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February 9, 2021

Nineth

Photo by Skitterphoto on Pexels.

On 29th July 2020, I stood in the midday heat and waited alongside the other day-trippers, near the very nondescript and easily missed bus stop. As the bus arrived, we all popped on our Covid protective masks, handed the five euro ticket to the driver purchased from the local newsagent exactly as described in a blog I read, and took a seat on the bus. Easy.

I was soon heading towards the country that would become known as number ninety. NINETY. Crazy!

About twenty minutes into the thirty-minute bus journey, I crossed the imaginary border separating Italy from teeny tiny San Marino.

San Marino was probably the simplest country to tick off from the European country list. Leaving the remaining four countries on the ‘to visit’ list looking a bit lonely – Russia, Belarus, Moldova, and Andorra all had to wait. This felt like how it should be – easy – and not even a stamp in my passport to show such an accomplishment. No visa hassles, no security checkpoints to stress over, and no navigating customs with my 100ml bottles.

I know what you’re thinking ‘Were the people of San Marino out on the streets waiting for your arrival, and secondly, were you requested to join a banquet supper with the King of San Marino’

Sadly, the answer to both was no and I am pretty sure San Marino doesn’t have a King.

Travelling the world doesn’t change your appearance, you don’t earn an extra gold badge to wear for high fives from strangers, but it changes you deep inside. It grants you ninety countries’ worth of perspectives, at least ninety separate trips’ worth of stories, and endless obstacles tackled and overcome to reach this day.

It feeds your imagination with far-flung adventure and makes what was once your dreams become your memories.

It changes how you see the world and how you live your life – if it didn’t then what has it all been for.

This wasn’t about San Marino or that one day, but it was much more than that.

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This was for the eight-year-old girl who boarded her first flight with the Armour family, on a journey ‘abroad’ to Spain. Who felt that feeling of excitement when adventure awaits around the corner. I saw for the first time the clouds drift through the sky from the airplane window and felt the intense heat as you stepped off the plane – welcoming you to a new ‘exotic’ adventure.

This is for the 20-year-old girl who landed in New York, travelled South to Delaware where I worked the summer in a family-owned, beachside amusement park. Who travelled the East Coast of America with the dollar pocket money earned that summer – first South to Florida, then all the way back North beyond New York into Toronto – yes another new country collected.

That trip to America was my first taste of real freedom and did I make the most of it – yes I did. Some stories will remain untold from that trip. I had never lived away from home, not the whole time I went to university, and here I was in the United States of America.

2003 – what a year and what a summer.

This is for the girl who in her 20s, planned all the trips in her long-term relationship. Who after years of reading the Guardian newspaper on a Saturday morning with a big cup of tea, searching for something, applied for a job advert and set off to work, live, and explore the gigantic country that is known as ‘Down Under’ or simply Australia. And eventually the neighboring continent – Asia. Can you imagine the eight-year-old me thinking of a future me in Asia! Very ‘abroad’.

That was the start of the realisation that the other side of the world is not scary or unusual, but the home to awe-inspiring wonders. Maybe a little unusual but in a mystical way.

This is definitely for the girl in her 30s who boarded the plane to Japan, solo after my long term relationship ended, and never quite stopped. What would I share with anyone interested in being part of the game called travelling the world:

Keep going. Plan, sometimes go with the flow but always have some rough plan. Get excited. Scribble notes for future trips – it doesn’t stop. Make it happen. Lie-ins are not something to collect. Do You – Cry, Smile, but Breathe. Be Curious. Don’t regret anything. Embrace it all. Everything is figuroutable.

You will eventually look back and wonder how the hell did you get so far forward in life.

This starts the collection of countries called the 90s. The collection of 80s were pretty wild. Not sure how I will top these but will try hard:

89.Sri Lanka 88.Ethiopia 87.Faroe Islands 86.Albania 85.North Macedonia 84.Georgia 83.Armenia 82.Azerbeijan 81.Kosovo 80.Slovakia

Each country is the stepping stone to the next, but in its own right is a wonder.

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