“I would not wish any companion in the world but you”
Shakespeare, The Tempest


Ahhhhh, the Travelpod several.
 
It’s been a while indeed! Five years, by my watch.
 
There’s been something bothering me for some years now, and it’s the thing at the top of this page (and every page in our blog) that says Trip Start, Jun 01 2006, and Trip End, Ongoing.
 
Even the most optimistic of Travelpod blog readers will have realised by now that our journey came to an end. I like to think that we kept some of them hoping for the first couple of years that we were just ‘away from an Internet café’, and then as time moved on and smartphones began to proliferate perhaps a few keen readers just put our lack of recent posts down to our trademark rubishness. But at the five year mark I think we’ve lost everyone.
 
So what better time than for us to get the band back together for one last gig.
 
And as it turned out, a gig that will serve as the final chapter in this story far better than any of the usual, two-slightly-idiotic-but-generally-well-meaning-blokes-drink-alcohol-overseas pieces that had become our genre of choice.
 
Without further ado, quotes from films, cryptic messages or racial slurs, here it is. The final Travelopd update.
 
In August of this year, by a lake in the Alps, under a golden sun and surrounded by friends and family, Vinny got married to the girl of his dreams.
 
He met Nadia on our trip, which makes it all the more blog-worthy. After we spent time in Melbourne and we split up for a time, me to stay in Melbourne and work and Vinny to go on to Sydney, the place he had fallen in love with on his first big adventure – working at the Sydney Olympics in 2000.
 
Nadia was a good catch – beautiful and charming and intelligent and kind… And so much better than Vinny in all the ways such a thing could be measured. He knew pretty early on that he was going to have to play a blinder, and I think it’s fair to say he did.
 
Not to say Nadia changed him, that would be unfair and untrue. Those that know him as well as I do think that it’s much simpler than that. She just made him be his best.
 
The wedding was to be held in Morzine, France, and for anyone in the Travelpod world unaware, that’s where Vinny spent a lot of time both before our trip and afterwards, and lived there for months with Nadia after returning to the UK and finding it pretty much how we left it.
 
You’ve got to have a certain amount of confidence to have (what I learned is called) a Destination Wedding. But when you live in Australia (as they do), coming all the way to France to get married is pretty generous. Not nearly as many of us would have been able to make the trip if they had chosen to do it in their back yard… Perhaps with a barbecue for the dinner… Couple of tinnies of VB for the toast… And you know, the usual Travelpod digs at other cultures. 

Still though, you’d think if they’d come all the way to France they could come a few hundred more miles and do it all in England, right?
 
Only kidding.
 
I had only been in the Alps for the first time the year before (passing through doesn’t count), skiing, if you can believe that, and I wasn’t sure what to expect for rocking up in the height of summer.
 
As it turned out, one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen.
 
I flew over with my amazing girlfriend Katrina (some old rules can now be safely discarded), and we met Karim and his girlfriend Angie (also amazing) at Geneva airport. We had rather bravely hired a car, which Karim and Angie had already picked up and driven around the place all day.
 
(Karim ended up with flights that arrived about six hours before ours, because of his trademark last minute approach to booking anything. I was reminded fondly of our first trip together, where instead of working hard and saving slowly and steadily, he acted completely normally until three weeks before we left, then got two full time jobs and didn’t sleep for a fortnight. His approach is not conventional, but it works, and he does it with such style you can’t help but love him)
 
It was all a bit hurried in the morning, particularly for Karim and Ange who had to get up at something criminal like 2AM to get their flight.
 
Karim had rung me when he was about to get on his plane, which was also the same time I was leaving my house, to tell me he had brought the Tom Tom, as agreed, but had left it in his car in the airport car park, and didn’t have time to go back for it, and could I do something about the directions to Morzine from the airport. Given that I had about three minutes and a computer but no printer I did the best I could – loaded up Google Maps and took a photo on my phone, then took another photo of the directions we’d received from Vinny and Nadia.

And it proved a fun journey. It was completely problem free for the first 80%, which we made up for completely in the final 20%, which was a montage of driving up and down the same streets while different people each time swore blind they were new, asking for directions in the kind of French that a 10 year old would sacre-bleu at, and passing the same supermarche seven times. Karim suggested stopping for food each time.
 
Anyway, we made it, and Karim, who was the only allowed driver, did an amazing job. Better than I would have done. In fact it’s worth mentioning that if it wasn’t for him we wouldn’t have got to the wedding at all, as I no doubt would have let the stress build to such a level that I decided the whole thing was a fool’s errand and ran off to live in the hills before we ever got to Morzine. So good on you.
 
