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Day: 48

Location: Serifos, Greece

Weather: VERY hot and sunny

I woke up and walked the two minutes to the beach for a morning swim. I was the only one there for about a minute until an older couple came down too carrying masks and snorkels, the man dove in and stroked out towards the deep, the woman paused before proceeding to remove her togs in broad daylight. She walked onto the water carrying only her mask and snorkel. Why is everyone naked?

Later that morning I choose a beach a fifty minute walk away, I pack my bag and I leave. I have found Europe doesn’t have a rubbish service like New Zealand does, instead they favour communal skip bins where you walk your sacks of rubbish down and hurl them in. As I walked, an Audi passed me, then a little moped with three helmetless people on it, then a donkey carrying sacks of rubbish towards the skip. Worlds collide. Plastic and cars, tar-sealed roads and donkeys. Have we progressed or regressed? Maybe both. I find myself sublimely happy when I haven’t touched my phone all day. It seems simple to keep your mind where your body is, yet we’re in a constant fight to hold our attention right in front of us.

As I walk down the road I can hear the patter of hundreds of crickets launching themselves from the gravel into the dry grass — into safety. My god can they jump, I watched one soar past my chest. My map told me a track should cut down to the sea on the left when the road ends. I found the overgrown path that was nothing more than moderately trampled grass and started down it. The shuffling of grasshoppers intensified, some lizards disappeared over rocks then suddenly I was confronted with a spider web that spanned the path with a great big spider keeping guard in the middle of it. It was maybe knee height, so I took a flying leap over the top of it, only to land right in front of another at chest height. There was no way over, under or around this one, so I grabbed a stalk of statice and gently moved the web to the side. The spider didn’t seem happy — understandably. The track wasn’t long but I soon found it was covered with one spider web after the next, clearly I was the first person down it for the day. My statice worked well, though I think I must have looked crazy wielding a stalk of purple flowers in front of me like a wand. I tried to be gentle but I think I left a wake of angry Grecian spiders behind me. If karma exists I think it’s coming. But I shouldn’t tempt fate.

I make it to a clearing only to realise the track has stopped and I’m not near the beach. I can see it down the hill and know the path must start up somewhere again so I search the area and find something that looks vaguely promising over a fence. I decide to jump it and end up in someone’s back garden but the path is there so I follow it hoping for dear life no one is going to run after me with a big stalk of statice. To my complete and utter delight the beach materialises and it is completely empty. I have an entire beach all to myself. I cartwheel and dance and sing like a mad woman not caring if a few farmhouses on the hill see me. I briefly entertain the idea of a skinny dip after seeing a couple of nudy-rudies in the last two days. I’ve done it once with my flatmate where in the dead of night we ran naked and screaming into the sea. It was freeing, and I’m tempted again except it’s the middle of the day and someone could come round the track at any minute. I settle instead for a brief 30 second strip to change into my togs. That’s enough risk for one day.

One hour stretches into five. I’ve swum four times, my hair is caked with salt and is ridiculously curly. Four more people turn up, but that’s all — one couple from the beach two days ago; we’re following each other. I write screeds in my journal and I spend long stretches of time staring at the horizon. My attention span hasn’t been so long in quite a while, and to be honest, it feels marvellous. It is exhausting to try and satisfy a mind that wants something new to entertain it every five seconds. I love that I can eat dinner alone on a marina and be blindingly happy just watching the little domesticities unfold on boats. A lady hangs her washing, a man fillets a fish, a child reads on the bow, a woman checks some knots. The ocean is so all consuming and vast I cannot pull myself from it. But I’m almost ready for dinner so I reluctantly pack up and start the walk home. I begin brazenly, hoping the spiders can’t have repaired their webs so fast. I’m right. I glance over my shoulder more times than I can count, trying desperately to memorise a view and a feeling that is overwhelmingly utterly miraculous. Like I am seeing for the first time.

Day: 47

Location: Serifos, Greece

Weather: Hot and rainy

Today I walked more of the island covering 10 kilometres which was briefly interrupted by some rain (the audacity). I scrambled down some rocks towards cover and realised I also really needed to wee. I stopped in an old ruin next to (surprise, surprise) a church. Serifos has around 116 churches (give or take a couple), yet they have a population of 1241 people. That’s 10 people per church. Insane. The rain eased enough for me to scramble the last two kilometres home down from Pano Chora to Livadi. Lizards lunged out of the way and cats scattered.

I spent most of the afternoon reading before I decided I’d go two minutes down to the beach to watch the waves and be with my thoughts some more. I found a lovely perch and sat down, half a minute later a lady set up her beach chair right behind me. But she didn’t sit for long, instead she stripped off to go for a swim, and when I say stripped off she removed everything except her tog bottoms. I thought she’d dash embarrassed to the sea before slipping under the water. No, as I’m learning, embarrassment is a foreign concept here. She trotted down to the water, got about thigh deep and decided to aqua jog back and forth in front of me along a little 20 metre strip. I didn’t know where to look. Suddenly the sand was fascinating. Her pink, bug eye sunglasses wrapped around her face stared out happily across the bay. I was reduced to staring at the ground, looking up every now and then to see if she’d gone under the water yet and it was safe for me to look up. Eventually she began to waft deeper with her shoulders under water. Phew. I could again enjoy the ocean view. Not for long. She came back to shore and continued her running, this time on the sand, up and down right in front of me. I think she was about 60 years old. Go her.

If I have one wish in life it is to fall asleep to the sound of the sea every night in a house full of people I love. I watched the gentle waves form and break on the sand, the rhythm lulled me into contemplation. I thought I should feel complete. I am on a Greek island after a wonderful holiday, I am about to return to a safe country with loving friends and family waiting for me, I have choice about what I pursue and each night I can put healthy food on the table. Well why do I feel uneasy, unfulfilled? I don’t know, there could be many reasons, but I think sometimes you can just feel off, despite all the stars aligning.

But now, three hours later I listen to the sea and feel at ease. Sometimes feelings just come and go and maybe they aren’t tied to anything, they sweep across the sky like clouds then dissolve on the horizon.

