When traveling there are usually adventures, some rewarding and some that are annoying verging on the ugly. I am of the belief that travel keeps a life in perspective and in technicolor. Without travel you have a life of monotony and lots of grayness except for an emergency or miracle or two. Yes, life tests you but if there is little testing of beliefs, testing of bravery, testing of what is trueness, that is a life unearned. Travel is better when leaving a safe place, and even a journey to a new town down the road can be a learning experience if one keeps their eyes open.
Of course, there are those who are afraid of having to negotiate with someone who does not speak their language, or who speaks it with a thick accent. There are those who do not like being at the corner of a street unable to read any of the signs and being watched by the locals who sit on their benches with blank emotion in their eyes. There are those who are put off by peculiar food smells and certainly repulsed by bizarre-looking foods. Screw your courage to the sticking place, my friend, because this is not an us and them situation.
I consider myself an introvert based on all the tests I have taken and the literature I have read. Having written this, I am also pretty outgoing on travel. I am addicted to answers and always asking questions from the locals and other strangers as I suck up all of the newness of where I am.
I even ask questions of the tourists, because they have their own funny stories. My ice-breaker is using photography. Those selfies usually lend themselves to an offer so that both parties can be in the photo or so the person can pose. Recently while in Amsterdam and walking through their city park, which most tourists miss, I came across a lovely young woman with a bouquet of flowers in her arms using her phone to take a photo of herself with a large chestnut tree in the background. A tree...a simple tree to frame her. Of course, I immediately offered to take her picture for her and used a larger framing that would truly lend perspective to her tiny body and the monstrous tree.
As we later talked, she asked if she could take a photo of my husband and me which we agreed. She explained she was from Turkey. She was traveling alone and had been traveling for 20 days. She was heading home the next day. She was a chemical engineer and had just graduated and was going to start a new job in her homeland. Now the cynics would remind me to check my purse and pockets when she left and other cynics would say she was something other than a chemical engineer and was just lying to impress or deceive us. But I knew she was real. Most people are real. You have to believe that the globe is full of honest, hard-working and generous people or why live?
Lovely words
ReplyDeleteSurprise a bit for picture of "husband and me." You look great even behind the camera.
I think the same thing is true about spending time in wilderness, not the guided trips with a crew there to make sure you see what they want, but where you are really there and can feel why it matters to keep which regions wild. We can't know all about anything by traveling and being there for a few hours, but we at least can get the flavor of that which is not like our daily living. There are a lot of Americans who don't know what it's like in our poorer regions, with people who don't speak the same as we do. I agree-- travel is good but we should never fool ourselves that we really know the wilderness or another region as we pass through. We just get a taste.
ReplyDeleteYou can infer a lot from even short-lived contacts with people and places. I think a lot about "brief encounters" these days.
ReplyDeleteLovely photo.
Travel is so worth it. You are right that most people, if you stop to get to know them a little, are real and generous and hard working.
ReplyDeleteThe overwhelming percentage of people I've met traveling are friendly and helpful.
ReplyDeleteI like so much
ReplyDeletereading about your travels.
Wish I was not so limited at this time.
Moving around locally is the best I can do
and still meet interesting people.
I love meeting locals and other tourists as you do. Some of our best travel experiences have been thus.
ReplyDeleteI may mot be as adventurous as you about foreign food or accents, but I do ;ove to travel and talk to people when I travel. People who work in shops and hotels are usually able to communicate and you really can learn from them. They also want to know about us.
ReplyDeleteI usually take people at their word unless I have a reason not to.
ReplyDeletelike Anvilcloud, I tend to take people at their word. We haven't traveled very much, our financial situation doesn't allow for much but I will engage locals in conversation.
ReplyDeleteWhat a lovely picture.
ReplyDeleteYes, I always take folks the way they present themselves. That leads to some wonderful and sometimes exciting encounters in som unexpected places. She looks lovely.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you. Travel is an education in more ways than one. I have travelled a fair bit in the past but now as we get older it is more stressful and I don't really know why. My husband finds it more difficult than me. So we are down to shorter trips now.I find the hosts of bed and breakfast accommodation are fun to talk to and learn about the area.
ReplyDeleteB and Bs are a wonderful experience.
DeletePeople are nice everywhere. I'm so glad most of us are wired right. But I need a travel planner and maybe an inheritance. My big trip this summer was to Maine for a wedding.
ReplyDeleteSome would say you are fortunate to be able to travel the world and experience it's many places and people.
ReplyDeleteAs for me there is much right here in America, my homeland, that I want to see and experience. There are many interesting people right in my own neighborhood, each with a story. The true backbone of this country lies within my reach.
I agree and as I wrote people just need to travel out of their cocoon of everyone they know and even go to another town or area that they have not explored. Many people, whether they have the finances to travel or not, are afraid to meet people who think and act differently than they do. When I had children we did a lot of exploring throughout the U.S. mostly camping as that was the most cost effective. We saw many parks and many small towns and talked to lots of Americans.
DeleteAll of my travels have been in this hemisphere, and most on the U.S. mainland. but I would have enjoyed time around the rest of the world. I think it would be ideal to live for an extended time in other locales to really absorb the language, people and the culture. Unfortunately, my husband’s health in most of his retirement years precluded our even traveling more in the U. S. as we had planned, so glad we traveled some on our vacations those years earlier. Also, glad I had a taste of foreign travel when I was young and single.
ReplyDeleteAwesome n timely post! Most are good, but what happens to get some so bad?
ReplyDeleteLooks like a good trip! Safe home
The answers to travel questions are the highlights of most trips!
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