Travel

The first place I ever traveled to was Missouri to visit my Aunt Carol. I was 13-ish. I traveled with my sister Emily, who was annoyingly 9 at the time, and my dad. I remember I started my period that week (TMI I know) and I didn’t have any “supplies” and I made my dad go into a grocery store while I waited in the car to go get some. Thanks dad!

Missouri was hot. I knew it would be when I was in the airplane and I looked down and each house had its own pool. Every single house had one. And it looked all dry and brown on the ground.

We visited a museum dedicated to Winston Churchill. I didn’t know who he was at the time, only that he was involved in old military related things and boring black and white photograph stills and some giant chunk of graffiti’d wall outside the museum. It was boring.

My aunt’s house wasn’t much better. It was humid and hot. We visited the Ozarks at one point, which was pretty cool, but I don’t remember much about them. Yup…

Then on the airplane ride back home my sister decided to be a jerk and take my window seat from me. She had been afraid to sit their on the flight out to Missouri because she didn’t like heights. I loved the window seat though. Then on the way back she turned snot faced punk on me and kept wining that it was her turn to see out the window. Jerk…

I didn’t travel much after that except for my trips down to San Jose to see my dad. Living out in the country of Oakdale I began to realize how seldom people in town got out of town. So my trips to San Jose –a.k.a. “the city”- were quite impressive to some people.

My second official trip was Spring Break ’06 my senior year of high school. I went to Cancun, Mexico with my friend Maggie, Emily, my mom, and my dad. My sister wanted to go but my mom wouldn’t let her because she said she was “too young”.

Mexico was fun. Saw some pyramids, which is pretty freaky when you think about. Native tribes of South America with no way of communicating with or seeing what the Egyptians were up to came up with the same temple plan, god-structured belief system, and cultural habits. Also saw some descendants of natives reduced to selling trinkets and souvenirs to passing tourists.

The weather was humid and warm. We were staying by the beach, eating in a really really nice hotel, traveling on bus tours, attempting to snorkel, watching Charlie Chaplin with Spanish subtitles… it was fun. And tiring. Then I came back home and felt almost a little bit of culture shock. I wouldn’t say that I turned Mexican when I was on vacation, but the vibe that environment gave out lingered with me until I got home.

Then I had a graduation present from my dad and got to vacation anywhere in the world I wanted to go. I first thought Egypt… until I found out you couldn’t wear jeans there. Then I thought Ireland because I like potatoes and leprechauns. But after I looked at a book I got on Scottish castles I knew where I wanted to go. Edinburough, Inverness, and Glasgow. Edinburough was my favorite. Quiet town with no real traffic or crowds. Low-key Scottish zone. I past Loch Ness, but did not see the monster. I was tragically informed by the bus guide that there were not enough fish in the loch to sustain a creature of that size. Damn it…

I also bought some Charlie Chaplin DVDs for what I thought was 8 dollars but turned out to be $16 after you translated what was actually “pounds” into U.S. currency. Stupid Euros…

I also bought some metal mental puzzles which I love. I bought my mom a seed with her name on it that she could plant. It didn’t really grow well. I went on a “witch’s tour” through the catacombs of underground Glasgow. Anyone who complains about being poor should go down there and see what thousands of people who couldn’t buy houses lived like. They were bunched and huddled in dark spaces with no real food, bathrooms, or washing facilities. People had tin buckets they would use as a restroom and then when it got full they would throw the contents outside the window down into the street. Classy.

My last travel journey was 2 years ago when my grandmother paid for my dad’s family to go on a cruise with her throughout the Baltic.

Traveling is funny when you’re on vacation. It’s hell when you’re on business. It’s great when you’re with friends, crappy when you’re with relatives you don’t like. The hotels always suck –the sheets are never warm and always smell and feel strange and the water in the bathroom is never right. It feels clinical and unsanitary at the same time. It’s weird.

Exploring is always fun, guided tours are always boring, the photographs get forgotten, the memories are briefly appreciated. You have enough of an experience to appreciate the trip, but not enough to have a lasting impact on your life.

Environments impact and change people. If you are in a negative space for an extended period of time you will become a negative person. People are not necessarily the products of their environment, but they are deeply influence by them. To travel to any place for only a week and then say you’ve seen it is to blink your eyes and say you’ve seen am entire country. The people, the climate, the culture, the sounds, the tastes, the “vibes”, will seem alien until they become more routine to you. When they become routine, they will become more ingrained and a part of you. You will then reflect your environment.

Traveling and vacationing aren’t really things that appeal to me. I like freedom from obligation and the sense that I can go anywhere and do anything. Just because you travel doesn’t mean you’ve achieved that. It is a state of being that has nothing to do where you are physically and everything to do where you are mentally and spiritually. Tourist traps don’t appeal to me –they’ve been seen. It’s like setting a goal 5 million people have already achieved. If I’m going to travel it’s going to be for the desire to have a genuine connection with a location and a culture. I don’t want to visit a new place, I want to experience it. I don’t want to go just because others deem it flashy or popular to go. If you’re going to travel –do so with a real goal in mind.