14 Dec 2019

Her name was Louise.

She was Swiss. Or Swedish. Or something like that.

It was love.

It started at brekky. She was making the sexiest batch of clumpy pancakes I’d ever laid my eyes upon; my heart pounding and swirling and spinning in rhythm with the wooden spoon in her hand as she beat together the flour, the milk, the eggs, and the sugar - oh, the sugar.

My toast popped, and the sound got her attention. She caught me staring, held my gaze, and just for a fleeting moment she smiled a smile so sweet that there was no need for the sugar after all.

 

I opted to keep my Vegemite travel tube hidden in my bag, in fear that I’d somehow wind up in a situation where she'd ask what this mysterious spread was, insist on tasting it, spit it out and shriek in horror as she realised what tasteless monsters Australians are.

I went for the peanut butter – a safe bet in any nation.

I didn’t see her again until the afternoon. I had signed up for the hostel’s daily 3 pm tour of the city, and at 2.45 I was killing time in the communal living room, checking the socials when she walked into the room, sat on the couch opposite me and started doing the same thing.

After a good ten minutes of pretending to scroll through my Insta feed in the coolest way possible (obviously), I finally worked up the courage to squeak out a hello. She looked up, gave me the same smile as in the morning and replied with a hello in her beautiful Norwegian accent, or whatever it was.

We chatted.

We journeyed smoothly through the small talk, the where-are-you-froms and the how-long-are-you-here-fors (both one week), to the little jokes; testing the waters. The conversation evolved, twisted, and turned freely, naturally, and unrestrained. Talking with her was as easy as breathing, I thought to myself.

By the time the tour started, we were officially travel buddies. By the time it finished, after two hours of dodgy facts presented by some dude working at the hostel for free rent, we were unofficially an item.

That night was the pub crawl. Going from drink to drink, pub to pub, our fascination with each other only grew as we became more and more aware of how perfect for each other we really were. We compared everything from our Spotify playlists, to the books we’d read on our travels and where our next big trip would be. Everything was a match.

Later that night - and every night for the following week - we lay squeezed into the bottom bunk of my eight-bed dorm room cursing the cruel gods that made us so perfect for one another yet forced us to return to homes on the other sides of the planet. Me to Australia; her to Brazil, I’m pretty sure.

At the end of the week, we were both heartbroken. After seven days of exploring a foreign city together, getting lost in its streets by day and getting lost in each other’s eyes by night, it was time to say goodbye to my Nordic-ish love. Tears were spilled and promises to visit each other’s homes were made.

Promises were made, but they weren’t kept.

Sure, we messaged back and forth for a few weeks and I still like the odd Insta upload of hers, but eventually, we both realised that it just wasn’t made to be.

Because travel love is just like everything else travel. When you visit a city on a vacation, you see all the best things it has to offer. You see its breathtaking views, get tours of its coolest places, and get served by locals who are paid to smile and show you an amazing time. You don’t really get to experience what it’s like living there. Working, paying rent, commuting, surviving the cold, harsh winter.

It’s not authentic.

Travel love is the same. You are living a daydream life together where you are both completely free and your only goal for each day is literally to have as much fun as possible. It’s pretty easy to fall in love with someone who is having fun all the time.

You’ve got no clue what each other is really like when the commitments pile on. The work, the study, the family obligations, the other friends, the bills to pay. To be compatible with someone, you have to work just as well together when you’re free, as when it all hits the fan.

Who knows? Maybe my Icelandic love and I really were a perfect match for each other and we could’ve stuck together through thick and thin. But I think for the sake of not spoiling my perfect memory of that week away, it’s best that we don’t find out whether that’s true or not.

 

By the way, to say thank you for being a legend we’re giving away some prizes, to get involved head here.