Day: 46

Location: Serifos, Greece

Weather: Hot and sunny

I have five nights of my adventure left before I fly 19,000km around the world to tuck back into my normal life in New Zealand. It has been one extraordinary experience after the next and I feel my ordinary life on my ordinary street will not be able to bring so much challenge and joy anymore. My mind has ballooned as the edges of my world have expanded.

This morning I walked from Livadakia up to Pano Chora on the hill. The track started off well marked, cutting straight up between the winding roads, crossing one hair pin then the next. The dry hill slipped quietly into houses — white and blue with narrow paths weaving between them. I lost the signs and had to follow my nose towards the top. I reached one dead end after another, some sets of stairs ascended into greater amounts of ruin the further I climbed. I turned back on myself more times than I could count. I passed a lady sweeping her front stoop, yassus, we said to each other. Two minutes later I passed by her again, where are you trying to go? She said. I smiled and pointed, the top. She told me to return back the way I just tried, take the stairs to the right, and keep taking the right, then you’ll get there. I nodded and thought to myself, I’ve tried that. But on I went, after five minutes of trying to pick my way up broken and overgrown cobbles I took the left instead, and another left, then I saw a sign pointing me to the top. When she said right, I think she meant left. That’s travelling. When I’m in big cities I’m afraid of looking too much like a tourist for fear of being targeted by pickpockets and scammers, but on this small Grecian island I have found the opposite works. When you need help, dangle your camera around your neck, wear absurd amounts of sunblock and look very confused — people will rush to help you and point you in the right direction. I have slowly got over my fear of doing the wrong thing or asking for help. Just a few weeks ago instead of getting someone to tell me how to use the buses in Paris, I walked for hours because my fear of looking incompetent or silly was greater than my desire to see beautiful things in a place I may not return to for decades. It sounds stupid, because it is, but now if I want to do something I get the help and I find a way. It really is that simple.

I came to the top and enjoyed the sweeping view of the island and out to sea. I mapped a path across the island towards a bay and took a little snapshot in my head. The road took me past a dam, through some goat paddocks, past a horse, to a cemetery and eventually to the beach. I have never seen water so clear, I could see for miles when I stroked along the gold sea floor.

Day: 45

Location: Serifos, Greece

Weather: Sunny and clear

A lady called Eva on the ferry to Serifos pointed out all the historical parts of the island as we swept round its south side and into the port. She lives there six months of the year running a hotel, and the other six months she spends however she pleases. The white houses peered out from the hill. You’ve chosen a good place, it’s quiet here, and beautiful, she tells me. I nod and feel very pleased, I don’t want Santorini or Mykonos.

I’m staying in a little boarding house run by a lady called Giota. My balcony overlooks the Mediterranean and I have the perfect room and bathroom. She shows me around, making a point to tell me about the mesh screens, lots of mosquitos, she says. I find out that evening she’s very right. I drink the wine the hotel in Athens gave me upon departure and realise it’s either very potent or I’m not used to drinking. I decide to investigate dinner and do my best to walk down the street straight. I think I’m doing a convincing job until I almost crash into a fence and trip over a cat.

Day: 44

Location: Pisa, Italy —> Athens, Greece

Weather: Rainy, then sunny

I’m going to begin with a list of little moments and end with my launch into Greece.

• It always seems to pour with rain on long travel days.

• I walk between Pisa train station and Pisa airport in the rain with my bags slung on my back. A man leans from his window waves to me, he smiles and I smile and I’m not so mad that my socks are wet anymore.

• There’s a school trip at the airport, parents say goodbye, the kids all hug their parents. I think of the teachers.

• I have had enough of “smart” toilets that flush while you’re still sitting on them.

• I’m hoping the wildfires near Pisa are being put out by the rain.

• We rattle down the runway and I wonder if the wheels are going to fall off the plane before we even get airborne. We take off and thrash our way up to cruising altitude. We bump along in the sky, then we thump down onto the runway.

• The whole of Bari airport is invested in a lady’s conversion with what sounds like someone who cannot use the internet or a computer, and still thinks a mouse is a rodent and windows are holes in walls.

I arrive in Athens after 15 hours of travel. I flop onto my big bed, look at a map and head out into the night to find dinner. It’s 9pm and I’m famished. The doorman at the hotel suggests some places that serve lovely fish, he gets out an A3 map and circles all over it and writes down the names of places on the back. I take a left then another left and a kebab shop is right there. The menu is in Greek and a never ending stream of delivery drivers pour in and out of its double doors. I go inside to find an open kitchen full of men working at double speed. A team of women man the counter all bustling around and yelling in Greek. When I get to a new city or country I like to explore the streets, usually in daylight, to familiarise myself with things, to be able to watch from a distance and get the lay of the land. Not tonight. I’m thrown into the centre of it all — and in the dark. I approach the counter after translating the menu on my phone. I’ve decided on the smallest kebab — beef, tzatziki, salads, and… hot chips (!!) wrapped in a pita bread. I stand to the side clutching my bag feeling like I am in the eye of a tornado, or on a cliff watching the sea in a storm. It is beautiful. Drivers dance a foxtrot around me, the kitchen staff do a waltz, the counter girls do a polka — the music is a Greek medley of shouting. Happy shouting. A man wrapping kebabs overlooking the shop looks up at me and reads my awe like a book, he gives me a soft smile and a nod that says, welcome to Greece, I see you, and isn’t it exciting. I smile back, broad and beaming. The man kept wrapping and looked up every now and then to see how I was taking it all in. Kart, Kart?! Oh, I think that’s me I think that’s me, I say in English. The order gets handed over and I wander down the waterfront until I find a ledge. My god I have never had such an incredible kebab in my life. I will never again be able to eat a kebab in New Zealand. They will not do it justice. The pita is a cloud, the chips the perfect crunch, mountains of meat, salad brimming over, tzatziki spilling from the sides. And guess what, it cost me all of €4. I can’t grasp that it is the smallest of the four sizes, it was ginormous. What. A. Day.

