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Travel at 40: Interlude
Jun. 26th, 2014 09:22 pmSo I've gone and talked about six places I would love to visit for my 40th birthday, expounding upon their virtues, what interests me and what doesn't. It's surprisingly difficult to write about because there's so much that I want to see and do. Even when I make an effort to restrict my options, I find that I'm going too big and planning too grandly for the brief amount of time I'll have for the trip.
It's also true that I would be happy going just about anywhere. Whenever I look into a country, I find myself distracted by the neighbors, or advice about a train that swiftly takes travelers to neighboring countries and cities. It's particularly difficult to balance the desire to see as many new countries as I can and experience different parts of some of the countries I've already seen. After all, I've only seen a small part of both Austria and Germany in a totally different season. There's still so much to see...yet how do I choose a place I've already visited, even if only briefly, when there are so many others I've not seen or experienced at all?
Another issue that is never far from my mind is the language. I've been working, very slowly, on learning a little bit of German for the last couple of years. I've not put nearly as much time into it as I'd like because it's very time consuming and also incredibly hard. There are times when I feel such despair at ever making solid progress beyond the basics I've already learned that I have to take a break.
And German is only used in one area of Europe. There's also French, Dutch, Czech, Slovakian, Spanish, Turkish and Greek to contend with. I know a handful of words in French, most of which I always forget whenever I'm with a French-speaking person. I've forgotten most of what little Spanish I used to have, and the others are pretty much indistinguishable for me. I'm not afraid of going to places where I don't speak the language and I do make a solid effort to at least get the bare minimum whenever I visit a particular place but it's one of the greatest stresses and frustrations. Particularly so because I desperately want to be able to learn the languages.
I've always said that if I could have any one super power I'd choose teleportation. If I could have any one psychic power it'd be psychometry (divining information and the history about an object by touching it). If I could have any one typical modern human ability, it'd be polyglotism. I love language and I love listening to other languages, learning what I can of them. I envy people who can learn them easily and if there's one regret I have about the way I was raised it's that my parents didn't expose me to language all that much. I can't really blame them...I had a hard enough time learning English with my hearing disability. And my mom did let me take a Spanish class when I was ten, even though I forgot it all pretty rapidly without someone to practice with.
So even though I've been to the UK so many times it's kind of ridiculous, a part of me wants to include a part of it in my trip somehow just so I can relax a little. I'm not going to do it (though Northern Ireland is calling, as is a train trip through England) but the temptation is definitely there.
Despite those things, however, I love having an excuse to pour over google maps, read wikis and travel blogs and all the other ways I have of getting insight into a foreign place. There's so much to discover and it almost eases my ache to travel just to read about these places. It's fascinating to get little glimpses into the completely different lives people are living. The history, the geography, the cultures...all these things that make travel so wonderful are available to explore from my living room. That it makes me want to travel to those places even more is undeniable but I still find joy in the process of learning about them.
It's also true that I would be happy going just about anywhere. Whenever I look into a country, I find myself distracted by the neighbors, or advice about a train that swiftly takes travelers to neighboring countries and cities. It's particularly difficult to balance the desire to see as many new countries as I can and experience different parts of some of the countries I've already seen. After all, I've only seen a small part of both Austria and Germany in a totally different season. There's still so much to see...yet how do I choose a place I've already visited, even if only briefly, when there are so many others I've not seen or experienced at all?
Another issue that is never far from my mind is the language. I've been working, very slowly, on learning a little bit of German for the last couple of years. I've not put nearly as much time into it as I'd like because it's very time consuming and also incredibly hard. There are times when I feel such despair at ever making solid progress beyond the basics I've already learned that I have to take a break.
And German is only used in one area of Europe. There's also French, Dutch, Czech, Slovakian, Spanish, Turkish and Greek to contend with. I know a handful of words in French, most of which I always forget whenever I'm with a French-speaking person. I've forgotten most of what little Spanish I used to have, and the others are pretty much indistinguishable for me. I'm not afraid of going to places where I don't speak the language and I do make a solid effort to at least get the bare minimum whenever I visit a particular place but it's one of the greatest stresses and frustrations. Particularly so because I desperately want to be able to learn the languages.
I've always said that if I could have any one super power I'd choose teleportation. If I could have any one psychic power it'd be psychometry (divining information and the history about an object by touching it). If I could have any one typical modern human ability, it'd be polyglotism. I love language and I love listening to other languages, learning what I can of them. I envy people who can learn them easily and if there's one regret I have about the way I was raised it's that my parents didn't expose me to language all that much. I can't really blame them...I had a hard enough time learning English with my hearing disability. And my mom did let me take a Spanish class when I was ten, even though I forgot it all pretty rapidly without someone to practice with.
So even though I've been to the UK so many times it's kind of ridiculous, a part of me wants to include a part of it in my trip somehow just so I can relax a little. I'm not going to do it (though Northern Ireland is calling, as is a train trip through England) but the temptation is definitely there.
Despite those things, however, I love having an excuse to pour over google maps, read wikis and travel blogs and all the other ways I have of getting insight into a foreign place. There's so much to discover and it almost eases my ache to travel just to read about these places. It's fascinating to get little glimpses into the completely different lives people are living. The history, the geography, the cultures...all these things that make travel so wonderful are available to explore from my living room. That it makes me want to travel to those places even more is undeniable but I still find joy in the process of learning about them.
