A Lady in London

My boyfriend is back in London, and as such my social life has quieted down this week. I got invited to go clubbing one night, but I was already curled up on the couch mid-movie and couldn’t be bothered to unwrap myself from my slanket, get out of my sweats and into proper party clothes, and to go all the not-very-long way into central London. On another night I had plans with friends to go to the Holly Bush, my favorite local pub in Hampstead, but they fell through at the last minute.

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My boyfriend has been out of town for the past nine days. He headed out to New York and San Francisco to see friends and enjoy the torrential rains that are currently plaguing the great state of California. This left me by my lonesome in London, feeling a bit lost as I puttered about our empty flat talking to myself and feeling like I should be surrounded by a few cats.

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Last time I was in York it was the summer of 1988. My mother, who has a notorious sweet tooth that has most definitely skipped a generation, bought me a giant pink peppermint stick with the word YORK emblazoned across the top. No matter how much of the candy I begrudgingly ate, the YORK wouldn’t disappear until I had finished every last bite.

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I realized the other day that I have no idea how much I really traveled last year. While 2008 had a clear goal of 25 countries in one year and 50 countries in my lifetime, 2009 ended up being a bit less focused but by no means less fun.

I sat down tonight to look back at my posts over the course of 2009 and compile some stats to motivate my travel agenda in 2010. In no particular order, here are the highlights:

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The last leg of my Madagascar journey was to the northwest corner of Nosy Be, an island off the coast. Andilana beach had come highly recommended by every book I had read about the island, and was even ranked in the top 10 of some lists of Madagascar must-dos.

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My boyfriend and I left Antananarivo at the crack of dawn on Boxing Day. After a long wait in the tiny departures area of Tana Airport, we boarded an Air Madagascar flight to Nosy Be, an island in the northwest of the country.

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When my boyfriend and I moved to London, one of our first goals was to travel to places that were hard to get to from San Francisco. When we sat down this year to plan our holiday adventure, we threw around ideas as diverse as The Seychelles, Brazil, and Vietnam. Eventually we decided on Madagascar. I’m glad we did, too, because when I opened my guidebook to the section on “Getting There”, I discovered that the author specifically called out San Francisco as the single most difficult place from which to get to Madagascar. It even cited a city on the southern part of the island as being San Francisco’s antipode. Success!

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This morning I returned from an amazing trip to Madagascar. I had every intention of writing about the trip’s adventures tonight, but I’m having a hard time keeping my eyes open (a 6am arrival time will do that). The stories will have to wait until tomorrow, but in the meantime, I’ll whet your appetite with some photos.

Arrival in Antananarivo

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