It was a whole weekend event, this wedding, and it was all the better for it. The first evening was a drinks reception in a local bar with all the guests, bride and groom included, and a welcome encounter with one man that the Travelpod several will remember better than most.

It was Adam the American. This is the Missouri legend that we met in China, met again in China, met in Australia and then Vinny went to see in America on his way to Vegas.
 
He’s moved on a fair bit himself, has Adam the American. Married to the beautiful and delightful Shino (who was also there, I’m not just assuming), with very cute daughter Miku (she wasn’t there, but I saw pictures so I’m not assuming that either) and with another baby on the way! And, perhaps most startling of all, he’s changed his name! Apparently, living these last five years mostly in Missouri, he just goes by ‘Adam’ now. I suppose it makes sense.

Katrina and I stayed in a lovely staffed chalet with Karim and Ange, Adam and Shino, Tollerton LEGEND Chris Hepburn (sorry Travelpod several, Tollerton is where Vinny and I come from, in the beginning) and Jayne, and a few other wedding guests including the PHENOMENALLY named James Taylor.
 
Despite the fire alarm being set off by the steam of the shower within about three seconds, it was a great place.
 
The first night - the Friday - was great. There was a lot of ‘haven’t-seen-you-in-a-year’s, a lot of ‘meeting-you-for-the-first-time’s, and it was brilliant to get that all out of the way without the pressure of a wedding also.
 
Family Vinny put on a good show – they are, each of them, a delight, and their happiness was infectious. 
 
Saturday came in that way that it does, and though I missed out on the dawn swim in the lake on account of not being mental, I was still excited about the day to come.

When Vinny phoned me to tell me that there a bit of a c*** up on the old transportation front, and could Karim and I and our female companions please drive our rental car to the lake rather than try and squeeze into an oversubscribed bus. As it was the chap’s wedding day I assured him that this was fine and didn’t share my instant certain knowledge that we would become hopelessly lost – which, of course, we did.
 
But we got there in time, and the setting for the wedding ceremony was like if someone had taken a picture of the most beautiful lake on earth, then photoshopped it to make it look a better, and then printed it and stuck it over the background. I’m pretty sure that’s not what happened, so we were very lucky.

The ceremony was both lovely and hilarious, so classic Vinny. He managed to burst into tears within the first few moments, and then laugh about it uncontrollably. 

And soon enough it was back to this lovely place called the Farmhouse for drinks and dinner and speeches and dancing.

Part time travel partner and 1983 yellow Ford Econovan enthusiast Tom Wood joined Vinny's big brother and the official World's Nicest Man Simon in best man duties, and they both did a cracking job

We ate outdoors in the sunshine, and drank amazing wine, and listened to heartfelt and funny speeches, and then danced the night away.

Vinny's Dad Andrew was on the form of his life. He was a man with the expression of delighted pride fixed on his face for the entire weekend. He reminded me of my own Dad at my brother's wedding a few years ago, in the best possible way.

And then on the Sunday we took advantage of the location. Katrina and I rode the ski lift up to the top of the mountain - something much more disconcerting when there's a fifty foot drop onto a concrete carpark rather than lovely soft looking snow. Apart from a bunch of mountain bikers we had the place to ourselves, and it was a lovely day.

In the evening we met up with the remaining wedding party for dinner, and reflected that this was the way to do a wedding - over a few days, at your own pace, spending time with the people you want to, eating and drinking great things in a beautiful palce with better company.

Vinny and Nadia went off on their honeymoon and then returned to Sydney, the rest of us went our separate ways with friendships reinvigorated and promises made for not leaving it so bloody long next time.

Returning to work after a long weekend I felt refreshed instead of tired.

The whole weekend was amazing. I've never seen Vinny happier. I've never seen Karim happier, now I think about it. Or Adam the American. Or even myself. 
 
So, Travelpod several, I finish this final chapter considering my opening remarks. For Vinny and me, the time we spent travelling around the world was among the greatest of our lives. The places we saw, people we met, things we did. And maybe that was partly why I never wrote this before – not the wedding part, obviously, but the final chapter, the ending. Not writing it was a way of not acknowledging it. 
 
I suppose it took a wedding full of people I love to remind me.
 
It’s never the end.
 
It’s always the beginning.


Mike and Vinny
Brighton and Sydney
November 2013
Ongoing