Tours are about endless train rides through beautiful landscape you never get to stop and visit, long hours idling at the edges of interesting cities you do not have time to explore. Someone is always sick, or sad, or agitated. You run out of clothes, or you packed too much, and you miss your home and miss your friends even when they are right in front of you. Because your attention is distracted by the job at hand, which is getting to the next event on time.
I’ve been in the opposite position many times and fully understand that luck and life intervene more often than people can predict. But I still wish I had more time to spend with my friends, aside from a few stolen moments in a crowd.
This trip featured countless fragmentary conversations with old beloved friends and new exciting strangers, hectic drives and train rides between events, epic efforts to acquire the goods and services I can’t find in the UK, and more fun that any person should be allowed to have.