peel off the layers
speaking of europe: i do know that i have not written up anything more about our European Vacation, and i admit that now a lot of the details are fuzzy, and maybe i won’t. in summary: Amsterdam is a dream + i <3 bicycle culture, Berlin has taken proper advantage of the years since WWII and The Wall and become a fantastic city full of art and culture and music and i hear the only real complaint is re: WINTER, Prague is a fairytale, IMHO Vienna took the years since WWII/Communism and became overzealously Westernized and boring and i suggest maybe going to the mountains of Austria instead, Buda-Pest is funky and cool with lots of great bars and nightlife; the economy (and therefore local disposition) is slightly depressed, but i could imagine living there. what more can i say? we went to a lot of insanely beautiful churches (in two of which i was moved to light prayer candles) and walked as far as our legs would take us (i think we walked for almost 10 straight hours on my birthday in prague. oh yeah, i celebrated my 33rd birthday in prague!) and made sure to get up into the highest point possible in each city. we ate at approx 60-90 cafes/restaurants across europe and only in Vienna was ordering a problem wrt language barriers. we went to at least 20 bars and 7 music venues. we rode all kinds of trains and never for a minute did we wish we had a car.
i will go back again, maybe to revisit some of these places, but more for all the places we didn’t go, but before then i would like to visit South America and Africa (gotta get to the southern hemisphere to complete!). in my wanderlust dreams for 2010 there is: Puerto Rico (w/RBM), Cuba (with jayeesha), Chile/Peru/Argentina (helen!), as well as trips to see the family in Michigan, weddings here and there, and also the pilgrimages to Las Vegas and Burning Man. can i fit all this in while keeping a job? i think maybe.
my mom posted something to Facebook about my travels and one of her friends (possibly a relative) commented something to the effect of “i don’t understand this crazy wanderlust kids these days have”. i also recently had a conversation with another friend about how “entitled” many of us feel about travel, and all i can say is that for me, it’s not about not being happy at home or wanting to flaunt my American wealth in some poorer country by taking advantage of the exchange rates and renting a yacht. i think in this the 21st century, where the things you eat and clothes you wear often come from the other side of the planet, it is not just fickle entitlement to want to travel; it is super important for the affluent who consume most of the world’s resources to see how the rest of the world is living and where their things are coming from. for the amount of money most affluent Americans spend on unnecessary consumer goods, they could travel to a different place at least once a year, and that’s a trade i’m happy to make.
Lust for comfort suffocates the soul
Relentless restlessness liberates me
I feel at home whenever the unknown surrounds me
I receive its embrace aboard my floating house
Wanderlust! relentlessly craving
Wanderlust! peel off the layers
Until we get to the core
One Response to “peel off the layers”
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Hear hear. The world is a wonderful place, so why shouldn’t we see it all? I also think that we are our nation’s best ambassadors. I’d rather travel and have people get an impression of what Americans can be like instead of letting our foreign policy create stereotypes for us.
Keep traveling and enjoying yourself.