I had my first ever experience of reverse culture shock at the baggage claim in the Guernsey airport, it came in the form of "information overload"; for for the first time in months I was able to understand all that was being said on the tv and spoken in the four corners of the room; No longer was the information I didn’t care to ingest being conveniently screened out by a language I couldn't interpret – it was a smidgen disconcerting.
Guernsey is a little collection of islands off the coast of France (part of the Channel Islands) and has been home to a couple of my favourite peeps for a couple of years now.
I was friends with Aaron and Kimberley before they were friendly – and then over-friendly – with each other. (More recently, I MC’d their wedding and, in their second year of marriage, we all lived together in the George street flat (a move I made to drastically reduce the chance of having yet another flatmate leave me in order to marry the love of his life); So visiting the Cramptons on the far side of the globe felt like returning home.
I have to say that we live together well and we eat even better (when my name is no where to be found on the cooking roster).
Guernsey is a tax haven and therefore an place for people with money; As such, there are always a heap of boats that sit in the harbour all-day-every-day while their owners make (more) money elsewhere.
Aaron was the only one of us silly enough to be employed at the time of my visit, which meant that Kimberley & I had to make our own fun during the working hours.
We missed Aaron so much one day that we found ourselves making the highly convincing life sized substitute visible in the photo above (he’s the one on the right).
K&I developed a daily rhythm of enjoying a lengthy sleep in; spending what was left of the morning at home (mostly talking about how long it was until Aaron was going to be home for lunch); having lunch with Aaron (often an anti-climatic experience); and going on little afternoon adventures to explore the near corners of the small island; We saw lots of little things on the little island, like:
I was keen to start learning some basic Spanish (in preparation for later travel destinations) – Kimberley was keen to be my study buddy (or rather amiga).
K&I also took the opportunity to visit the house that Victor Hugo (best known for authoring Les Miserables) redesigned and lived in while exiled from France.
The house was a case of theatre-meets-ideology-meets-architecture (in other words, it was 'super-quirky-cool') with new surprises behind every door and wall.
I’ve not been in a house that did a better job of representing it's creators mind in physical space. (It really shames those of us who think we're expressing ourselves by making selections from the latest ikea catalogue - Victor Hugo knew how to do self-expression through original creation rather than passive consumption - and the results are still being visited daily by little French students).
When Aaron wasn’t raking in the big dollars down at the office we were able to all go in search of fun, which was as easy as usual because of the fact that you rarely get a panoramic view from the road to know where you might like to go, even when out in the countryside.
A&I did find some fun to be had in the underground hospital – which was built by the Germans when they occupied the island during the second world war – Kimberley found it creepy (probably because Aaron and I kept abandoning her in order to make scary noises in the echoed environment).
I might have found the place a lot more scary if it wasn't so visually interesting - in my opinion, it was more photogenic than the Sistine chapel (and a whole lot less crowded).
The place was so easy to photograph that even Aaron managed to take a couple of good shots (see the two images below).
Somewhat unbelievably, the hospital - which took a big bunch of slaves years to dig out of rock - only housed patients for three months, because (in a rare and prolonged episode of imprecise German planning) no one had reckoned on the importance of sunlight and fresh air to the healing process (neither of which was available underground); The area was thereafter used to store arsenal.
A&K were super keen to take me to the antique roadshow (that just happened to be in town at the same time as I was).
I don’t how old they think I am? In the end they didn’t even manage to get me evaluated by an expert in old things; Which would have been a waste of time anyway - my mum has already told me that I am priceless! (My father, on the other hand, reckons he saw a slightly better version of me at a garage sale the other week but wasn’t willing to pay 10,000 Dong for something he already had (he only buys back up sets of golf clubs).)
Below, captured in picture form is the first moment my grand-daughter (Holly Rose Coutts) and I laid virtual eyes on one another via a skype session in the Cramptons living room; She looks pretty perfect to me - I don’t think she’ll be any trouble.
You know that you're in the best of company when you know you can help yourself to the last items in the fridge and get away with it; That's how I know the Cramptons are some of the best friends i've made thus far in life (even though Aaron didn't get up to take photos with me on my last morning in town (in his defence he had dropped his camera in the ocean just a few days before and it hadn't quite come right yet).
An Aside:
Having travelled through a number of different of countries now (and returned to the commonwealth) I have come to appreciate the following things about the countries I have lived in thus far in life:
and to be disappointed by:
Guernsey is a little collection of islands off the coast of France (part of the Channel Islands) and has been home to a couple of my favourite peeps for a couple of years now.
