Have you ever had the feeling that the event you’re looking forward to has already passed? Like your ‘going away party’ is actually a ‘welcome back party’? That’s how I felt at mine anyway. I think I had prepared myself so well for my trip (mentally I mean, well as mentally prepared as this brain can get…) that the party seemed almost a post event. Albeit a kind of sad post event as I kept reminding myself the seven plus months away were still to come.

Great party though, although as with most going away parties I guess, one mixed with feelings of excitement and sadness. Sadness that you’re not going to see most of these people for some time, except for Clive of course who’ll join me in Morocco in six weeks.

We had the obligatory round of poker at the end of the night and for some reason I ended up with all the chips. I put it down to skill, but the other players of course insisted they were being nice to me since I’m going. Either way I’m happy, I’m a good player, or I have kind friends, maybe both.

Then suddenly everyone was gone and there was just Clive and me. I was sitting in the middle of the lounge pondering as you do, and he was doing his own thing on the computer. When I say his own thing I mean that somehow, he had found this video clip of ruthless and gruesome accidents.

“Hey bro, check out this wrestler”.
I glanced over to see someone about to do a death drop on screen and said “Na, I’m good”. I could see that going awry. I was happy to sit in the middle of the lounge rather than see someone get folded in half.
“Wow, ouch!”
Glad I didn’t watch that one.

Then more “ooh, oh my gosh, that’s gotta hurt” as I was trying to figure out how quickly I could ride across France. That was all good, but then came the motorcycle crashes. More winces from the corner.

“Hey Kurt, check this out, you gotta see it. There’s this scooter going along and…”
“Dude, I don’t wanna hear it!” Doesn’t he know I’m about to ride about twenty thousand kilometres, sometimes even sharing roads with crazy Italians? The last thing I need is to watch that.
“Na seriously man, there’s this car coming the other way and…”
“Is that the one with the white car?”
“No, grey”.
“Oh yeah, that one, I’ve seen it…” yeah whatever. No more explanation from the corner anyway. Too late though, the damage was done, that’s really put me in the right frame of mind to ride around Europe.

“Oh well, I’d better be off, see ya in Casablanca man.”
Yeah that’s if I manage to avoid white and grey cars, crazy Italian scooter riders, and rogue pro wrestlers. Thanks buddy, how about a punch in the nose while you’re at it as a real send off?

Admittedly I did accidentally hit him in the nose as I was showing him out. It wasn’t entirely my fault, he had this annoying blue flashing light and I was temporarily blinded. Good excuse. Hopefully he loses that before I pick him up in Casablanca on May the second.