A Love Affair that Never Ended
London, December 2016
I remember standing at the airport in London, my heart beating so fast I thought it was going to
leap out of my chest. There was somewhere between a slight smile and a manic grin on my
face that I could not get rid of if I tried. My head flipped from side to side as I smiled at all the
strangers, waiting for my stranger to appear.
At this stage Steve was still a stranger. We had spent a grand total of 4 days together (!!) but
despite this, and perhaps because of our daily digital contact over the last 2 months, I felt like I
knew him better than anyone. I felt like a giddy school girl high on candy and puppies.
What on earth was I doing? I was about to go on a 4 week trip through Europe with a man I
barely new. But despite doing everything ‘wrong’, it felt oh so right.
Squamish, October 2016
Throwback a few months and a holiday romance was blossoming…
I had just spent two months living in a tent at a remote whale research station in Northern BC. I had met various guides, naturalists and guests coming through the area throughout this time including two stand up paddle board guides from Squamish who led 7 day expedition trips through this incredible area we were in called the Great Bear Rainforest.
It wasn’t a ‘love at first sight’ moment as I studied the approaching paddlers through the spotting scope (meant for whales, but when you’ve been on an island for 6 weeks with 4 other people…paddlers make the scope cut). We saw each other twice over the next couple of weeks including an unforgettable night of salted caramel brownies cooked on a fire (by Steve, I should have known then) and a fin whale filled sunset.
But we waved goodbye and I was happy to share the island with just a few other people again.
At the end of my contract I had a week in Vancouver and had remembered the SUP guides lived in Squamish. I reached out and Steve being the generous friendly Canadian he is offered me the spare room in his house, his spare car and to show me around town. Being a fresh- faced graduate with no job and a tiny budget I jumped at the offer.
Those 4 days deserve a blog of their own…but at the end of those 4 days Steve asked where I wanted to travel to if I could go anywhere. I said I’d like to go back to South Africa as it had been years since I’d stepped foot in my home country.
“Let’s do that!” was his response. I thought he was joking.
Nope.
“I have points for flights and hotels and you have a month off in December, why not?”
I tried to explain that we had just met and I’m not sure how my mom might feel about me
disappearing for a month with a man double digit years my senior…
Needless to say, our plans adapted and we decided on Europe instead as my sister was about
to give birth to her first child and that wasn’t something I wanted to miss.
London, December 2016
Back to the present where my heart was about to jump out of my chest and quite possibly did
when I saw Steve come around the corner with a smile that was somehow bigger than his face.
He was there, I was there, we were reunited. And I couldn’t be happier.
With little time for pleasantries we rushed across the airport because we had a train to catch. A
train going from London to Paris, Zurich and on to Vienna. We would have lots of time for
catching up and exchanging stories.
And that is exactly what we did, between eating pretzels the size of my head, sipping
champagne and so much laughter my belly ached.
A whirlwind couple of days later and we arrived in Vienna. THIS is the true lover’s ‘Paris’. I had had nothing to do with the planning or preparations (unusual for my hyper organized brain) and so Steve just led me to the hotel we would be staying at that night and I would think I had died and gone to heaven. Staying in actual hotels when all you’re used to is bunk beds in dormitories is an upgrade in itself, but staying in quaint, historical, romantic little slices of luxury was something I had simply never experienced. I was about to be well and truly spoilt.
The next few days blurred into Christmas markets and gluwien, laughter and cream topped hot cholocate, pastries and good wine, good food and good company. We both gained about 10 lbs on that trip…but we also fell in love.
Time seemed to just fly by; churches and cathedrals by the dozen, glue wine by the litre, kisses and looks that let off a million butterflies and sweet nothings whispered in each other’s ears. Squamish was where we first connected, but Europe, Europe was where we fell in love.
We were on our last night in Salzburg and Steve had been telling me about this Netflix program he saw called ‘Chef’s Table’, they featured a restaurant in Slovenia named Hisa Franko. Just out of interest we looked it up on the map. It was a 4 hour, 300km drive away, from Austria briefly through the Italian alps and into Slovenia. We looked at each other. Why not? So we called and made a reservation, we could stay there too. Next we called the rental car company, we would be extending our rental by yet another day, we packed up our things, abandoned our hotel and hopped in the car and drove to Slovenia!
An incredible experience of a 9 course dinner with wine pairings all locally made and sourced, the story was just wonderful. And the food and wine? Out of this world. An experience we would not be forgetting. And the next morning we had an amazing breakfast, said our goodbyes and drove back to Salzburg to catch our flight back to the UK. We kinda thought our smiles couldn’t get any bigger, but they just kept on growing.
The next portion of our European trip was to be based on the South Coast of England where my sister was due any day now. We waited. And we waited some more. And finally she came, gorgeous little Layla, my niece, what a perfect little Christmas present! So the next few days were spent oohing and ahhing and cooing over Layla and Steve was instantly fully immersed into my family.
And then it was time to go again, off to Amsterdam for New Years!!
These days we spent curled up in our Air BnB, taking long walks, cycling to nearby towns and
yes, the glue wine obsession continued. At this point we had figured out you could just buy a
bottle at the grocery store, heat it up in the morning and fill a flask with it, rather than $2 a cup at
the Christmas Markets! We were getting smart. Or rather, my thriftyness was beginning to rub
off on Steve. New Years was brought in hand in hand staring up at the fireworks, which has
started at about 11am that day. The dutch know how to do fireworks that’s for sure!!
Our European adventure was beginning to come to a close. We had just hours left and reality hit. Hard. I was off to New Zealand for 6 months to volunteer as a fieldwork assistant to a pHd student studying sting rays and Steve was flying directly back to Canada to get back to his businesses and open a new restaurant.
We were literally headed to opposite ends of the world. We both had commitments for the foreseeable future and we didn’t know if we would see each other again.
I had met the most amazing man whilst travelling, we continued to travel to get to know each other. Ultimately, travel had brought us together but it was now, quite painfully, tearing us apart. I always swore I would never do long distance again. I always swore I would never move somewhere for a guy, never chase someone round the world. I had my own life and my own goals. I was fiercely, perhaps somewhat stubbornly, independent. But at that very moment I wanted to give up every dream I’d ever had and get on a plane with this man and see where it was we landed. As long as we were together, I didn’t seem to care.
But instead, we waved goodbye. We hugged and kissed with tears streaming down our faces until the absolute last moment when we were ripped apart and I was left standing alone, watching the man I had come to love disappear into the crowd.
