooler Lisbon towards Copenhagen, via Stockholm. The pilot has just announced that rain and chilly temperatures (10 degrees) will greet us – which rather accurately describes the 5-day forecast for my final destination of Vilnius, Lithuania.
In Vilnius I will be attending the Erasmus Mundus Students and Alumni Association General Assembly, in my capacity as course representative. On either side of the conference programme I have given myself a day for which I have made no attempt to prepare. Guidebook-, companion-, and preconception-less, I intend to wander, eat mysterious food and get soaked by several days of heavy rain.
I’ll be in again next Monday, out to Brussels for a few days at the end of the month, in for the first two weeks of July, out to the Avignon Festival in France from the 17th to the 24th, before pushing still outwards to Amsterdam to round off the month in the company of S and J.
All of August will be in – which is to say, in the sun, in the sea, at the beach.
“In and out, in and out,” I reply vaguely.
I have been “in” – which is to say, in Lisbon – since Sunday. Today is Wednesday, and as the Scandinavian landscape from my porthole confirms, I am definitely out.
It’s been three hours since we took off from a mercifully cooler Lisbon towards Copenhagen, via Stockholm. The pilot has just announced that rain and chilly temperatures (10 degrees) will greet us – which rather accurately describes the 5-day forecast for my final destination of Vilnius, Lithuania.
In Vilnius I will be attending the Erasmus Mundus Students and Alumni Association General Assembly, in my capacity as course representative. On either side of the conference programme I have given myself a day for which I have made no attempt to prepare. Guidebook-, companion-, and preconception-less, I intend to wander, eat mysterious food and get soaked by several days of heavy rain.
I’ll be in again next Monday, out to Brussels for a few days at the end of the month, in for the first two weeks of July, out to the Avignon Festival in France from the 17th to the 24th, before pushing still outwards to Amsterdam to round off the month in the company of S and J.
All of August will be in – which is to say, in the sun, in the sea, at the beach.
Like I say, in and out.
Rain and 9 degrees as we pull in to Vilnius airport. Yes, it is June.
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