Before leaving the East Coast, we decided to make a short trip to the Yosemite National Park to have a glimpse of Nature’s beauty in the United States. Fortunately, the snow which fell there during our rainy week in San Francisco had already disappeared when we pitched up our tent under the towering pine trees. And we were rewarded with three beautiful days of clear skies and crisp air — what else could we wish for when hiking?
I had not seen him for over two years. I remember it well. Ladina and I had made a short trip to Paris, to see family, friends, and celebrate New Year’s Eve in the City of Light.
We made a call at his apartment one evening, the one he shared with Thomas at the time, another very good friend of mine: we all had known each other during classe préparatoire, that oh-so intensive two-year course aiming to make us enter the most prestigious schools of France. We had struggled together, endured together, stuffed our sleep-deprived brains with ludicrous amounts of knowledge, and had become close all the while. And we had left it, more disgusted by the pompous and arrogant elitism of it all, and by the dysfunctional educational and academic system of the Western world, than elevated to any prestige. But I had come out with the best friends I am to ever make, and for this I will never regret it.
Maël was there and as always, it felt like we had seen each other but the day before. Before I knew it, we were sitting on the floor watching Machete with a steak in our plates. He told me he was going to study a (third) Master degree in Berkeley, San Francisco Bay Area — or how he put it: “J’vais à SF” — and that was the last I saw of him.
To me and probably the whole Westernized world — minus the Māoris — Mount Ngauruhoe will only be remembered as Mount Doom, just like Nemo is the new name of the clownfish.
Difficult, then, not to imagine Frodo and Sam clambering up the rocky slopes of this volcano as I am peering at it. And where is the cave they entered to throw the Ring into the lava? I can’t see it. What? It was only a movie?
Only a few hours drive away from Te Anau, we knocked at another door: Leanne and Richard, the parents of my friend Ben, had once hosted me after Ben and I had flown away from the aftermath of the Christchurch earthquake; and, coming back to Queenstown, it was a pleasure to see them again. They warmly welcomed us at their new house, and, being true born and bred Kiwis, enlightened us with a lot of opinions about life in New Zealand, a country so far away from the rest of the world, at once isolated and protected by its distance.
Rummaging in our travel photos, we decided that it was time for yet another Unpublished episode. Again, just random pictures that are worth publishing but did not fit into our posts… A short travel through time and space, back to Asia — it already seems so far away — and beyond!
“Are you vegetarian?”
I goggled at the woman until it came to me it was a serious question.
“Um, no, why?”
“Oh Andrew couldn’t remember if you were vegetarian or not. You’re having tea at his place aren’t you? He’s cooking mussels.”
That is how, after having vainly looked for Andrew at his work, we ended up knowing we were having mussels for dinner before his colleague actually gave us the directions to his new house. The Hills had moved since my last visit, and apparently, they now lived a bit out of town.
We drove and turned back a few times before finding the house, set amidst meadows and pastures — and a golf course. As we went up the driveway, we had to pull over to let a 4WD pass the other way. Andrew was at the wheel.
“Hey guys! We’re just going sailing with Arlo — they’re in the back, in the garden! See you this evening!”
And he drove on.