I wander back along the waterfront as small market stalls selling Greek sweets and food begin to close up. A woman calls to me in Greek, I go over, she’s smiling and wears an apron. I nod and smile back and then say I can only speak English. We nod and smile at each other a little more, both very confused, until my neck gets a bit sore and I decide to keep going. Another woman, maybe 30 years old, calls to me, I think. She cuts off something and hands it over, again I try to say I only speak English and I’m sorry and what is it?From Crete, she says. I’m thinking, yes, but what is it? I nod and smile and walk off clutching my slice of cheese (?). I don’t know whether to eat it or not, so I pretend to move it towards my mouth as I walk away with my back turned. I turn it over in my hand, I smell it, I try to look back at her sign. I keep walking and walking and soon I’m at the hotel and the cheese (?) has gone warm in my hand and turned a funny colour. I laugh to myself, wondering how I could have been launched so abruptly into something and loved it so much. No time for a slow wander and a survey of the scene. Straight in, open mind, big smile. It works out.

Day: 43

Location: Cinque Terre, Italy

Weather: Very sunny

A blind, nose-less cat lounges in the sun halfway between Corniglia and Vernazza. He rests on a table out the front of a lemonade stand, his paw touching a sign that says attenti al gatto. A man whose property is on the Cinque Terre walking trail has made the best of it. He’s landscaped the area to include some seats that overlook the Mediterranean, trellises woven with pink flowers, wooden garden beds filled with herbs, and little alcoves for weary walkers to rest. The terraced area we’re sitting at slips sharply down to the sea 200m below. We sip sugarless lemonade — yes, it’s just lemon juice and water that we paid €4 for — and let the sun dry the sweat from our backs.

Our day took us to the last two of the five coastal towns. More colourful houses and washing on display swept all fears of rain away. The clouds hung in the distance but for now we were safe from the impending thunderstorm, sun streaming into the flowing river of people on the streets that looked around with mouths agape — or full of gelato. Another patchwork marina provided a place for lunch where we accidentally whiled away a few hours sketching the goings on of the village. The clock tower struck two, then four. People passed, peered into our notebooks, and smiled. At one point the sounds of kiwi accents broke our reverie and we realised two were sitting right next to us. The chances are infinitesimal, there’s hardly any of us, we’re far away, there are dozens of seats to sit for lunch — and yet some force draws us together. Their voices are quiet but magnetic, no loud exclamations punctuating the air, no obnoxious selfie taking blocking the way, just another two people admiring the view and eating some food. We decided to say hi, but just as we did, they stood up and disappeared back amongst the buildings. We’ll probably see them again in New Zealand. That’s how life works.

Just a thought, but I have been given more plastic bags in the last five weeks than I have in the last seven years back home. We banned single use bags in 2019 and now it’s easy. Bring your own reusable bag, buy a paper bag, or carry it in your arms. I’ve got very good at balancing apples and mince and pasta and courgettes against my chest.

Our last day came to an end and as I folded my clothes back into my bulging pack, in through the window slipped a refrain from a church choir. I pushed the shutter open further and realised the church next door to our ground floor apartment had a Monday evening service. My friends and I quietened and let the singing become the soundtrack to our weary but content packing. The sky was dark, the door of the church was open, and I could see the glow of candles and uplifted faces bouy the air. Tomorrow I leave Italy — a land as old as time, and I travel to Greece, another place filled with a history I cannot comprehend. Oh, and it’s where Mamma Mia is set, the only movie we owned as kids, the soundtrack to our childhood.

Day: 42

Location: Cinque Terre, Italy

Weather: Cloudy and Sunny

I am absorbed in a book lying on a beach in Western Italy. The sound of waves shuffling small rocks on the shore fades into the background. Anthony Doerr takes me into Rome, a place I have just come to know. I have read his book Four Seasons in Rome three and a half times, three before my visit to the eternal city and again now. I marvel at the way he can add depth to a place already overflowing with it. I wish I could write like he does, a million multi-coloured threads weaving to create a picture I can see in 4D. But they’re just words on a page — an invention created by us. We ascribe meaning to black squiggles. I love it. I worry sometimes about my brain and that of those in this world. I want words and images to be precious and vivid, to live on shelves in my brain ordered and clear. But it feels harder to resist the overflow, harder to ensure only small slips of information enter my senses, than to seek out the stimulus myself. Words and images flow in like I’m a porous sponge, I try to put up walls, I don’t want words to become less precious because they are abundant. People lie on the beach reading books, staring into space, talking, sleeping. Do we believe beaches are relaxing because the vast sea does wonders for our souls, or because we finally put down all distractions and let ourselves be in our own lives for longer than a minute? I am aware of breath entering and exiting my lungs, aware of the heat of rocks on my legs. I’m hot. It’s time for a swim.

The sea is so clear I think I can reach down and touch the rocks as I stroke fifty metres out from shore. But I duck down and pull myself towards the sea floor for a long time until my fingers meet some seaweed. 70% of the ocean remains unexplored and I think that is the most marvellous thing to know. In a world where the inner workings of the smallest flower are mapped in excruciating detail, where we know how fast light travels from the sun to meet its petals, where we know the temperature of the water it absorbs from the soil — I am glad there are still gigantic mysteries we may never solve. I was a nervous child, always wanting to know why things were the way they were and how they worked, but travelling foreign countries where everything is new – supermarkets and language and people are a mystery – I have found I like the joy of discovery. I have got over myself and am ok looking a bit silly. It’s better to try and fail and go a little deeper, than to sit on the sidelines feeling nothing at all. May it take us millennia to work out even 5% of the unexplored ocean. May it take the rest of time to work out the rest — even longer. Let the world end with mysteries still unsolved.

This morning we kayaked for two hours on the Mediterranean Sea. In and out of caves, past waterfalls, along coastlines that tell stories of the unrest below the earth’s surface. Layers of rocks bend like foam and I imagine what great tectonic force would have been needed to push something like that into the sky. Grey, black, brown, dark grey pressed against each other, I wonder if they whisper stories of their lives to each other.

Date: 2nd May

Day: 41

Location: Cinque Terre, Italy

Weather: Sunny!!

My best friend reckons that people have a daily word quota they must reach in terms of talking. Last night I talked her ear off non-stop. Probably because I hadn’t talked to anyone in English in at least four days, so I had to make up for lost time. That’s what best friends are for.

