Day Eighty-five - Deliverance

And was London everything I'd expected? Well, yes and no. Or no and yes, to be more precise. And now that I think about it we probably stayed there for more than just three or four days. Might have been between five days to a full week. And i have to say, I really didn't enjoy the first few days we spen there. And it's not that there were far too many people there, many more than I was used to, and many more than I ever actually really tolerated. And there always was a lot of walking around that we had to, and that left me feeling far too tired to actually enjoy anything. I mean, yes, I loved the music stores - HMV, Virgin and Tower floored me with how much they had on offer, and I wanted so, so many records I saw there. And there were arcades with lots of cool games, and computer and video game stores, and toy stores - they had everything. And though we went to all the recommended tourist-y places, like Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, St. James Park and Hyde Park, the British museum and the National History museum, and though these things were all of them fine in and of themselves, I just wasn't getting it. I didn't really see the appeal. And then, maybe a couple of days before we left, I started getting it. It also happened that during that time we also visited Forbidden Planet, London's premiere comic book store, but in fact so much more than that - it was a geek haven, a geek heaven. I spent pretty much all my pocket money there. But moreso than just that particular experience, there had been something happening as well , something unspoken, something barely understood orr noticeable to me... but I'd begun 'listening' to the city's heartbeat and I got so attuned to it that by the time we left London I felt like I was getting the groove of the city. And that has been a sort of talent I have, I felt the same in Amsterdam, I felt the same in Geneva, I felt the same in other cities I spent some time in. After those first few days, London felt different. London felt like... home. And when I left it, I honestly didn't know if I'd ever return there or not. Oh, I wanted to already, in fact I didn't want to leave, but we all had jobs back home, and Dora was expecting, so maybe if we were lucky we coulld go there one day with our child. And we actually spent some time there, surprisingly not that much longer after this first visit. All I knew was that some day I was bound to return. But before that happened, we had to welcome our son to this world, and restucture our lives around that singular addition. In many ways, I think, that actually ended up heralding the beginning of the end for us. Time, now more than ever was, indeed, running out.