you get back from a week of sunbathing and swimming and drinking in the piazza of medieval towns and you kinda want to lie around your room and die quietly - check your email, watch a movie, eat something home-cooked and get your washing done. well... you maybe. my flight got in yesterday afternoon by 4PM i'd cleared Customs and Immigration and was on the platform for the Piccadilly Line into town. by 7:30PM i'd got back to basecamp, thrown a load of washing in the machine, dived through the shower, found some clean clothes and was sitting on the footpath outside the Red Lion in Soho with a beer in my hand. i'm loving this little pub - it has cheap-arse beer and a bohemian/proletariat atmosphere where everyone sits out in the street with plastic cups. somehow i managed to roll on until past twelve, whereupon i promptly turned into a pumpkin and headed for bed.
i'm really wishing i'd made the effort to get sociable with these folks sooner. i'm going to miss them when i go, and that day's getting closer and closer each time i pass out at night and drag my stiff and sore bones out of bed again each morning. i'm amazed i survived going out last night at all - Hvar turned out to be something of a debacle. it's a pleasant enough place with another fortress up on the hill which i wandered off to explore - my addiction to high places and all - before grabbing a a cheap burger at a greasy-spoon, then a couple of dishes at possibly the only sushi bar in Croatia. a little while later i met back up with the Kiwis and we hit the night club built in a converted convent and from there the night just got messy. i wound up having one or two cocktails to many and staggered my way back to the boat. one of the girls was mucking around and fell in the harbor, killing her phone in the process. Reagan almost went in - we were all acting like fools and laughing like drains, playing leapfrog with the mooring posts and he got stuck half-way over, rolling off and almost straight in the drink. i managed to stop him just in time, jumping for him and skidding on my butt across the limestone so i could grab his arm just in time. a couple of the girls got onboard just in time to not get left behind... and we all woke up with hangovers. it was a really very subdued day when we pulled into Split again and there certainly wasn't any partying that night. in the end i fetched up with a couple of the girls out grabbing a quiet bite and wound up getting talking to another Aussie tourist who'd been sitting alone at the next table. she seemed genuinely pleased to have some company.
i was pretty much over exploring by the time i had to get off the boat on saturday so i killed the morning cruising a free wifi connection i'd found the week before and getting myself to the airport where i had something of a disconcerting moment at check-in. it turns out that after a week of eating too much and lying around on deck doing fuck-all i'd managed to lose nearly a kilo and a half. hmm...
today was yet another peaceful afternoon in Green Park with the carnies, which turned into a mission out to my place for jugs of cocktails and Eritrean food. we walked the entire way for the fun of it, and since Jacq had her new stilts she did the entire trek with her knees at my eye-height.
tomorrow i need to be back out at Heathrow to pick up Marcia - she's spending 2 weeks in London between a conference in Toronto and a research posting in Mannheim, Germany. i'm really not looking forward to getting up at 5AM to be at the airport by 7AM, but these things you do. it'll be good to have her around for a fortnight - one last hurrah of playing tour-guide before i pack up my shit and fuck off into the distance, leaving behind this city i've fallen for but have to leave anyway.
damn... that sounds like a really bad habit i've gotten into, doesn't it?
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