We’ve been best friends since we were 7 and 8 years old. Now we’re 24 and 25. We have never lived more than 15 minutes from each other, until this year when she moved to London. So of course I visited, and of course she has joined me in Italy. And of course we have talked non-stop the entire time. There is a beauty in knowing someone so fully that there is nothing to be other than yourself. We know each other’s rhythms, we have seen each other grow up. Our conversation flows backwards into the past and forwards into the future – an unspoken thread runs through that we’ll be old and grey and still taking each other’s ears off. We still know one another’s telephone numbers from home.

Today we had cake for breakfast, focaccia for lunch, and two gelatos during the day. Then we tried ‘sambuca’ at 10:30pm which we found in our accommodation fridge. What a time to be alive. We had a walk over a big hill followed by a couple of swims in the Mediterranean which made the day quite wonderful.

The light faded and we were tired. We arrived at the train station and found a ticket machine that moved at a glacial pace — clearly it was also on holiday. The tickets printed and the train arrived… on platform three. We sprinted down the stairs, under the subway and onto the platform just as it pulled away. The departures board was smattered with a few more trains — all significantly delayed. So for the first time on my trip I whipped out my fabric banana full of letter tiles and we sat on the ground to play Banangrams. I’ve got good at waiting, and not being bothered by missed trains. I’ll get there when I get there and it all seems to work out ok. I remind myself life’s like that. I’ll get where I’m meant to go when the time is right.

Back to the ‘sambuca’. Sciroppo di Sambuco. We thought a little tipple would put us right to sleep after a long day in the sun. We poured out a shot and added some soda water we accidentally bought — thinking we were buying still water. On three, we took a sip, mmm that’s really nice, we all nodded in agreement, this will go down too easily, it’s really sweet. We laugh and my best friend says, nothing says kayaking like a hangover. We decided to get Google translate on the job to see what’s in it… Our first mistake, it’s not sambuca. Turns out sambuco means elderflower, and sciroppo means syrup. Elderflower syrup. Whoops. It’s like the peanut butter mix up all over again. We did not get tipsy, and we will be able to kayak in a straight line tomorrow.

Day: 39

Location: Tivoli

Weather: Warm and drizzly (I like the sound of rain on the roof)

I sit down with my notebook to write a story, yet I cannot draw a single thread from my mind overstuffed with sights and smells. I want to write a story. I have always been like this — I have an urge well inside me, similar to that of needing to do a wee, but often I don’t know what I am trying to say or how to coax it onto the staring, blank page. It could be about a cigarette smoking fourteen year old Roman. Or about a fifth century man who swam in the Tiber. I see wisps of scenes from the French Alps, and more from the dry plains of rural Spain — but I can’t be sure they aren’t hallucinations. I try again to get them onto paper. But I stutter and stall. I make a cup of tea and sit, flicking my pen between my fingers.

I find Villa Gregoriana instead of writing. In 1835, nine years after the Aniene river flooded, Villa Gregoriana and the Gregorian tunnels were inaugurated with Pope Gregory XVI in attendance. And now I can pick my way down winding paths on steep cliffs to watch water cascade down rocks. I can walk through tunnels cut into the cliff. I can hear faint murmurs of what the water meant to Tivoli. Two ancient temples from the 1st and 2nd century B.C. hang almost suspended over the crashing waterfall. I walk further and read about the mammoth task of deviating the river after the floods. The world has always been at war and at one with water. We are made up of it, it nourishes us, it feeds the plants and vegetables we eat, it carries us around the world. Yet a single tsunami wave can kill thousands, a river can breach its banks carrying away the lives of many, lakes can be calderas that erupt and turn skies around the world red. Now as the world is changing, my little country at the bottom of the world sees one in a hundred year floods frequently, and one in fifty year floods so often I’ve stopped counting — I’m 24. Rain hammers down so hard you cannot hear the person next to you. Then for three months you won’t see a single drop and you’ll be urged to take short showers, to avoid watering your garden, to flush only for a number two. The big powers with their chimney stacks and gas guzzling cars slowly drown and dry out a country a world away. A little one that gets left off maps. I walk on. A cheery orange sign points me in the direction of ‘The Viewpoint Overlooking The Valley of Hell’. Sounds interesting.

I find a toilet on the way and a lifetime of New Zealand long drops has me preparing for the worst. But it’s a flushing toilet without flies trying to make their way into bad places, there’s even hot water and a hand drier.

The noise of crashing water intensifies and I soon pop out to find the Valley of Hell in front of me. A short railing keeps me from dropping in. All that squeaks out of my mouth is, holy shitballs. It’s beautiful and dramatic. Great torrents of water tear down the cliff like they have somewhere to be very soon. I watch water for the next three hours. Stopping for long stretches in front of one waterfall after the next. I think I’m trying to absorb some of its lessons. It gets where it needs to go, it makes its way around obstacles unfazed, it shapes slowly all that it touches, it nourishes along the way, it glitters, it sings, it is at once beautiful and plain. I think it is beautiful because it is plain. It is beautiful because of how it acts. Flowing, twisting, turning, rising, evaporating, falling.

Later in the day as black clouds sag in the sky I walk the streets and alleys. The via and vicollo. I let myself get lost for a while. My natural sense of direction is better than me trying to decipher Google Maps.

There’s a whole lot of roads not on the map anyway. I can hear the crack of pool balls, smell pasta cooking, hear the loud conversations between parent and child, see washing hanging from windows. To be in Italy, is to be in a patchwork of time and space. Cobbles and tar-seal overlap. Past and present weave. A little Fiat Punto races down the rough streets where horses once walked; signs on the window indicate the young girl is learning to drive. Hell, I can’t imagine trying a hill start here. One moment you are almost being hit by cars, the next a skinny maze takes you between houses and I pray to Hercules and the Sybil that I won’t appear on the back doorstep of a frightened old woman, but instead reappear on a street that looks vaguely familiar. The cults of Hercules and the Sybil were important in the pre-Christian and early Christian times in Tivoli. The fact they now wilfully call it a cult makes me laugh. What things do we do now that historians of the future will look back on and call cults. The Instagramus Cult, The Cult of Unrelenting and Unnecessary Aesthetic Improvement, The Cult of Influencea.

