London calling

Before I left for Canada, it was very clear to me that I was to return to London after my travels. I was in a really good place: I had met some really nice people and I was enjoying London life. Little did I know that even after only nine months away, coming back to London would be a double-edged experience.

Just when my visa was about to expire, I happened to chat to my former flatmate Richard who told me that against my expectations, he was still living in the same Victorian terraced house we used to inhabit in leafy West London. When I left, the house was on sale and all of us had just received notice from the landlord that we had to move out. It turned out that my landlord had changed his mind and took the house off the market while I was in Canada and moreover, that my old room would become available just as I was about to return to Europe. It seemed almost like a sign – finding a place as lovely as this one, with a beautiful garden in London’s zone 2 is a true rarity – so I gladly spared myself the dubious joys of flat hunting in London.

As I land with my backpack full of souvenirs back at Gatwick airport mid-February, I take the familiar route back to my new, old home. I doze off on the train after thirteen hours of travel time from Vancouver when the controller’s soft voice wakes me up with a friendly “We’re almost in Victoria darlin’”. In the scope of half a day, I’m back from Canadian to English accents, from wide spaces and mountains to cloudy skies and busy streets. At the Underground platform in Victoria, I’m approached by a lady asking me eagerly about my travels, her eyes scanning my massive backpack with envy. I explain as briefly as possible that I’ve been travelling Canada from east to west. It’s obvious that she wants to know more but she seems to sense my apprehension and I feel bad. I usually love chatting about my travels (or chatting in general, for that matter) but I’m tired and I don’t even know how to feel right now. I’m so excited to be back in London but at the same time the thought of Canada and Vancouver makes me want to burst into tears.

With the same mixed feelings I watch the familiar scenery of West London roll by – the Underground stations of South Kensington and Hammersmith and the rooftops of the terraced houses of Chiswick High Road. And before I know it, I’m back in my old room as if nothing had happened. The same person but different in a place that is the same but different. There are still the retro-style lampshades that my landlord grew up with in the house that used to be his family home and the carpet in the living room still looks exactly like the one my parents have had in our own living room for decades but I have two new flatmates that I haven’t met and I don’t have a job anymore. And I have another home away from home that I’m missing already.

Today, three months after I left Vancouver, after a couple of visits to see friends and family in Germany, a hefty week of carnival celebrations and hard-core job-hunting, I still feel like a stranger in my own world sometimes. My friend and former colleague  Stefan, who sat opposite of me at work for the best part of three years and who genuinely shares the travel bug with me and many others, has only just published a video about coming home from his own travels which left me giggling and thoughtful at the same time. It really captures the strange sensation of coming home after travelling. I have been lucky enough to be able to start working again after only a month and my new flatmates are great – but it’s surprising how ambiguous I feel about being here at times. In only a matter of nine months, so much has happened in my life as well as in this fast-moving city. Some friends have left, moved or their life situation has changed. Maybe I’ve changed a bit too. And if all of this wasn’t tough enough, the UK has decided to leave the European Union 😉 So what’s the cure for the returned traveller’s persistent wanderlust?

I’ll just enjoy living in the moment and stay an “eternal tourist in London”, as a friend once called me. I might not have the next long trip booked just yet – for now some London-based activities and hikes in the English countryside will do the trick. But more on that in my next post 🙂