From one place to another
2002 01 22
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I love to travel, I always have. It's not simply the prospect of going somewhere new that I enjoy, it's also the process of going.
I like climbing aboard a train, and that feeling which is comfort and excitement mixed, as you find your seat and settle in.
I love wandering around airports and train stations, looking at the shops of overpriced souvenirs, and listening to voices speaking in dozens of languages I'll never understand.
When I go somewhere I like to be as immersive as I can, in my neophytian manner. I like to eat the local foods, go where the locals go, and see more of a place than what's contained inside the covers of a travel guide.
In Montreal eating a la locale meant poutine and smoked meat (my friend Max and I vowed we wouldn't be boring and eat at places with normal food we recognised). In England it meant mushy peas and bangers and mash (and there's nothing better, by golly, than real Cumberland sausage with your mash). In Hungary it meant foods I can't remember how to spell (There are, or were, three different types of restaurants in Hungary. They were classed first, second, and third. The first class ones were the expensive type where they tried to be fancy. The third class ones were very cafeteria like, and the food there is much more like the food Hungarian natives prepare at home. These are the restaurants I liked best). In France it was the breads baked only in certain regions; breads you can find nowhere else in the country, much less anywhere else in the world. Yes, I did eat frog legs. Yes they were edible. Yes they had too much garlic on them. Yes there is such an animal as too much garlic. Yes I am surprised by that too.
All I experienced of Germany was the airport in Frankfurt where everything was notably very green, the lounging seats for waiting travelers were as comfortable as beds, and a can of Coke cost me almost $3 CAD.
I don't believe in sticking only to what you know when you go somewhere you've never been before. What's the point of leaving your own home, if you aren't going to experience something as fully and deeply as you can? What's the point of leaving home if you expect everything to be just as you see it at home?
I think travel is better for people than simple pleasure or needed relaxation. I don't think anyone can understand their own home fully, until they've spent some time honestly living outside of it. You have to learn to see where you live through the eyes of other people. It's good for the soul.