Day: 38

Location: Tivoli

Weather: Clear and warm

Poets and artists were prized possessions. They could bring to life things people could only dream of, put into words feelings that were a wisp of breath between fingers. And now we are just one amongst a crowd where people expect words and images to appear for free. I walked through a 450 year old villa today — full of art that took years to paint. It belonged first to a lover of antiquities from the area, Ippolito d’Este.

Pope Giulio III del Monte appointed Cardinal d’Este as the governor of Tivoli for life as a thank you for his work. He made a triumphant entrance to the town in 1550 only to discover he was to live in a run down convent. Having been used to a more lavish lifestyle, he decided to build a villa by transforming the convent. He entrusted the task to Pirro Ligorio and a large number of artists and craftsmen who created a work of art still standing today. This morning I walked through rooms named for the scenes depicted on their walls and ceilings: Salon of the Fountain, Hall of Moses, Hall of Noah, Hall of Hercules, Hall of Nobility, Hall of Glory, Hall of the Hunt. Humans pulling faces stared down at me, a man stretched the neck of a naked woman, cherubs held curtains, dead animals hung from a ribbon, deer waded through flooded streets. These were the rooms that held important and lengthy discussions. We should paint boardrooms like this. Would decisions be different? Christopher Luxon, New Zealand’s prime minister has decided to cut back on the number of interviews he does — he appeared once a week on a national breakfast programme, he’s decided he’ll only go on if needed. Did he make that decision in an office filled with paintings of the earth being created and humans slowly filling its beautiful corners? I read the news site periodically. War, abuse, death, a poll about whether you put the toilet paper over or under. I wonder when the Iran war will end. I’m meant to fly through Doha in two weeks and I’m scared, it’s only just opened again. Meanwhile I’m here in my little hilltop heaven watching the sunset and drinking rosé and writing. I’m worrying about what I want to do with my life — I’m fortunate I have a choice. I’m worrying about whether I’ll get a boyfriend one day. I’m worrying about whether my spinach will grow well this winter and if my bread will rise in the freezing mornings. What a luxury. I exit the news sight and pull the rock back over my hole. Just as we are exposed to more images than ever, we are also exposed to more news than ever. What person living in Tivoli in the 15th century knew of the various wars people in a different continent were waging. I leave the rock over my head. I refuse to be ignorant, but I also refuse to believe the world is an inherently bad place. I choose to believe it is good. I have seen it over and over again this trip. The world is good, the world is good. I take a sip of wine, I eat some chips, I’ll close my notebook now and stare out the window. Ravioli after. Then bed. I hope I dream about the way light pours through trees onto rivers.

Day: 37

Location: Rome —> Tivoli

Weather: Hot!

People in Rome have faulty internal thermostats. It’s 21°C. You do NOT need a puffer jacket and a scarf on. Please.

I wander the streets of Tivoli alone wondering if I’m the only person who knows about this beautiful secret. This town is thought to be 500 years older than Rome. Once called Tibur it was a Latin city before opposing Rome then later becoming its ally. Virgil used the epithet Superbum to describe it, and it remains in the coat of arms, Tibur Superbum. It makes it sound like a place when people just bummed around, what I’ve learnt is that’s exactly what happened.

In actual fact superbum is a Latin phrase that means proud. Augustus used Tibur as his summer retreat when he needed a little escape from being the Roman Emperor.

Towards the end of Hadrian’s reign he decided to live full time in Tibur. Maybe Rome was becoming a bit too much.

It’s beautiful. The narrow streets and vast views across the plains make you feel like you’re in some hilltop haven. A few dogs bark, the sun bakes me, flies hang in the air — dopey.

Don’t worry, found everyone. There’s a bus system and a Burger King. I am in civilisation. But I’m grateful I’m staying in the quiet, quaint part of town.

I wander away from the centre again, down towards the Aniene River which feeds the Tiber in Rome. A group of teenagers sit on a metal box smoking and laughing. A girl touches a boy’s shoulder and grins, he grins back. Another takes a puff from his vape before digging his hand into a bag of chips. Small towns walk a line between being a brilliant place for teenagers to grow up and a difficult one. I grew up in a town a similar size. You know everyone. And everyone knows you. You have a small community which grounds you, but sometimes holds you back. At once wanting to try new versions of yourself, to experiment, to find people like you; but also wanting to feel safe, loved, and cared for — though you’d never admit it out loud. Small towns have hard hands, and strong arms, they shape you, then lift you. Everyone knows you, it’s easier to be seen. Sport — you can be the best more easily. Art, music, academics — people know what you’re good at. Small towns give you platforms. But as a teenager, sometimes you don’t want eyes on you. So you slink down to the river bank and smoke and drink and watch the water. I cross the bridge and see some more teenagers in a little park. They look at me with a side eye, a hard exterior begging me not to judge. I desperately want to pull out my camera and ask if I can take their portrait. It stays zipped in my bag and I walk on. Their eyes linger in my head, the eyes of a teenager are wild and hopeful and edgy. A dirty pack of playing cards is strewn down the street. I feel a little giddy from the wine I drank. A couple of glasses from a €2.49 supermarket bottle. I smile though. Small towns are magic. Tivoli is my little hidden gem.

Day: 36

Location: Rome

Weather: Hot!

For three hours I walked with my mouth agape around the Roman Forum. The heart of social, economical, and political activities in the region from the 7th century B.C. to the 7th century A.D. Various fires, earthquakes, and vandals changed the shape of the forum over time. What I admire is that they seemed in no rush, construction took its sweet time. As the saying goes, Rome wasn’t built in a day. Now in New Zealand we bowl down buildings with a zeal bordering on sadistic, constructing new houses, only to come again in thirty years time with a bulldozer to start over. Good things take time. Build houses carefully. Renovate those that you can. Here in Rome, and across Europe, old houses still stand, they just renovate the inside if they want something modern.

Was this the world the Roman’s wanted us to live? Is this ridiculousness, this circus, what they imagined for the future? While they were building architectural miracles, crafting great sculptures, creating works of art, were they hoping one day a whole lot of tourists with selfie sticks and Roma caps clutching plastic water bottles and tacky key chains would wander through the centre of their lives taking photos then moving on. Our life is a vast chasm to theirs, yet I can’t help but think we can learn so much from the entirety of history — what to do and what not to do, if we just stopped for a second and looked around.

