Saturday May 5th - "What a long strange trip is has been"

Nothing like waking up in a super comfy bed to a bowl of shreddies. We got up and out and on our way to London to meet San Sebastian Sam at a pub near his office/bank/wherever he is claiming to work today. We love the English way of pints at the pub during a break from the office. That's a work environment we could get used to...maybe we need to expand the Australian job hunt to the UK as well. Epic news, we were early! Sam arrived and we cheersed our Doonbar's to adventures, present and future. (Jessie Foley if you are reading this prepare to be weirded out...) Sam turned to Jenny and declared that he worked with a girl she went to school with when she lived in the UK, Shona (thanks Mark Zuckerburg for the mutual friends facebook feature). Jenny hadn't seen Shona since she was 11 years old so when she turned up at the pub it was one crazy coincidental reunion! The 4 of us briefly caught up until the duties of this real world we have heard about called Sam and Shona away. We were left to wander Soho and window shop before heading back to Kingston on a train ride that suited us both for a little snooze. We explored Kingston shopping area, getting lost even though we should know our way around these parts like champs by now. In a sneaky deal with Tim and Shirley we had swapped babysitting Jen's cousin Loius in exchange for a free ride to the airport before the crack of dawn. Babysitting consisted of a little kid food cooking (Jen's specialty) and a coreographed dance routine - video will be making it's way to the blog sometime soon. Cherades rounded out our super babysitting evening before bed for Louis, and chores for Jenny and Kelly.

For some reason this was a moment that it both really hit us...We were going home...not home the way we refer to whatever hostel we are staying in that night, or even home the way we walked about our temporary residence in Costa Rica. Home sounded strange, scary, unfamiliar, overhwelming as well as exciting, relaxing, cleansing and routine. We have a LOT of packing to do, thanks a lot over packing prior selves! In retrospect we feel like this experience has flown by, and could easily have been a long and detailed dream. They say home is where the heart is but we think our hearts are with backpacking, at least for now.