9am at Victoria Station in London and I'm tired, alone and cold. I want to go back to the hostel and sleep but I gave up my bed to an attractive French guy I found sleeping in the bar at 4:30 this morning. I had planned to travel out to Channings Wood prison in Devon and be away for the day but due to a series of unfortunate events and a dozen tube rides around London I ended up where I began - Victoria Station.
The last few days since I arrived in London, luck has been by my side. When I called Michael Stradling, the barrister who represented my father once he was extradited from Australia to the UK, he gave me the contact for the solicitor who dealt with the case, Mr Manzoor Shah. I wrote a rather heartfelt and put-on e-mail to Mr Shah stating who I was and he agreed to meet me the following day. After catching a train to Wembley I met with him and gave him my birth certificate and a bunch of photos of my father and me when I was a baby. I even managed to provide a photograph of my father, looking on as my mother holds me out to Santa Claus, wearing a name-tag that states clearly: 'Alfredo Sanchez'. Rather boldly, with my head held high, I told Mr Shah it was pretty indisputable that I was Alfredo 'Hugo Jose' Sanchez's daughter (I suppose the irony in that is it's not exactly a claim to be proud of). Mr Shah went against protocol and gave me the name of the prison my father is currently incarcerated. He even went as far as writing to my father and then calling the prison to see if we could book a visit. It had to all get sorted through 'social visits', who of course are fucking closed after 4pm on a Friday. The earliest I can contact them is Monday, and I fly out early Tuesday morning. They need at least 24 hours to book an appointment and my father's agreement. The Gods have been on my side every day up until this moment... and today is the first day my plan is turning to shit.
Needless to say, I've been sitting here at the station feeling pretty pitiful. Hundreds of people pass me by - some with curious glances, some with blank expressions - and it is in this sea of blurred-together faces I feel incredibly alone. Up until this point solidarity has been a comfortable shadow to hide behind as I focused all my energy on this trip giving me the closure I've so desperately craved since I was a child. I took the luck that crossed my path in finding the people who would lead me to my father as little signs from the universe. Whereas some people claim there is nothing more to life then being born, living and then returning to the earth as dust... I just can't accept that. I cannot accept that I am sitting here for nothing. And just as I begin to think that this whole trip has been nothing but a waste - the flights, the accommodation, the money spent travelling around London - a Mark Twain quote from a travel forum for my upcoming South America trip catches my eye:
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."
And with that quote being duly noted, my faith in the universe restored, I am going to get up and out of this self-pitying state and head back to the hostel, kick the attractive French guy out of my bed (or ask him to move over), get some much-needed rest and when I wake up, I'm going to come up with a new plan on how I'm going to find what I came here looking for.
