Valencia and back home

Valencia was a very pleasant surprise, just into February with snow, high winds and disruption reported in England, other parts of Spain and with many other parts Europe also suffering, Monday for us, was warm almost Spring-like which let us have an all-day “walk about” the old City. A city we would also like to visit again, full of fine old buildings being carefully preserved and regenerated to a current time use; fine gardens and new dockside redevelopments for the Americas Cup. Tuesday morning we were able to get back on the internet after the lack of a connection when on ME, this got us a flight to Gatwick the next day on a 'budget' airline. The start off price was very reasonable but rapidly escalated to a far from cheap deal by the time needed extras were added. Traveling by train and boats for very nearly 3 months had meant that the weight of baggage was now excess to the eventual mournful tune of £180. None the less it was the best way back to chilly Gatwick Britain with then a one way car hire drive to home. Irene's exclamation as we drove in through the gates 'my loverly home!'

We both have started to reflect on our trip and agree that Buenos Aires was, by far, the most meaningful facet of our time away; in a way, we sort of lived BA, at our time and pace and felt the place; we were emotionally at home; the people suited us, we were comfortable. We really want to come back again.
For me, Genoa was an unwinding interlude, an interesting, again to be visited city but this time a holding, transition place. The hotel didn't help being wrapped up in its family, isolating and tired at the end of the season. A good hors d' oeuvre none the less.
The cruise ship fun and entertaining, a great cosmopolitan mix of people and nationalities, providing a taste of Lisbon, Madeira and the Canaries that will require their own future individual stays. Being a dance cruise too caused us to meet and come acquainted with so many people from over Europe, the US and the Argentine but after 19 days we wanted some more substantial fare. The abiding memory of the cruise was of Argentinian emotional, spoken poetry and singing and the tears when saying goodbye to the little lady from San Luis. Another reason for going back to Argentina another year.
On the container freighter we had joined an established but faintly alien, disjointed 'club', tossed around by commercial circumstances far more than the weather or the sea. With constant changing crews there lacks a sense of 'ownership' with the ship herself having an almost independent feel. Its a fascinating and absorbing way to travel and we both really enjoyed ourselves but as a passenger there can almost be a sense of hibernation when at sea.
All our travel phases extremely interesting, unique, lifetime experiences but maybe tinged with just that sense of transience or lacking a certain depth; the clear exception being Buenos Aires
which was so truly special.

Its not yet time to write a prologue but a remembering of the Shakespeare sonnet in our hall at home starts to give a constant to this journey, that nothing changes but the observer to observe and so Ralph Ellison's 'Invisible Man' has sometimes seen or been seen.