It’s
been exactly one year since my then-girlfriend Alya and I set out on a 5-week
journey across Europe to the Olympics in London. I’d originally intended to
blog extensively about the trip as soon as I got back to Beijing (I even
posted a short “preview” piece that you can see here),
but life kind of got in the way.
If you’re
even a semi-regular reader of this blog you know that I can be long-winded,
especially when I have something to say. And of this trip I have many thoughts
and observations that I wanted to get down. Combine that with 1,000+ photos to
curate and arrange into albums and the task turned into one of near-epic
proportions. I’ve been chipping away at it little by little over the past 10
months and I’ve completed the task at a serendipitous moment. As I look back
exactly 12 months at what was an incredible experience of exploration and
self-discovery I’m finally ready to start publishing these posts.
The
seeds for this adventure were planted in a moment of euphoria. In the afterglow
of the 2008 Olympics, somewhere around day 4 of my post-Games recovery period,
I made the decision: I’m doing every Olympics from now on.
Beijing
in 2008 was a magical place. The city had gone through an urban renewal and
expansion project on a scale that had been unseen since Rome’s rebuilding after
Nero’s little concert on a hill. It was a city buzzing with excitement, drunk
with giddiness and proud as hell to be “coming out” to the world. I was a
first-time expat when I arrived on the day of the Opening Ceremony and I
couldn’t help but be overwhelmed by it all.
I was
guy who had never lived more than a mile from my childhood home and all of a
sudden I was standing in the middle of the world’s biggest stage, in a city
basking in the limelight of a million visitors and two billion television
viewers. Saying that I’d gone from Maybury to Manhattan only begins to describe
the kind of cultural whiplash that I was feeling. After all, I’d grown up on
the streets of a big city and had made at least a hundred trips to New York, a dozen to Montreal, several to Chicago and Atlanta and even a couple of swings
through Hong Kong. I knew big cities, but this was “urban” on a different scale
than anything I’d experienced before.
I
remember that the foreign-ness of the
place was almost overwhelming. I’d traveled through China before, but I’d never
intended to live there. How would I buy things? WHERE would I buy things? What
would I do if I got lost? I didn’t speak the language at all. How would I
learn?
When I
landed on 8/8/08 I had just about all of my worldly possessions in a couple of
bags. I’d quit my job, said goodbye to my friends and walked away from the love
of my life. I was a blank slate, excited and open to anything… but I was also
scared shitless.
The
Olympics were the best time for somebody in my state to land in Beijing. The
openness of the locals, the helpfulness of the volunteers and the accessibility
of everything allowed me to get swept up in the Olympic Spirit and enjoy a
“soft landing” into my new city.
I admit
it; I was susceptible to the allure of all of the hokey, cheesy, tree-hugging
Olympic stuff. Within a few days and after attending a few events I was totally
buying into Beijing’s slogan, “One World, One Dream”. I was grasping at straws.
I knew that I was going along to get along, but it didn’t matter. I got a glow
in my gut and a smile that wouldn’t stop until after the flame was extinguished.
(I still feel echoes of it whenever I watch a replay of the Opening or Closing
ceremonies from that year.) Within days of them ending I had vowed to travel to
every Summer Games from then on.
I was
hopelessly hooked.
Fast
forward 4 years and I found myself at the Beijing airport once again, this time
with my girlfriend Alya waiting for our flight to take us to Europe, giddy with
excitement at the thought of trekking across the continent and ending up in
London in time for the Olympics.
Our
journey would take us through Russia, Poland, Germany, Denmark, Holland and
Belgium before arriving in London. Then, before going back to Beijing, we’d
treat ourselves to a weekend in Paris. You know, for the heck of it.
I
blogged the hell out of the Games back in 2008 and my plan was to do the same
this time around. This trip turned out to be about a lot more than chasing past
feelings of excitement and acceptance; this time I was on a long journey of
discovery, visiting countries that I’d only ever read about, meeting old
friends and strangers alike, and exploring what it means to share the road with
somebody.
