48. Surrey and flight back home CH
April 3, 2025 in Switzerland ⋅ ☀️ 17 °C
48. Surrey and flight back home CH
Surrey – Vancouver – London – Zürich – Lucerne: A Whirlwind of Farewells and New Beginnings
The last days in Surrey were a real tightrope walk – both exhausting and wonderfully intense. Prep work piled up, but we squeezed in every free minute to hang out with Walter. His old-time stories, his adventurous videos… the guy seriously needs to write a book! Growing up with 15 siblings, always fighting for food, the endless brawls with his brother. Then his worldwide travels for work, his romantic relationship with Henriette, whom he married and immigrated to Canada with to escape his family. A life packed with unbelievable adventures! And how he landed his first job at a car shop just because he knew his soccer – crazy!
We were totally swamped with sales stress: viewings for the camper, selling our mountain bikes and the camper bike. The bikes went for peanuts, but at least that headache was gone. The camper sale, though, was a complete mess. Sleepless nights, literally. But also a wild story with a gay couple: one of them was a Catholic family man who left his family and reappeared 20 years later, when everyone thought he was dead – and then came out as gay. Unbelievable, right?
On the penultimate day, someone set up a viewing at 9:00 PM for 7:00 AM the next morning at the ferry terminal. At 2:30 AM, he cancelled. The stars were seriously not aligned for selling our Pleasure Way. So, on the last day before our Europe departure, we left the camper with a dealer. That was the first night I felt truly liberated. Still, we didn’t hit the sack until 3:00 AM because we were still packing, and I had to cut Theo’s hair at 2:00 AM so he’d look presentable for work.
After four hours of sleep, we dragged ourselves to the airport like zombies. The car was stuffed to the brim with our belongings. In Vancouver, we treated ourselves one last time to delicious Asian food—steaming baskets of dim sum, a fresh Hawaiian poke bowl, and some final bites that wrapped up our months-long food adventure on a perfect note.
On the plane, I wasn’t even that tired—I ended up watching two Hong Kong movies. Lucky Guy, a film by Stephen Chow, had me laughing out loud, and Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In was fascinating—especially the scenes set in the infamous Kowloon Walled City. I managed maybe an hour of shut-eye before we landed at London Heathrow for our transfer to Zürich. Luckily, we could crash at Jonas’s place.
No time to process anything—we were running on autopilot, too tired to feel much at all. The next day was the apartment handover and the move. Theo started his new job right after the weekend, and I had my next job interview lined up. Let’s see how it goes.Read more