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A Pic Worth 1000 Words

D has found this funky program that allows you to make slide shows with pictures and music. He has taken all of our photos over the last year and created a 2-minute slide show.

It was amazing seeing all the pictures flash by in front of my face. D posing reluctantly in front of yet another French cottage. A scenic picture of the Spanish landscape from a train. Me, relaxing on the beaches of Greece. D, copying the pose of the pointing man in Germany, the flying man in Venice, even jumping behind the tourist cardboard cut out of the Manequin Pis in Brussels.

There are shots of buildings, me in front of buildings, D jumping in front at the last minute to create an action shot.

Lots of fuzzy pictures. Dark pictures. Pictures that other people take for you that don’t quite look they way you want them to – such as the picture of us and the Eiffel Tower except, all you see of the Tower is the top stick behind us. I might as well be a hydro tower.

Pictures with ‘new best friends’ along the way. I suddenly realize how few of them I have kept in touch with even with all the promises to email and visit. I suppose that’s just the way it goes when you’re travelling. Days and moments with people – the intensity brings you closer. But you’ll never be that way again so it’s hard to maintain the friendship.

As I was watching this slideshow – and I might add, we need to work on the music because the songs are just not fitting for some reason – I couldn’t help but realize how it was just all there. A whole year of experiences simply rolled into one slideshow.

I have always adored pictures because it is like a passport stamp that says you were there. I will always have them so that I can show to myself in old age what I have done.

But it is a bit scary that it seems all those memories are grouped into two minutes. Is that possible? Every photo has story behind it. I found myself wanting to tell each one as the picture flipped past.

I always worry that I will forget the stories of our trip. I think that’s why I took so many pictures. They act as memory jogs, reminders of the experiences I have had.

So now, my head is off in travel land. My feet are getting itchy. It’ll be time to go again soon.

*****

On a travel note, D and I have found a flight back to the UK and have pretty much decided that we’ll be going mid March. I’m very excited. I’m very excited. We have a new plan. We have a new adventure ahead of us. I am going to enjoy these next couple months at home with friends and family because next thing you know, it will be me and D again.

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