Almost 5 years ago now, I travelled for the first time on my own to London/Europe baring a broken heart. A few months after my father's passing I decided to put my heart back together by running away if only for a little while. Little did I know that I would discover something much more than foreign food and beautiful cobbled streets. I met Daniel and it wasn't long after we met that I realised he too wasn't just travelling for the sake of travelling, but he was running away too.
Last Christmas he gave me a book for a present which I didn't start to read until I had moved to London already. When I opened the book a letter he had wrote dropped out of the crisp pages. To my delight I read the words that he had written with so much joy and love in my heart.
I have stolen some of his words to share with you;
Dearest Pauline,
A little over two years ago the chaos of my graduation had a hold of my life. Even with the excitement of my big trip looming I could not have ever foreseen what would have happened. I left Sydney, Toronto bound to begin a new chapter of my life, to experience new things and meet new people. As I left the Canada via NYC and Chicago I was excited to get to London, to embark on the last leg of my trip.
Now with the first breath of my London air and a new bounce in my travelling feet, I went to my room and slept, little did I know that tomorrow I would meet someone I would treasure not only for the bus cigarette breaks, but much more.
I think it started when you introduced yourself to our bus full of new people. The sentence that resonates in my mind is, "Hello my name is Pauline, my sisters name is Jasmine, like the Disney Princess, I got the shit name". There was something there that made me think we were going to get along on that trip.
As I got to know you over the weeks on that trip and years now after we have returned, I would consider you a dear friend and I am so sad for you to be leaving this continent on your adventure with Kieran. That said I am incredibly excited for you both.
This is just one of the many things you say and do that make you such an inspiring person. I think proof of this is not only in your actions but in the friends you keep close and most of all Kieran. I remember sitting in that gloomy room in Austria, looking out the window as the snow fell and you talking about Kieran, the relationship you both had sounded amazing. When we returned and I not only gained a friend, a dear friend in you but in Kieran also.
I could go on for pages about how happy I am I met you, but I am more excited about the new memories we have waiting for us around the corner and the milestones we will both accomplish and tell each other about.
Which brings me to my final point, I am so excited for you and Kieran. I am so excited to meet you both in London and enjoy another five pound breakfast in the snow. So from that girl I met in London on a cold winters morning, to the beautiful friend you have become, I'm going to miss you like crazy, both of you! I cannot wait to visit you in your little London home.
Daniel x
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