As things transpired (exploding water boiler in our attic back home never helps!) we had to bring our trip to a sligthly shortened end and spent a very lovely last day lying on warm grass listening to an outdoor performance of Chopin in Warsaw. It was a beautiful way to arrive back in Europe after our very slow journey home from the East to Kat's ancestral homeland!
It's inevitably impossible to give a one liner but we've grown to love writing about our trip, even if it has caused a few arguments along the way! Never have we had the time to be such voracious readers and one of our favourite quotes from all the books we've read sums up adventure perfectly in its own weird little way so here it is....
'And I tell you, if you have the desire for knowledge and the power to give it physical expression, go out and explore. If you are a brave man: you will do nothing: if you are fearful you may do much, for none but cowards have need to prove their bravery. Some will tell you that you are mad, and nearly all will say, "what is the use?" For we are a nation of shopkeepers and no shopkeeper will look at research which does not promise him a financial return within a year. And so you will sledge nearly alone, but those with whom you sledge will not be shopkeepers: that is worth a good deal. If you march your Winter Journeys you will have your reward, so long as all you want is a penguin's egg.'
The Worst Journey in the World (Vintage Classics) - Cherry-Garrard, Apsley