That afternoon, I stood on the arena floor of the Colosseum and looked at each of the 80 arches one by one, it felt like the least I could do.

There is an art to every craft, including being a restaurateur. I went back to the restaurant I visited on the first night. I was greeted by the owner like an old friend, brought a starter, brought a drink (wine he’d made himself), brought dinner (pasta he’d made himself), brought a dessert, brought another dessert. And only charged for a drink and dinner. What a treat. I said goodbye, he wished me well and I said I’d have to roll back to New Zealand, and if I was ever in Rome I’d visit again.

Day: 35

Location: Rome, Italy

Weather: Hot!

The Catacombs of Priscilla were constructed in the 3rd century by repurposing an old mine. It was a cheap way to get rid of the bodies. Cheaper than making a cemetery. When someone died, another person went down the mine, dug out the length of the body, put them in and sealed it up. The smell still got out though. It was cold down there — and eerie. It is a 13km maze where 40,000 people were once buried. Various lootings took place over the years and only a few sealed graves remain. I was shown around and felt slightly shaken. They were people like me, full of hopes and dreams, they looked at the same sky, the same stars. I’m reminded over and over that people across the world now are all intricately tangled — and we’re all tangled with people of the past and future. What mark do we want to leave for the people that will walk this land after us? In what way can I make the people who walked it before me proud. The deeper we went, the more twists and turns we took, the more was revealed. Possibly the earliest depiction of the Virgin Mary with a baby Jesus was painted on the wall. Me and a handful of others stood there. Why are hoards of people not crowing to see this? Matyrs and Saints were buried there. The poor were buried there. The rich were buried there. Popes were buried there. Painted on one ceiling is an image of the Good Shepard. These images were created based on various oral stories passed between people — the access to images was rare. An angel was shown as a bird because it was described to them as something with two wings. They didn’t know what an angel looked like — have we got it wrong, or have they? We are exposed to more images in a day than those early Christians were in a lifetime. No wonder our heads feel ready to explode sometimes. Imagine seeing only one painting in a month. Otherwise the images going into your mind were those of the world that surrounded you. New information was hard to come by. Some of the earliest biblical scenes exist in these tunnels. What a privilege to see. I try to oust any other image from my mind so I have more bandwidth to absorb these precious ones. I should go on my phone less. I should just stare out the window and look around. It seems we should be the most advanced and intelligent generation to exist with the amount of images and information we have access to. But that’s debatable. Look what we’ve done to the world. Selfie sticks seem like a medical probe and hashtags sound like a disease. Maybe they are. I shouldn’t be so cynical. But when you’re surrounded by beauty and awe, how can you not tear apart our current way of life? I want to lie amongst more trees.

Day: 34

Location: Rome

Weather: Hot!

I sit outside the colosseum and I can almost hear the yells, feel the hum of feet on dust. I’m 24 and I cannot begin to comprehend a history that stretches thousands of years into the past. I’m just walking by, I’m going inside on Monday. Inside the colosseum, and inside history I guess. It’s 9:30am on Italian liberation day and the tickets are free, a long line snakes around the block.

Accidentally took a wrong turn while following Google Maps and ended up in a huge cycle race… whoops! But when life gives you bad directions… settle in and take photos. I stood for a while snapping away as cyclists whizzed past. I was as happy as Larry.

Lines are the theme of the day. I’ve taken a loss at St Peter’s Basilica. I was booked for 4pm and the ticket said to leave enough time for security lines… not indicating how long the security line would be. I arrived at 3pm thinking one hour would be plenty, how wrong I was, I would have needed to triple that. It snaked around the entirety of the Vatican. Buying a timed ticket means nothing, even if you factor in contingency time. It was only €7 and I’m not Catholic, so I’m not too disappointed, but anyway, I’m sitting in the Vatican now just people watching and writing. I’m tired. It’s been a hot, walking-filled day.

Day: 33

Location: Rome, Italy

Weather: Sunny and warm (sense a theme?)

It feels like we’re crawling from the airport to Roma Termini but the screen inside says we’re doing 90km/h. An attempt at a footpath runs parallel to the tracks, but it’s more of a cobbled plank than something to amble on. A man stands pissing against a fence. Nearly 200 tourists see his crown jewels. The fields thin, the houses thicken, and Rome, The Rome, materialises. For a while it’s cream houses with tiles rooftops, then it’s pylons, cane (normal cane?), and a McDonalds. I’m looking forward to eating pizza and gelato, I’ll be popping my lactose pills like there’s no tomorrow — because there mightn’t be if I don’t. I may implode. Could be worth it to eat real Italian pizza in real Italy. The heater is on in the train and I wonder why. It’s hot and sunny outside. I’m sweating buckets.

I have a mixed relationship with big cities and major tourist attractions. I’ve always been a person to try and make my own mind up about things. Who is to say this is the most important and beautiful thing to see? We are all different, so we are all moved by different marvels. Some by the Sistine Chapel, others by the Colosseum, some by the Tiber River — me, well I’ll update you after I finish my visit to Rome. But I do like oceans, mountains, stories, and places off the beaten path. I might be moved by a lady smiling to me through the window of a back street bakery.

– Later that day

Good first impressions of Italy — people know what to do with their face when I smile at them. And they seem to have manners too. I found a restaurant down a side street and the owner greeted me and asked where I was from, New Zealand, I replied. Ahh paradise, he said, then kissed me on the hand, welcome. Out came a free starter followed by water, then he took my order, a whole pizza and some lemon soda. I ate and ate and ate — why does the pizza come un-cut and with a knife and fork?! It was amazing. I went up to pay but he made me sit back down again, I have a surprise for you New Zealand. And out came some free biscuits. Delicious! Then I was allowed to pay and had to promise to come back and eat the pasta he makes at 5am each morning.

Day: 32

Location: Aveiro, Portugal

Weather: Sunny

My last morning in Aveiro and the sun pours into my room. Again people outside take photos of the building and I step onto my little balcony like I’m Princess Kate. People look up, and I look down, feeling a bit silly about it all, so I head back inside and make my breakfast of cereal and soy milk in a small cup.

