"There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign." - Robert Louis Stevenson
I need to get foreign. And quick. Not in my entire life have I felt the exhilaration, the sense of discovery, and being in touch with humanity and its history as I have when I travel. There's nothing else like it. It doesn't matter where you go, just giving yourself the chance to get out of town and experience a place not your own is completely freeing. I've been so caught up in the immediate in recent years, I've never had the opportunity to get away.
I miss that feeling of freedom, discovery, and fulfillment of spirit. Spirit is the word I guess I'm looking for. At the end of a trip, you've reconnected with a part of yourself that, in my opinion, you can't get anywhere else - a wider understanding of your place in the larger world.
"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness." - Mark Twain
I swear to everything good and holy, truer words have never been spoken. Travel, in the only way it could, made me feel smaller. But in a good way. It put me in my place. But in a good way. It made me try to understand people who were unlike me. It's not that I hadn't listened before, but travel made me ask the extra questions, invest in others' lives for a moment, and to know the world through their eyes.
There were so many stories that should have never happened on that trip to Western Europe those years ago. Some were frightening (if only because of the repercussions) yet all were absolutely exhilarating. I wouldn't trade those shenanigans for anything. From getting lost in the back-streets of Venice, getting trapped in the Eiffel Tower after-hours, or even sneaking out late-night to the Hard Rock - London, this trip was an introduction to the freedom I would learn to have as an adult. What an introduction it was.
All this now sounds quite elementary and naive to us now, but back then I was preoccupied with the fact I (we) was on the OTHER SIDE OF THE PLANET. I was only a kid fresh off a wheat farm, and to be looking at the Mona Lisa, the Arc de Triomphe, and walking through Venice's Bridge of Sighs was like walking through a crash course of history and humility. Yes, it made you feel so small, but it also made you understand your place in history.
None of it would have been nearly as impactful without the people around me. Josh, Christie, Madonna, Nasue, and Jason. I will probably enjoy the concept of traveling on my own some day, but the level of camaraderie that comes with an organized group cannot be minimized. I may not see any of them anymore, but we'll always remember how we felt about each other for those two weeks.
It's an excuse, and I fully realize that fact. Life grabbed a hold of me in just the right place and never seemed to let go. I treasure the day I feel that kind of freedom again, to sit in St. Mark's Square in Venice, sipping a glass of wine, maybe feed a pigeon or two. All the while I'll be thinking, "I made it." I'm pure again.
"A journey is best measured in friends, rather than miles." - Tim Cahill
