Travel is the movement of people or stuff between geographical
locations. The term travel is from
the French travail. To avoid concerned
calls from international readers, I’d like to make clear that a person doing the
travel bit is spelled traveler in
the USA, but traveller in the UK -
now you can decide what side you are on. Just another useless tidbit…
There
are many reasons why we travel. It can be for relaxation, business, discovery,
exploring, experience other people, places and cultures. My first travel
experience was going from Copenhagen to visit my Grandfather in Odense
(Denmark). It consisted of a trip on a train, a ferry-boat ride (with the train
rolling on board) and a few nights stay at the Mission Hotel. Though my Mother
has dementia, she still tells me (again and again), how I, as a little boy, was
very fascinated by the “different” accent of Danish the staff was speaking,
also known as Fynsk, from the name
of the island Odense is on.
My
next travel experience was biking for four hours with 40 other soccer-players
and most of my worldly goods strapped to the frame. We were off to 14 days of
soccer-summer camp – two weeks apart from my Mother; at 10, a rather traumatic
experience. But my Dear Mother managed to send 3-4 “goodie-packages”, while I
was in camp, consisting of candy and other comfy-foods – plus a lot of Motherly
love. I think she missed me as much as I missed her.
As
I got older, travel started to include car-trips to Paris, South of France,
Germany, Sweden, Norway, Spain, Switzerland, Holland, Austria, England and of
course Denmark, etc. Then plane-rides were added, as my time on business-trips
began. But the leisure, non-business related travels, never stopped.
I
remember my first 2 week cheap charter trip to southern Spain and way to much
Sangria that first night. Obviously I didn’t know how potent that stuff was;
never touched it since. On a positive note, I did find that YES they have
toilet bowls in Spain…as I spent half a night with my head in one of them. Not
the best way to recall an otherwise great trip, huh? Sorry…
I
have never dreaded any trips, besides the few that involved overnights on
camping grounds; funny story for some other time. Even difficult business trips
where “results” were expected and therefore filled with anxieties and high stress,
never bothered me enough not to enjoy going geographically from A to B. A trip
was a trip and is still a trip; and I like tripping any way I can (the legal
kind, of course).
Any
size of travel for me, short or long distances, short or long time-wise, is as
exciting. Part of the simple pleasure is to get out of my everyday schedule. Don’t
get me wrong, I like my daily routine, being very organized and pleasant. But
as anything, no matter how pleasant, it becomes a drag at certain points, and a
trip to anywhere can refresh and reboot everything, which is one of the reasons
I’m looking forward to return home, from the moment I take off to travel.
That
I look forward to return home NEVER interferes with the joy of traveling; it
simply makes it so much better – really. And YES I miss my wife a lot when we
are not traveling together, but I try not to dwell on it too much.
Though
I always enjoy new scenery, experiences, smells, sounds and views, it is the
connection with fellow travelers and most certainly with the natives of the
places, cities and countries I visit, that is the most exciting. Though I am a
shy person (read earlier post), but have learned to control it, I pretty much
talk to anybody I meet on my way – yes, even in elevators. To me, that part is
so important in the overall experience of traveling.
At
the moment I’m actually “on a trip”. My wife and I are traveling with good
friends to Miami (Florida), then further south and a few days in Key West. So
far we have had a blast and expected nothing else. A few technical annoyances
have been laughed off, fixed, and then we moved on - no big deal.
Of
the many people I have connected with so far, besides some Florida natives: A
delightful German woman who is on vacation with a friend of hers and off on a
Caribbean cruise in a few days. We chatted away on the bus to and from a tour
of the Everglades. She charmingly ended every statement (in very nice English),
with a German JA? which we all know
is like YES? It wasn’t that we
exchanged personal information, told about our lives, but it was all about
observations of things and people around us that very moment. So we laughed a
lot, this Danish dude, this German dudette, on a little bus in Florida (USA).
When the bus trip was over as we returned to Miami, she said bye and I waved auf wiedersehen, which means: see you again – which is never going
to happen, of course.
I
also met two fun young women from New York. They were also German but are
living in the USA. Then there were three individuals from Australia – and some
laughter while watching some very bored alligators, being fed by hand by a
silly man (being in a cage with 6-7 of those weird animals, is rather silly).
Oh, and I met a Danish family that I chatted away with (in Danish, of course).
I
do have to admit that one thing I am a bit sad about is, that it’s very few of
the thousands of people I have “communicated” with over the many years of
travel, that I kept in contact with. It has always been “we are here now – and
that’s about it”. You have had the greatest time and conversation with the
seat-mate from San Francisco to Amsterdam and then we both get up, leave the
plane and barely acknowledge each other in baggage claim. I never figured out
why that is – could it be me? NAH...
But
of all the thousands I failed keeping in contact with, of all the great times
that vanished “after use”, I had one single casual travel-meeting that ended up
in becoming my best pal ever. That made the many other missed connections worth
it all. Meeting my pal Michael, on top of the Eiffel Tower back in Paris, 1974,
became the ultimate “casual” chat. (Read the post: MICHAEL – we’ll always have Paris).
I
hope you enjoy traveling as much as I do. Sure there are irritating moments on
any trip such as security checks where we have to remove most of our clothes,
paying $25 for one piece of check-in luggage. Drinks in the air at $8 and
seriously crappy stuff to eat, that makes hospital food taste like gourmet
dining – and they want money for it; how dare they?
But
besides a few negatives, traveling is fabulously fantastic, it really is. The
only thing I have missed these last 55 years away from home is of course my
Mother’s goodie-packages – oh well.
Until
next Monday: Bon Voyage (that’s also French…)
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