Later, I sit at the bus station waiting for my transfer to Porto airport and a man strums happily on his guitar. Another man stands and watches. I listen and take sideways glances every now and then, smiling to myself. Music makes the world go round. Portugal has the most street performers and the fewest beggars I have seen. A saxophone, a cornet, many guitars, singers, dancers — all with hats out. I don’t empty my wallet of change so quickly anywhere else.

The bus is an interesting experience. I hold on for dear life as we hurtle towards Porto at 120km/h, the green fields and terracotta rooftops whizzing by. Storks nest in pylons and on top of construction cranes. My neck strains trying to watch them at work. At 10am a woman gets a kilo tub of yoghurt out of her bag and I wonder whether that is her breakfast. She opens the lid and instead of entering with a spoon, she enters with a fork. She brings to her mouth an entire hard-boiled egg — that’s when I realise the container is full of them. The bus stinks.

I’m getting good at waiting. I can watch people for a long time without needing any entertainment. What provides me the most joy today is a group of excitable nuns heading back to Rome. In my mind they are solemn people who reject all modern things — I know that isn’t true, but for some reason that idea persists. They sit next to me in the departure lounge drinking cans of Coca-Cola and eating potato chips. One lady checks her cell phone, the other types rapidly on her laptop. Tap tap tap. As we wait in line to board the plane, one nun sees a fellow nun wandering across an air bridge to a different flight. She begins jumping and waving trying to get her attention. She smiles at me and I smile at her and for some reason I almost cry. Another nun strokes the cheek of a young baby held in her father’s arms. The baby looks at the nun and smiles. As we make our way up the stairs the nuns’ habits catch the wind like kites and two of them almost blow over the edge and onto the tarmac. They grab the rail and make it up okay, only a little windswept and bewildered.

I think European bus drivers watch a little too much F1, because the driver from Rome airport to my motel uses the accelerator and brake like he is Kimi Antonelli. An Italian hero. I say grazie to the driver and step onto the street in one piece. Luckily.

Day: 31

Location: Aveiro, Portugal

Weather: Sunny and warm

I arrive to a bike rental place on a side street in Aveiro and ask to hire one for the day. The lady shakes her head, they’re all out. I ogle at her, all of them? She nods, there’s an event. Turns out the event is a group of school children. She talks to her colleague in Portuguese and she turns to me again, we might have one you can borrow. This all felt very strange, she led me down a corridor to a garage, and opened it to reveal an entire room full of rental bikes. What do they mean they’re all out?! She lends it to me with a helmet for €20. She asks for my drivers license as collateral, I hand it over and she says incredulously, is this your drivers license? My god, does she want my business or not?! I shake my head in disbelief, but say a friendly obrigado.

Off I roll down the canal towards the wetlands which are supposed to have flamingos. After 10km over the marshy boardwalks I’ve seen a handful of seagulls, a few wrecked boats, and a dog. The smell of eucalyptus trees permeates my nostrils and sprints straight to the part of my brain where nostalgia lives. It lifts a handful of memories from the shelf and opens each jar simultaneously. Like a ribbon from a clown’s mouth, a never ending stream of freedom, wild young girls, paddocks, mud, bonfires, treehuts, sheep, games of darts and jugs of beer appear. I’m back in Fielding where my grandad lived among paddocks of sheep filled with eucalyptus trees. We built a treehouse in one, and hung a rope swing from another. Us four girls — my sister and two cousins — ran wild, barefoot or gumboot-clad through the long grass to make up games where we were brides or lions or whatever else. We dressed in net curtains and doilies, we lit bonfires and made up plays. We raced homemade go karts, we played darts in grandad’s shed while he smoked and drank beer and we drank lemonade and ate chips. I long for those days now when I was little and wild and free — where my small world was a playground and my parents were always there for a hug. Young girls, when let loose into paddocks, become who they truly are. To have feet in sheep poo, to be dressed in flowing lace curtains, to wear a paper tiara, to swing on a rope hollering like Tarzan — a millions wants and needs collide and girls exist in their purest form. I’m alone now at the end of the boardwalk, the memories returning to their jars but the feeling lingering. I’m 24 and wild and free. I’m halfway across the world alone and on an adventure.

I decide to head for the sea, because I get to make the decisions. Out to Costa Nova. Google maps draws me a slightly dodgy route as I weave through an industrial port area, cross a motorway overpass, pass a stinking fish factory, and ride through some dilapidated residential roads. I cycle over the last overpass (on a fenced off footpath luckily) and stop in my tracks. The marsh beneath me glitters and the flamingos drag their beaks through the water. A few storks peck at the mud. A couple of people in waders pull shellfish from the ground. Flamingos! Fricking flamingos! In the wild, right in front of me. As a bird nerd I can’t believe my eyes. I stop for a while to watch them, but invariably I end up watching people too. Because although birds are a marvel to me, people seem to be more-so. The arched backs of 7 men and women in waders take shell after shell from the marsh, placing them in buckets after giving them a rinse in the murky water. I make it to the beach still thinking about the fact that days for those people will be the same. Up, breakfast, bike to marsh, waders, bend over for hours, bike home, shower, bed. I’m assuming. It could look very different. I sit on the beach for a while, I eat the peanut butter sandwich I made, I watch a class of Portuguese teenagers learn to surf. There’s only a handful of us on the beach and I feel at ease. A striped lighthouse peers down, and a few streets over striped houses line the road. When my craving for the ocean has been satisfied I wind my way through the sleepy village. I pass a lady tying string between two stop signs, I pass another lady hanging clothes on a string between two give way signs, I see sheets hung between two power poles flapping in the breeze. Washing is a public affair here. You choose two free poles, you tie some string, and you lug your basket of wet laundry onto the street. I remember living at home as a child and mum telling me to hang the undies behind things… We lived at the end of a quiet cul de sac down a long driveway, and our washing could be seen by nobody. I wonder how she’d get on if the entirety of Costa Nova saw her undies on the line. I’ve talked before about it, but privacy is less of a concept when you live tightly packed, even in villages.

I begin the ride back to Aveiro and I stop again on the overpass to watch the people. They’re finishing up for the day and a weary lady leans her arm on a bent over man who has his hands in a bucket of water and is carefully washing the mud from her waders. She then takes her turn, bending down, the man leaning, and her washing mud from his waders. Love exists in many forms. This is why I like the back blocks, the small places, you see the threads that hold the tapestry of a place the tightest. It’s not all Lisbon and trams and big beaches. It’s waders and mud and leaning on each other.