I was friends with Aaron and Kimberley before they were friendly – and then over-friendly – with each other. (More recently, I MC’d their wedding and, in their second year of marriage, we all lived together in the George street flat (a move I made to drastically reduce the chance of having yet another flatmate leave me in order to marry the love of his life); So visiting the Cramptons on the far side of the globe felt like returning home.
I have to say that we live together well and we eat even better (when my name is no where to be found on the cooking roster).
Guernsey is a tax haven and therefore an place for people with money; As such, there are always a heap of boats that sit in the harbour all-day-every-day while their owners make (more) money elsewhere.
Aaron was the only one of us silly enough to be employed at the time of my visit, which meant that Kimberley & I had to make our own fun during the working hours.
We missed Aaron so much one day that we found ourselves making the highly convincing life sized substitute visible in the photo above (he’s the one on the right).
K&I developed a daily rhythm of enjoying a lengthy sleep in; spending what was left of the morning at home (mostly talking about how long it was until Aaron was going to be home for lunch); having lunch with Aaron (often an anti-climatic experience); and going on little afternoon adventures to explore the near corners of the small island; We saw lots of little things on the little island, like:
a little lighthouse;
a little church ...
... made of little bits of broken crockery;
and a little beach.
I was keen to start learning some basic Spanish (in preparation for later travel destinations) – Kimberley was keen to be my study buddy (or rather amiga).
K&I also took the opportunity to visit the house that Victor Hugo (best known for authoring Les Miserables) redesigned and lived in while exiled from France.
The house was a case of theatre-meets-ideology-meets-architecture (in other words, it was 'super-quirky-cool') with new surprises behind every door and wall.
I’ve not been in a house that did a better job of representing it's creators mind in physical space. (It really shames those of us who think we're expressing ourselves by making selections from the latest ikea catalogue - Victor Hugo knew how to do self-expression through original creation rather than passive consumption - and the results are still being visited daily by little French students).
When Aaron wasn’t raking in the big dollars down at the office we were able to all go in search of fun, which was as easy as usual because of the fact that you rarely get a panoramic view from the road to know where you might like to go, even when out in the countryside.
A&I did find some fun to be had in the underground hospital – which was built by the Germans when they occupied the island during the second world war – Kimberley found it creepy (probably because Aaron and I kept abandoning her in order to make scary noises in the echoed environment).
I might have found the place a lot more scary if it wasn't so visually interesting - in my opinion, it was more photogenic than the Sistine chapel (and a whole lot less crowded).
The place was so easy to photograph that even Aaron managed to take a couple of good shots (see the two images below).
Somewhat unbelievably, the hospital - which took a big bunch of slaves years to dig out of rock - only housed patients for three months, because (in a rare and prolonged episode of imprecise German planning) no one had reckoned on the importance of sunlight and fresh air to the healing process (neither of which was available underground); The area was thereafter used to store arsenal.
A&K were super keen to take me to the antique roadshow (that just happened to be in town at the same time as I was).
I don’t how old they think I am? In the end they didn’t even manage to get me evaluated by an expert in old things; Which would have been a waste of time anyway - my mum has already told me that I am priceless! (My father, on the other hand, reckons he saw a slightly better version of me at a garage sale the other week but wasn’t willing to pay 10,000 Dong for something he already had (he only buys back up sets of golf clubs).)
Below, captured in picture form is the first moment my grand-daughter (Holly Rose Coutts) and I laid virtual eyes on one another via a skype session in the Cramptons living room; She looks pretty perfect to me - I don’t think she’ll be any trouble.
You know that you're in the best of company when you know you can help yourself to the last items in the fridge and get away with it; That's how I know the Cramptons are some of the best friends i've made thus far in life (even though Aaron didn't get up to take photos with me on my last morning in town (in his defence he had dropped his camera in the ocean just a few days before and it hadn't quite come right yet).
An Aside:
Having travelled through a number of different of countries now (and returned to the commonwealth) I have come to appreciate the following things about the countries I have lived in thus far in life:
1) freedom of speech;
2) freely available toilets and drinking water;
3) shower curtains.
and to be disappointed by:
1) mono-lingual cultures (i feel like such a dummy not being able to speak any languages other than English and really wish there were more motivating factors at home to remedied my daftness).
You are indeed priceless my beautiful son. Sounds like a fab time in Guernsey.
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