catching up with an old friend

Today I left the north-west of Sweden and headed south to catch up with an old friend. The distance was too much to cover before she left the east coast and headed up to North north, so I bused and trained it there – can’t say it was a nice experience but the public transport works good over here and they are very accommodating to cyclists.

We both trained together in March 2010 before joining the ships. We both tarted up our faces every morning with ridiculous make-up (ohh yeah full on red lippy – I looked a mess), we both went through the same painful effort of putting our hair together in an ‘up style’ and we sat grueling through endless hours of massage training and had to present ourselves like we were in boot camp – but for beauty therapists. It was horrific but became the beginning of the best thing I had ever done in my life.

Over wine, beer and some great food we exchanged very funny and very interesting times on our ships; the incredible places we had travelled, the great people we had spent amazing times with and the guests we had massaged (now that is a whole other story). A lot can happen in 12 months and a lot can change. Our meeting really dug deep into my belief of how important it is to make most of every opportunity and experience you are fortunate to be given. Also though, how we both agreed we considered it…but would ‘never’ go back to working on the ships. Do it once and do it well, live it and never regret it.