Day: 30

Location: Aveiro, Portugal

Weather: Sunny and warm

Today I ran 8km and spent most of it stopping to look at Google Maps as I got more and more lost in the residential depths of Aveiro. Apartment buildings with chipped tiles, rust stains, and grime sat below a leaden sky, they drooped in the pre-storm heat. Clothes hung wishfully from balconies but I know this feeling. Hot, dark, windy. A storm. Cars thinned out and the excitement of the main centre quickly disappeared. It’s all a façade I realise — not Aveiro — but tourism in general. I’ve often been a sceptic of popular places, they feel curated for tourists. You’re not really seeing the country for what it is, you’re seeing it for what locals think you want it to be. That’s why I like these smaller places off the beaten track. People are living their normal lives and you get to slip in for a while, to observe, to tread lightly, then to slip back out again and onto the next port, or back home. There are people going to the dentist, there are men in the barbers, there’s a lady with a dog going for a walk, there’s a child with his backpack, there’s a mandarin squashed on the footpath, cigarettes by a drain, a half worn shoe in the gutter. There’s two friends giggling and walking, there’s a man telling a woman she’s beautiful, there’s a pied stilt sucking bugs from the lagoon, there’s swifts wheeling in the sky. This is Aveiro. I kept running, the sweat beading on my shins and forearms, my heart rate is climbed and my watch told me I was making progress. What sort of progress? Technological, physiological, environmental?

This morning I walked through the Aveiro Museum which was an old convent. That seems to be a theme of this trip — convents. An ornate chapel covered in gold shimmered under some twenty first century LED lights. I took a photo on my iPhone. I walk from the chapel to a new wing built to house a collection of religious painting over 300, almost 400 years old. A lady sits with her breast out feeding a young baby, oil on wood, 16th century, produced in Bruges. A sign reads that around this time paintings depicting nudity were being repainted as the Church had introduced a ban on showing such things. This painting was unique in that it hadn’t been censored. Humans have changed their minds again and again as new ideas and concepts make their way to the fore, now we can show nude paintings in old convents, no worries apparently. If you look back over the course of history, various schools of thought and prominent beliefs have guided whole societies only to evolve and change and grow like any organism. That’s what we are — organisms. We adapt and change and grow, so it only makes sense that our views do too. It’s just funny we rebel so much in the face of change that happens too quickly. I guess if one day you woke up to find an ape had turned into a human it would be a bit shocking to digest. But overtime — lots of it — it’s believable. Another painting shows a group of people kneeling around dead Jesus Christ, however he has two left hands. This is because originally his hand was over his groin, but it was later deemed indecorous, so they tried to patch it up and repaint a new left hand that wasn’t touching his groin. The only thing is the touch up job isn’t that great. Anyway, lesson is we change our minds, what we decided is right and wrong changes, how we decide we can live our lives changes, what we censor changes. Change is the only constant. I guess I’m learning to resist it less. I am a natural organism and all we do is change.

I’m yet to try an ovos moles; an Aveiro specialty. They emerged from the convent too. Along with the teachings of the bible. Eggy sweets, and the holy trinity. Sugar was used in the convent pharmacy, and egg whites were used for everyday tasks like gumming clothing, so as not to waste the yolks the nuns added sugar to them and packaged them up inside communion wafers. The ovos moles was born.

Day: 29

Location: Aveiro, Portugal

Weather: Muggy and warm

People who can speak two languages are a bridge. Their job opportunities increase tenfold, if not more, they can work in tourism (where the money is), or in a restaurant, or a government department. I cannot speak two languages but the one I speak is English, and that makes me lucky. It’s strange to think that being from a country that was colonised makes me lucky. But it does. In this world we live now, English seems to be a prized commodity, if you can speak and write well then the world opens up.

I’m halfway through my train trip to Aveiro when I realise no one has checked my ticket.

I’m off now in Aveiro and no one looked at it.

I ran this afternoon, down the main canal before branching off and letting my legs follow my nose which led me into the salt flats. Pied stilts picked in the water, and a man balanced on the thin beam of grass between ponds doing his final checks for the day. There’s a large lagoon nearby too, I think I’ll hire a bike at some point, apparently there are flamingos. I’d like to see those. I ran and ran until I felt quite ready for a shower and a trip to the supermarket. I’m thoroughly enjoying supermarket shopping in a new place, everything is a novelty.

It’s nice here. Swifts circle the darkening sky singing me home, I wander the edge of the canals listening to the church bells chiming 8pm. A small abundance of people holding hands reminds me I’d like that one day. I’ve been adventuring alone for 4 weeks now and I’m in the rhythm of it. I forget normal life goes on at home, I don’t know if I’ll be able to slip into it easily anymore. I now know there is so much more than my little bubble, and I’m getting used to being with my mind. I can hear myself and I’m making friends with the thoughts in my head. But every now and then I’d like to walk somewhere beautiful with my hand in someone’s, pointing out the reflection of the moliceiro (gondolas) on the water and swifts in the sky. I’d like to lie in bed talking about the day, I’d like someone to watch my luggage when I go to the toilet, I’d like someone to see I’m tired and hold me up for a bit. I moved out of home at 17, and for the last 7 years I’ve gotten good at having my own back, at fixing things, at wiping my own tears, at celebrating my own achievements. But one day I’d like someone next to me for all of it. In the meantime though I’ll keep wandering canals with my friend the camera, showing it all the sights, writing my thoughts on here to make sure I never forget the magic. I’m grateful to have time by myself, it’s such a luxury to get to know who you are away from the things you sometimes define yourself with. A place, people, sport, a job. When all that is no longer there to fall back on, who are you? I hope I’m a person who holds open the door, who says thank you at pedestrian crossings, who talks to the quiet ones, who laughs easily, who sees the good, who smiles so wide at sunrises it bursts off my face, who gets into the sea and feels at one with the world, who takes photos, who writes, who only cares for how I see myself and for the opinions of those I love. I’ll head back now to my little room with a view. I’ll eat something yummy that I bought and stashed away, then I might write some more.