My friend tells me that she loves the going-to and coming-home part of travel. I can't believe that anyone would love the actual travel of travel.
To me, it's the being there! It's definitely not the journey but the destination! Waking to the sound of different bird calls, walking on tiled sidewalks that jut up and down like a roller coaster; dogs that roam the streets like people; walking an old pier when an Aussie woman tells us the Americans built it during WWII because they had nothing else to do; finding a new boulangerie; curious and engaging people who live differently; flora and fauna of places that seem like different planets.
She loves the getting there so much that she and her family don't even reserve seats when it costs extra money to do so. Amazing. I wish I could the same, but I cannot. I've had one unpleasant experience of not choosing who I sat next to, and it instilled enough fear for the rest of my life.
It was as a teen on a train in Italy. We had the cheaper tickets and had to share space with whomever found a seat next to us. A man sat down next to me who had the smell of a man who hadn't bathed in a month. The train was so crowded that I couldn't find a better seat. I was stuck. I sat and cried quietly.
"Do you always get to sit with your family?" I ask this friend who doesn't reserve seats when it's extra money.
"98% of the time," she responds.
And then she relays a time when it did backfire. Her husband was seated next to a large, breast feeding woman, who carried onto the plane, a baby, a bag and two super loaded sauerkraut hot dogs. As my friend puts it, "Milk and hot dog shrapnel kept hitting my husband the entire flight."
I wanted to ask if her husband had to hold the baby, but I think she would have mentioned it if he had.
If I make it through the late-night flights, the long layovers, the short layovers when you have to run and unexpectedly spend the night in an unintended city, at least I'm guaranteed to have a wonderful adventure. It's not much to suffer considering what awaits.
For things do await.
Last night we enjoyed a delicious, home cooked meal in a restaurant, run by a lady. She cooks for the day, and when you happen to get there, the menu will include what hasn't been sold. An hour before closing, there were only two options: chicken curry and a mutton dish. I picked the carrots out of the curry and navigated my round the fat on the bone of mutton.
The other restaurant peril was its persistent cat. As we sat at our table with desk chairs covered with towels, the cat scratched my pants to annoy me enough to feed it. When the cook realized, she shooed the cat out the door. We watched the cat climb the screen door, climb over the transom, and slide through a minuscule space back into our presence.
So there is not only peril in getting to the destination, but peril in the destination.
I concede that travel isn't for everyone. And someday it may not be even for me. Until then...
Comments